The number of cotton farmers buying new tractors has increased by 21 per cent in the 2015/16 financial year, compared to the year before.
The interesting trend was revealed to hundreds of delegates during the Tractor & Machinery Association Australia (TMA) annual conference that was held in Melbourne this week.
Australia’s rice farmers saw the next biggest increase with 14 per cent, followed by grain and canola farmers at 7 per cent.
Wool, hay and dairy farmers are investing more too, up 5 per cent each — while the investment in new tractors made by fruit, grape, vegetable and sugar growers has increased by less than 3 per cent.
TMA executive director Richard Lewis says this is the first time that new tractor sales trends have been analysed and broken down in this way, providing a snapshot of which sector contributes the most.
“Cotton growers are large users of machinery,” Lewis says.”Some of these sectors are not traditionally large user of machinery, but they are still worth looking at to provide an overall picture.
“Five per cent growth is a pretty good result and that’s what we are seeing across most sectors.”
Lewis says TMA will try to provide this information on its website on a quarterly basis, which should become a useful market indicator for tractor dealers to refer to.
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