A agricultural MACHINERY SALES trends watcher, Agfacts, recently revealed that over the past 13 years, the country’s farmers have been buying more powerful and newer tractors. I t said that in 1995, the average power output of tractors used in the country was 70kW. This year it’s just under 90 kW. “There was a sharp increase in average tractor power output immediately following the lifting of the protection for local engine manufacturers in 1994,” Agfacts’s recent newsletter said.
“This was reflected in a 5kW increase in the average power of used tractors between the first quarter of 1994 and the first quarter of 1995.” Agfacts added that the average power output figures for used tractors moved steadily upwards from 1994 in what appeared to be cycles. The average used tractor power output jumped from 1994’s 70kW, to 76kW in 1996, then dropped to 71kW in 1997 and jumped again to 80kW in 2001.
This cyclical trend continued to the present and looks likely to persist. “The explanation as to why this increase should be in the cyclical manner recorded is difficult to understand,” the newsletter admitted. For the same 13-year period since 1994, Agfacts recorded a decline in the average age of used tractors. From 1995 to 1997 it was roughly 13 years, but since 1998, the average age began steadily declining with relatively few increases in the interim. The average age of used tractors in 2008 is 9,5 years. Agfacts continued, “Most significant is that the steady decline in the average age of used tractors began from the second quarter of 2000.
The explanation for this is that the high new tractor sales of the 1980s began to be excluded from the ‘20-year tractor park’. This trend has continued for eight years now and is expected to continue at least for the short term as a result of the current higher sales of new tractors.” Agfacts also revealed the year-on-year price changes for agricultural machinery for the months of July and August 2008 respectively. The sales trend for tractor sales across these two months remained level at 21,4%.
However, the sales trend for combine harvesters in the same time period increased from 12,6% to 14,6%. For hay and forage equipment this figure increased from 21,8% to 24,4% and for implements, it increased from 8,6% in July 2008 to 10,4% in August 2008. “The sharp devaluation of the rand value at the beginning of 2008 caused prices to rise sharply over the past six months. With the current strength of the rand, the trend in price increases should flatten out and hopefully start to decline. This will obviously be dependent on the ongoing value of the rand,” the Agfacts newsletter concluded. – Lloyd Phillips
