Brazil takes centre stage in battle of tractor giants

Over the past yr or so, agriculture in Brazil has been making the headlines for causes apart from the speed at which the Amazon basin is being cleared for crops.

Equipment producers have gotten ever extra alert to the concept that the nation represents an enormous marketplace for the newest tools and have been busy selling their merchandise to farmers there.

It’s not onerous to see why they’re changing into so enthusiastic in regards to the potential of development in Brazil, it has round 5 million ‘farming operations’ working 867 million acres of cultivated floor.

This can be a sizeable space, but solely 45,000 new tractors had been offered within the nation in 2021, one for each 19,000ac of farmland, whereas in Eire there was one new tractor offered for each 5,700ac in 2022.

There’s a a lot better range of farming in Brazil with solely 7% of the land dedicated to row crops. Sugarcane is the most important crop, whereas it’s estimated that 182 million acres of cereals had been sown this yr.

A 2018 census concluded that fifty% of farms had been lower than 25ac which might counsel that sub-50hp tractors are the massive sellers, but 44% of the tractors offered are are within the 50-100hp bracket, whereas at the very least one other 20% are over 150hp.

Improve yield, not space

Given the strain that’s being dropped at bear on the Brazilian authorities to curb the clearing of rainforest, there’s the necessity to improve yields on the bottom already cultivated, and that is the place the better use of equipment and the introduction of precision farming has a task to play.

New Holland is one firm that’s promoting the concept of of digital aids as being a manner ahead and has highlighted its presence on the current Agrishow in Brazil, billed as the most important agricultural present in South America.

On the present, it placed on a full show of the form of expertise that we’re seeing deployed right here in Europe, together with telemetry and yield sensing and the T6 compressed pure fuel (CNG) tractor.

The chance was additionally taken to introduce a brand new tractor, the T4.75S which at 75hp, sits proper in the course of the most well-liked energy bracket.

Agco in Brazil

It’s not simply New Holland which is eager to do extra enterprise within the nation. Each John Deere and Fendt have recognized South America as a development market which final yr loved a 56% improve in gross sales over 2021, with Brazil being significantly lively.

In September, Fendt’s largest agent within the nation, the Vamos Group invested $20 million in new services at St. Pedro in Brazil’s mid-west. With a complete space of fifty,000ft², the brand new buildings are completely dedicated to the sale and distribution of Fendt merchandise.

Valtra, alternatively, might be slightly bemused by all this sudden exercise. As Valmet, it had constructed Brazil’s first tractor manufacturing unit again in 1960 and has been a mainstay of the market ever since.