A bumper year again for sales

IT IS estimated that the mar ket for agricultural equip ment in Australia is abou $3 billion and as the financia year draws to a close we can see it has indeed been a strong one for agricultural tractor sale Australia wide.

This continues the trend o the past couple of years, influ enced by several favourable factors, including: Healthy growing conditions

Rainfall levels across Australia have, for the better part, ena bled farmers to operate with reasonable confidence that ha encouraged ongoing invest ment in their equipment. While some of Australia ha been affected by drought, the positive impact of the past few years, where farmers were able to invest in improved farming techniques, combined with their ongoing resilience, ha seen momentum maintained. Productivity improvements

Each new tractor is delivering productivity improvement that farmers are capitalising on There is still room to grow in this space because the uptake of technology advancements i still considered to be below where it could be.

Attractive deals: Australia ha been a bright spot for many tractor makers in what has gen erally been a depressed period for the industry globally. This has led to a ready supply of new products with competi tive finance terms supported by historically low interest rates. With improvements in the major international market now occurring, it is unclea how long these favourable conditions will last as supply starts to tighten.

So 2017-18 has been a grea year for tractor sales. There are some headwinds but the im portance of agriculture to the Australian economy and the generally favourable environ ment suggests we should con tinue to prosper.

● Gary Northover is Tractor & Machinery Association o Australia executive director