Reading Time: 6 minutes As a kid, I can vividly remember one particular occasion sitting on the steps in my grandparents’ old farmhouse in the late 1960s looking at an issue of Country Guide. One image from its pages still sticks in my memory. It was an advertisement showing Massey-Ferguson’s newest line of tractors. Why did that mental image […] Read more
Thinking small with a big idea
Britain’s “Hands Free Hectare” project is developing the model that you may need to build tomorrow’s farm on
PHOTOS: JCB redesigns the 8000 Series Fastrac tractor
Guide Machinery: The evolution of the Fastrac
Reading Time: 3 minutes All eyes were on a stage in JCB’s Rocester, England world headquarters building in October as a few dozen ag journalists from several different countries gathered for the reveal of the company’s all new 8000 Series Fastrac tractor. As is usually the case with events like this, no matter what the brand, the unveiling was […] Read more
NH gets a tillage implement line
The blue brand follows the recent industry trend of growing through acquisitions
Reading Time: 3 minutes The race for major manufacturers to broaden their product lineup by buying short-line brands is picking up even more steam. Mid-autumn, CNH Industrial announced that it was about to bring the Danish Kongskilde implement brand, owned by DLG Group, into its fold under the New Holland brand. “The acquisition of the tillage and hay and […] Read more
AGCO bets big on China
While the war of words heats up between Beijing and Washington, AGCO is becoming a major player in the Chinese economy
Reading Time: 6 minutes One of the world’s largest farm equipment manufacturers is predicting a bright future in China, and it is putting its money behind that belief. AGCO, parent company of well-known brands Massey Ferguson, Fendt, Valtra, GSI, and Challenger, has opened a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Changzhou to serve both its international needs and what it […] Read more
The machines, they are a changin’
Farm machinery is undergoing a historic period of evolution, with rapid changes that will soon show up in your sheds
Reading Time: 6 minutes Earlier this fall, it was announced that Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. Not to take anything away from his talent, it’s just that I wouldn’t have expected to hear he had won that kind of award, any more than I would have expected […] Read more
New baler expands Kubota lineup
The orange brand takes another step toward full-line status
Reading Time: 4 minutes Anyone attending a major farm show in Canada or the U.S. recently will almost certainly have noticed Kubota equipment on display, and probably a lot of it. The brand has clearly been targeting farmers, and it clearly intends to make much bigger inroads in the ag equipment sector in North America. Kubota executives are also […] Read more
The ag-robots are here
Get set for the biggest change since the invention of the tractor
Reading Time: 6 minutes Standing in front of a fully autonomous T8 tractor, New Holland’s vice-president, Bret Lieberman summed up what the company is telling its people in just two sentences at this year’s U.S. Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa. “This industry has evolved considerably over the last 100 years,” Lieberman said. “I don’t think that any of […] Read more
Challenger tames the tiger
Two transmission outputs drive AGCO’s new 1000 Series
Reading Time: 4 minutes At this year’s U.S. Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, AGCO’s senior VP and general manager for the Americas Bob Crain was clearly enthusiastic about the new tractors he was there to introduce, particularly the 1000 Series very-high horsepower, rigid-frame models that were originally introduced under the Fendt brand last year. Now, they are also […] Read more
Lemken gets strategic
German company puts its focus on building a wider range of machinery for Canadian farms
Reading Time: 4 minutes Missouri may call itself the “Show Me” state, but in my experience, farmers demonstrate more of that “prove it to me” trait more than any other group — and for good reason. Over the decades they’ve heard machinery manufacturers make a lot of claims about the capabilities of their machines. Most of the claims turn […] Read more
The four Ms get down to work
AGCO’s Robert Ciecko shares his strategy for winning with lean manufacturing in agriculture
Reading Time: 5 minutes While touring the assembly lines at AGCO’s huge combine and hay-tool plant at Hesston, Kansas, I admit I stopped counting how many workers were greeted by name by Robert Ciecko as he guided our group. But I didn’t stop being impressed by how, at virtually every station, waves came from the workers, or at least […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
