Decline in U.S. Sales of Ag Tractors & Combines in June 2024

Jul 18, 2024

U.S. sales of Ag tractors and combines in June 2024 fell below reported sales from the same month a year ago, according to new data from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).

June sales of 2-wheel-drive tractors dropped 16.3% compared to 2023, while 4-wheel-drive tractors fell 1.3% within the same timeframe. Combines sales declined as well, finishing the month 31% below June 2023.“June’s sales of Ag tractors and combines follow a May that also showed a slowdown in sales,” said AEM Senior Vice President Curt Blades. “This softness in the market follows a robust five years of sales. The challenges facing the subcompact tractor market illustrate why the passage of a strong farm bill is so needed to lift rural Americaand our farmers and growers.”

In Canada, sales of 4-wheel-drive tractors were a bright spot, growing 10.6% in June 2024 compared to the prior year. Canadian sales of combines increased year-to-date, finishing the month up 13.6%.

The Ag Tractor and Combine reports can be found on the AEM Market Share Statistics page. The U.S. report can be downloaded from this page, while the Canadian report is available for download here

Source : Farm Equipment

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators