South Africa’s tractor park has been rising steadily in measurement and energy over the previous 20 years, reflecting the necessity for larger effectivity, significantly in areas with quick planting home windows.
AGFACTS Newsbrief estimated the whole tractive energy within the South African tractor park at 8,72 million kW in 2024. That is 6% greater than in 2023 (8,21 million kW), 32% greater than a decade in the past (6,48 million kW), and almost double the 4,37 million kW of 2004.
The tractive energy of tractors youthful than ten years outdated is at the moment 5,33 million kW, up 13% on the 4,71 million kW of 10 years in the past, and virtually 86% up on the two,87 million kW of 20 years in the past.
The proportion of the general tractive energy youthful than 10 years outdated, nonetheless, has declined from 66% 20 years in the past to 61%, whereas the five-year transferring common energy of tractors within the park has elevated from 76 kW 20 years in the past to 79,5 kW 10 years in the past and 83,3 kW at the moment.
AGFACTS in January gave a breakdown of the variety of models within the tractor park. The present tractor park consists of 108 901 models, which is sort of 6% greater than the 102 874 models of 2023, 31% up on the 83 098 models of 2014 and 73% greater than the 62 983 models in 2004.
The proportion of tractors within the park youthful than 10 years outdated was a minimal of 36% 31 years in the past however now stands at simply over 60% of the general park. This determine is down on the determine of 72% in 2015.
The proportion of tractors lower than 5 years outdated amounted to about 35% in 2024, which is considerably decrease than the 42% of 2014 and 43% of 2012.
Primarily based on this knowledge, Dr Jim Rankin, CEO of AGFACTS, informed Farmer’s Weekly that roughly 5 000 to six 000 tractor models can be wanted to be bought per yr to maintain the scale and energy of the tractor park.
Extra highly effective tractors
Lucas Groenewald, gross sales supervisor at John Deere Southern Africa, ascribed the development in direction of extra highly effective tractors to varied elements.
He mentioned that tractors grew to become cheaper per kilowatt the extra highly effective they grew to become, as a result of it took simply as a lot effort to provide a small tractor as a extra highly effective one.
The selection of which tractor to purchase, nonetheless, nonetheless enormously is dependent upon what it will likely be used for and the scale of the land on which it will likely be used.
“Many of the tractors bought by John Deere in South Africa common round 75kW,” he mentioned.
Extra highly effective tractors are additionally in a position to cowl bigger areas than smaller tractors in in the future, which is very necessary in areas the place manufacturing is time delicate and doing the precise motion on the proper time has an immense impression on manufacturing volumes and high quality.
Groenewald identified that farmers solely had a time window of three weeks by which to plant summer season grains within the japanese elements of the nation.
Having one massive as an alternative of two smaller tractors can also be cheaper and simpler to handle than a number of smaller tractors. Many of the new bigger tractors additionally got here with new applied sciences that allowed the distant monitoring of those tractors.
“The brand new bigger tractors come out with monitoring units that enable producers and house owners to trace the efficiency of the tractors, alert house owners of issues and scheduled upkeep and determine issues remotely that may then be mounted earlier than inflicting critical injury,” he mentioned.
He added that this sort of know-how may also turn into accessible for smaller tractors over the following few years.
