Here in North America, many producers have a favourite farm machinery brand and wouldn’t think of buying anything else. Often there may be some practical reasons behind that choice. Parts and service availability, proximity to a dealer or maintaining a relationship with a dealer can pay dividends. But those factors can sometimes result in producers knowing little about what’s out there from competing brands.
With all the complex systems integrated into modern ag equipment, regular advertising can’t adequately highlight the differences — or similarities — between competing models. That’s one reason for in-person farm shows. They allow interested producers to make at least a cursory comparison of several different machines in one day at one place.
But beyond that, we haven’t gone very far in publicly discussing performance differences in ag machines. Nor have we been giving awards for those machines that prove themselves outstanding, at least not since the Winnipeg Motor Trials (which were public tractor evaluations) that were held until the outbreak of World War I. In the automotive sector, that kind of widely talked-about evaluation happens every year, and the winners make it onto the front pages of automotive magazines.
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I’m talking about competitions such as the J.D. Power and Associates awards for a variety of vehicles in the car and light truck categories. And then there are the published reliability and quality ratings for vehicles by make and model.
They do it in Europe
Admittedly, it would be a bit more difficult and more expensive to seriously evaluate ag equipment in that way — but not impossible.
Over in Europe, awards competitions for ag equipment design and performance are going strong, and they’ve been a thing for quite a while. Each year, a few machines are picked by a competent judging panel of people from the ag media. They get together to operate the machines and rate those entered into competitions. One of the prominent events is the annual “Tractor of the Year” competition.
The tractors included in the judging aren’t just a few random choices picked from dealers’ lots. Only those tractors nominated by their manufacturer are eligible to compete. And each particular model can only be nominated once, so brands need to put their best efforts forward if they want to win bragging rights.
With the doors having closed on of some of prominent ag equipment shows in Europe for the 2022 season, namely SIMA in Paris and EIMA in Bologna, Italy (there was no Agritechnica this past year), the annual tractor awards season has wrapped up, with the winners already displaying their trophies and plaques on their office bookshelves and walls.
Some winners
AGCO’s brands fared well in the 2022 competitions, picking up awards at both SIMA and EIMA.
At SIMA, the Massey Ferguson 5S series tractors won “Farm Machine for 2023” in the under-120-horsepower category, while the Fendt 700 Vario tractors took home that prize in the 180- to 280-horsepower category. And AGCO’s new Valtra Q Series picked up the highly sought-after “Farm Machine 2023 Jury award” (formerly known as Machine of the Year). Valtra tractors are no longer sold in North America.
New Holland won a Bronze Innovation Award at SIMA in the Renewable Energy category. NH’s Methane tractor was a major factor in pulling in this prize. Its T6.180 Methane Power won the ”Sustainable” category in last year’s “Tractor of the Year” competition too. And the T6 Methane Power’s pre-production prototype won the category in 2020. That was the first time a sustainability category was included in the TOTY judging. The Methane tractor was one of three prototypes to be entered that year, which was also the first time prototypes were allowed in the competition.
Tractor of the Year might be the most sought-after prize in all the European ag equipment competitions. The winners were revealed at a ceremony held during the EIMA show. After all of the sub-category winners were announced, the new Fendt Gen7 728 Vario was awarded the most prestigious prize — overall winner of Tractor of the Year.
“SIMA is the first international trade show where we present the new Fendt 700 Vario Gen7 to the public,” said a delighted Roland Schmidt, vice-president Fendt marketing. “In addition, we already have numerous orders from our French customers for this machine, So the vehicle is going down extremely well with customers and with trade journalists.”
McCormick picked up the trophy for Best Utility tractor category at the TTOY awards ceremony with its X6.414 P6-Drive tractor.
Last year, both Tractor of the Year and Best Utility awards went to John Deere for the 7R 350 AutoPowr and 6120M AutoPowr, respectively.
In the Sustainable category, the JCB Fastrac 4220iCon went home with the trophy. The judging panel found that, “The profound optimization of the whole package ‘hardware plus software’ makes this tractor more efficient, safer, more comfortable, more connected, more reliable and it positively effects on TCO (traction and compaction) and consumptions costs. Last but not least, the maximum speed (where permitted) on road, can be up to 60 km/h: less time on road means more time on field.”
North America
On this side of the Atlantic, John Deere managed to pull in an award last year, but unlike the European events, this one isn’t from the ag equipment world. It was named a CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2023 Innovation Awards Best of Innovation honouree in the Robotics category, and an honouree in the Vehicle Tech and Advanced Mobility category for its fully autonomous tractor.
Deere has been making a habit of winning these honours at CES. It’s the fourth consecutive year the green brand has received an Innovation Award from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). As an added recognition of Deere’s technological achievements, particularly in autonomy, CEO John May will deliver the keynote address at this year’s CES event in Las Vegas.
Just a decade or two ago it would have been hard to imagine an ag equipment manufacturer as a prominent exhibitor at the CES. But it’s today’s reality — at least for Deere.
While Deere proudly announced it had won awards at the CES, a U.S. event, media staff at the North American headquarters of the various brands often don’t even bother to mention they won any of the awards in Europe. And those competitions are often not prominently mentioned in ag publications across North America either.
Although European farmers often expect slightly different capabilities from their tractors, the insight provided by head-to-head, in-field comparison of machines can be pretty useful to a potential buyer here as well.
The difference in marketing approaches by the brands between the two continents also differs in another way. In Europe the number of tractors sold by each brand and how much market share each company owns is generally made available to the public. In Canada and the U.S., the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) reports on the total number of tractors sold in each horsepower category — along with the number of combines, but a breakdown of just who sold what is only made available to those manufacturers who are members of AEM. That information is not made public.
We can find out how many vehicles auto manufacturers are selling, how they perform and how experts rate them, but that’s not the case in ag equipment. So, is it time to rethink that? If manufacturers are ready to put their best efforts forward in head-to-head competition in Europe, maybe we should try to convince them to participate in similar competitions here, or at least be paying more attention to those the Europeans undertake.
