WHILE registrations of agricultural tractors of more than 50hp were slightly down for the whole of 2016, sales have been looking more encouraging in the first quarter of 2017.
Last year, sales reached 10,602 units – a decrease of 2.2% from 2015. Problems with Basic Farm, Payments – especially in Scotland – and political uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote were the main reasons for a lack of confidence in spending.
But the hangover seems to have gone from December, which showed that tractor sales fell by 13.4% to just 515 units across the UK in that month alone.
Although this was the lowest annual unit total for more than a decade, the second half had seen a substantial improvement following a first half that recorded a year-on-year drop of 9.8%.
And, the average size of unit continued to increase, with a 0.8% rise, making a tractor of 158.3hp ‘average’.
This year has got off to a better start with no weather issues to add cost to hard-pressed farming units.
Registrations of agricultural tractors in the UK were up 4.6% year-on-year in the month of April at 1072 units. This brings the year to date total to 4096, an increase of 20.2% on 2016.
The post-Brexit fall in the value of sterling has also provided an unexpected filip for British machinery manufacturers.
UK exports of ag-machinery were up 3% in 2016 to £1.76bn, based on AEA analysis of data from HMRC.
Within this, exports of agricultural equipment slipped marginally to £1.53bn, largely due to a sharp fall in exports of tractor engines – excluding them, meant that total exports were actually up 7%.
Outdoor power products rose by nearly a third to £229m, largely due to increased shipments of non-agricultural mowers.
So, despite the Brexit vote, the EU remains our key trading partner taking 62% of all exports – up from 60% in 2015.
Other European destinations accounted for a further 7%, while North America’s share of exports declined to 17%.
A table of the top 10 individual country markets shows that Germany overtook the US to become the leading market for UK exports for the first time.
The US had been the leading market for seven of the previous eight years.
The stats show that German buyers bought Germany £40m more kit in 2016 than they did in 2015, at a total of £187m, which was a 13.3% increase.