05 November 2024, Bologna: The unfavorable trend in the agricultural and industrial sectors in the first six months of 2024 has seen a decrease in the sales of tractors on the international market, which reported an overall decline of 12% compared to the same period in 2023. No trend reversals are expected for the rest of the year. The decline is due to cyclical factors, not to a drop in the need for technologies, driven by a constantly developing agriculture. Reconciling productivity and sustainability is the priority objective.
The agricultural machinery sector is directly affected by the variables that influence both the industrial and agricultural economies. In the past year and in the current year, the performance of the industrial sector has been influenced by the high cost of raw materials and energy supplies – linked to geopolitical factors and the war in the Middle East – while the restrictive monetary policies implemented to contain inflation have reduced access to credit and slowed investments.
At the same time, the agricultural economy has not seen significant improvement in terms of production and profitability. The 2024-25 agricultural year should be in line with the previous cereal volumes (-0.05%), with increases in production in Australia (wheat), the USA (corn) and India (rice), but with a general decline in Europe (-7%) due to unfavorable weather conditions. In 2024, global meat production recorded a modest increase (+0.7%), driven by South America and Oceania which offset the declines in China, North America and Europe.
The situation that has characterized the performance of the agricultural and industrial sectors has influenced the global agricultural machinery market. The increasing cost of mechanical means – the scenario outlined by FederUnacoma this afternoon in Bologna, during the press conference to open EIMA International – combined with the difficulty of accessing credit and an unfavorable trend in the primary sector has in fact led to a reduction in investments for the purchase of new technologies.
Data from Agrievolution, the organization that brings together the manufacturers’ associations of the main countries, indicate a 12% drop in overall tractor sales in the first six months of the year compared to the first half of 2023. All the reference markets are losing ground. India, which had recorded an almost uninterrupted upward trend in recent years, fell by 10%, as did China, while the United States fell by 12%. Western Europe is also in the negative, with the two main national markets, that of France (-8%) and Germany (-1%), losing ground, albeit to different degrees. Significant drops were recorded in Canada (-16%), Japan (-28%), Russia (-32%) and Turkey (-20%).
The second part of 2024 should not see any significant trend reversals, so that by the end of the year an overall balance sheet is expected in the red, with a total of tractors sold worldwide not exceeding 2 million units. This would be the lowest level since 2016, since – as was explained during the conference – in the period 2017-2023 the number of tractors sold globally was on average 2.2 million units, with sales peaks in 2021 (2.5 million) and 2022 (2.4 million).
However, the contraction of the global market recorded last year and in the first half of this year is attributable more to cyclical factors than to a real decline in global demand. “From a medium and long-term perspective, the need for agricultural technologies for the primary sector is destined to grow, driven by constantly developing agriculture – explained the President of FederUnacoma, Mariateresa Maschio – and the increase in the global population, which is estimated at 10 billion people by 2050, will make it necessary to increase agricultural production by 50% compared to current levels”.
“The agricultural machinery sector – the president of FederUnacoma stressed – is thus facing a crucial challenge, not only in terms of increasing production yields, but also in terms of sustainability”. “The agricultural machinery sector must produce technologies that – concluded Mariateresa Maschio – adapt to the most diverse environmental and climatic contexts, and that support agriculture in solving problems related to the lack of water resources and the loss of soil fertility”.
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