Livestock producers are buying a lot of tractors these days, the result of high cattle and hog prices, while sales falter for the big tractors and self-propelled combines used by grain farmers, says AgWeb. It quotes officials from Case IH, Kubota and Deere as saying sales of small- and medium-horsepower were strong in 2014 and are expected to be active again this year. A Kubota executive tells AgWeb that dairy farmers are buying balers and haying equipment as well as tractors.
Sales of new tractors are forecast to fall by 5 percent worldwide this year, according to Agrievolution Alliance, following declines in sales last year in Europe, Brazil, Japan and Russia. “The upswing in the North American tractor market came to an end in 2014,” says a summary of the Agrievolution report. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers says four-wheel-drive tractors were down by 65 percent in January compared to a year earlier, while sales of small tractors were up 18 percent and medium-size tractors rose by 12 percent.