AEM officials: Farm equipment purchases in a slump | TSLN.com

News | Mar 6, 2025

DENVER – Farm equipment purchases are in a slump that could be hurt further by the tariffs that President Trump imposed this week on Mexico, Canada and China, Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) leaders said here at the Commodity Classic this week.Farm equipment sales are now in the low part of a cycle, Greg Petras, a member of the AEM board, said during a general session of the gathering of corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum farmers on Tuesday. Petras, who is president of Kuhn North America Inc., was also the first of the Commodity Classic leaders to say that the tariffs Trump has imposed will hurt the industry.At a news conference, Curt Blades Jr., a senior vice president of AEM, said that equipment spending rose after the pandemic but began to slow in the fourth quarter of 2023.During the pandemic, consumers – particularly suburban homeowners – bought a lot of low-horsepower equipment, but that has declined, Blades said.This year’s Commodity Classic featured a lot of “retrofit” equipment, which farmers can use to upgrade their machinery without buying large new equipment, Blades said. That equipment is “built in concert” with equipment manufacturers and fits within AEM’s view that farmers should have the “right to repair” equipment as long as it does not interfere with the operation of the machinery or intellectual property.Tractor sales have declined in the United States since 2023, but “the whole global market is soft for ag equipment,” Blades said. At present, there is too much inventory on the market.Blades showed a series of slides that concluded, “Main industry barometers point to sluggish demand, rising inventory level both forced businesses to slow down production and downsize their operational labor force and capital spending.”He added, “Net farm income predictions suggest another drop in equipment sales in 2025 before they recover in 2026.”A slide said, “Impact of tariffs and risk of trade war is ambiguous. But preliminary assessment point to possible negative impact on the Ag equipment sales.”But Kip Eideberg, AEM’s Washington-based senior vice president for government and industry relations, pointed out to reporters that the supply chain for production of farm equipment goes across borders and that tariffs will raise the cost of making equipment.There are “no positives on tariffs,” Eideberg said.

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