His answer was a definitive “yes.”

A couple of hours later, the White House announced that was not correct, and all existing tariffs on Canada and Mexico will remain unchanged and in place. But most of the exact details surrounding the so-called “pause” in the U.S. tariffs remained murky.

Heightened uncertainty

This latest pause and reduction follows on a string of similar proclamations from the White House over the past three months. It’s the kind of yes-no-maybe approach to international trade that is something seemingly more suited to an old Marx Brothers movie than the strategic actions of a competent administration.

While that temporary lowering of tariffs on some countries was welcomed by the stock market, which saw significant gains following the announcement, it only heightens the uncertainty surrounding international trade and business in the U.S.

As a result, ag equipment brands who have to ship high-value machines across borders have a lot to lose if a major shipment gets caught in the midst of a policy change.

AGCO to stop delivery to U.S.

So far, however, only one manufacturer, AGCO, has publicly stated its intention to pause equipment deliveries into the U.S. It manufactures some Fendt and Massey-Ferguson branded equipment in Germany and France, among other locations, for the North American market.

“The U.S. and reciprocal tariff landscape remains very fluid,” AGCO stated in a press release, “While we assess potential impacts, finished equipment from non-U.S. production facilities intended for the U.S. will be temporarily held at their current locations outside the U.S. The shipment of parts into or from the U.S. is not currently impacted by this action.”

The company said it is currently evaluating the best way to continue delivery of machines, particularly those made in Europe, to farmers globally.

While Canada has imposed retaliatory tariffs on several imports from the U.S., they are unlikely to cause any disruption to ag equipment imports from American manufacturing plants, at least not yet. The only ag-related machines on the current list of products subject to Canadian tariffs is mowers.

“AGCO continues to ship finished products from the U.S. to other countries where there are currently no applicable tariffs,” the company statement read. “We expect to provide an update on the potential financial impact of tariffs at our next earnings call in early May.”

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Farmers weren’t feeling it this past winter.

Canadian producers bought only 21 new combines in January. That’s down 83 per cent from January of 2024, when farmers purchased 123 self-propelled combines, says a sales report from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).

American sales data is similar. In January 2024, U.S. farmers bought 460 combines. This January, they only purchased 97.

In more hopeful news, Canadian sales of 4WD farm tractors climbed in January, going from 49 in January 2024 to 59 tractors this year.

Looking at the bigger picture, sales of farm tractors and combines have declined over the last year in North America. That trend may continue in 2025, the AEM said during a presentation at the Commodity Classic farm show March 3.

“AEM data show 2024 shipments of LHP and HHP (low and high HP) equipment have dropped year over year,” says an AEM summary of 2024.

Sales of low HP tractors have seen the steepest decline over the last couple of years. Shipments of higher horsepower tractors have also contracted, but not as much:

• As of December 2024, sales of LHP tractors were down 24 per cent year over year and 13 per cent below the five year average in the United States.
• For HHP, 2024 sales were similar to the five year average and 17 percent below year over year in the U.S.
• “That (high HP) market has been pretty stable over the last few years,” said Curt Blades, AEM senior vice-president of industry sectors.

“In 2023, we were trending above that line (the five year average)…. (But) in 2024, we were seeing that deceleration of that high HP tractor sales.”

The sales figures for combines followed a similar pattern.

Blades ended the AEM presentation with some key takeaway messages. Sluggish demand for ag equipment will likely persist in 2025 due to weaker grain prices, questions around biofuel policies and trade issues.

“In the ag market right now, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” he said.

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Beginning mid-year 2025, SDF will produce badge-engineered tractors with up to 85 horsepower for most of MF’s global markets.

“Agco and Massey Ferguson’s Farmer-First approach is centered on creating a consistently exceptional experience for our farmers,” MF senior vice-president and general manager Luis Felli said in a release.

“We are extremely proud to have a partner like SDF who shares our passion for serving the world’s farmers. This partnership will strengthen Massey Ferguson’s position in the low-mid horsepower tractor segment globally, allowing us to provide more farmers with straightforward, dependable and high-quality equipment to drive their productivity and maximize profit.”

The new tractor range will be offered with various powertrain options. Agco expects the refreshed Massey Ferguson portfolio to help boost market share in that horsepower segment.

“We are pleased to have reached this agreement, which highlights the efficiency of SDF’s vertically integrated production system in all our facilities,” SDF’s chief commercial officer Alessandro Maritano said in the same release. “This confirms the value of our in-house expertise and know-how in designing and manufacturing proprietary core components, ensuring excellence and innovation worldwide.”

SDF was founded in 1927 and is based in Triviglio, Italy. It sells a line of combines, diesel engines, specialized ag equipment and tractors. Its offerings are marketed under several brand names, including Same, Deutz-Fahr, Lamborghini, Trattori, Hurlimann Gregoire and VitiBot.

Agco said the Massey Ferguson global distribution network will begin transitioning to the new models in mid-2025 with a phased approach across most global regions.

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“Farmers are looking for cost saving measures including delaying purchases and planning to further reduce equipment costs,” said FCC senior economist Leigh Anderson in a news release accompanying the report.

“As demand slows and prices adjust, there may be opportunities for producers who are looking to invest in new farm equipment.”

The year began with a surge in demand for machinery, particularly combines and four-wheel-drive (4WD) tractors, Anderson wrote. Slowing sales in the U.S. allowed manufacturers to send pre-orders to Canada earlier.

However, sales are forecast to decline for the remainder of the year and into the next. New equipment sales are expected to be soft as farmers face low commodity prices, high equipment prices and lower profits, though the decline in 2025 is expected to be less severe than in 2024. Sales of 4WD tractors are projected to stay above the five-year average, Anderson said.

Combine sales are expected to decline nearly seven per cent in 2025 compared to the five-year average. Tractors between 40 and 100 horsepower are expected to decline nearly 21 per cent, sales of those below 40 horsepower are expected to drop nearly 29 per cent, and those above 100 horsepower a bit more than six per cent, according to FCC calculations.

Early arrival of new equipment has led to more trade-ins. Used equipment sales are down about 20 per cent compared to the same time last year.

American farmers have also struggled with slumping farm income, which has led U.S. machinery manufacturers to cut production. Deere & Co said today it expected net sales to fall about 10 to 15 per cent across all machinery segments. CNH Industrial and AGCO have also trimmed profit expectations.

FCC predicts that as sales slow, machinery inventory will build up and prices will continue to adjust throughout next year. Lowering interest rates may also ease financial pressure and make it easier for farmers to buy equipment.

While crop prices are expected to remain low next year, cattle prices have been strong. This could encourage cattle producers to upgrade equipment, however many of those operations are still recovering from drought years and high feed costs.

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According to a recent news release from Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, higher combine prices do not yet appear to have affected their sales in Canada. Increased market demand has driven higher sales each year since 2020. However, it noted, recent data suggests that combine sales, while strong on a year-to-date basis, tell a different story when measured year-over-year.

Good crop prices and record-high farm income may have previously buffered the effect of growing combine prices on buyer behaviour, the province said. That gravy train has since hit the brakes.

“Surprisingly, recent data from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers show combine sales in Canada up 5.7 per cent year-to-date in July, while U.S. sales are down nearly 18 per cent year-to-date,” read the release.

“Sales in Canada for the month of July 2024, however, are nearly 28 per cent lower compared to July 2023. This may indicate tougher market conditions ahead.”

The release also noted the technology-rich nature of newer combines, which may be playing into consumer demand.

“The level of technology has increased dramatically and newer machines are equipped with GPS, computer sensors and a range of automatic features,” it noted.

Inflation, unsurprisingly, is also playing a major role. Although the price of a combine has increased in real terms, general inflation has also “contributed substantially” to increasing sticker prices, said the department.

The release also referenced the effect of the exchange rate between Canada and the U.S. As of Aug. 29, the Canadian dollar is worth 74 cents of a U.S. dollar, according to Google Finance.

“Many combines sold in Canada are manufactured in the U.S., and so the exchange rate has an effect on prices as well,” the release noted. “Combine prices seem to be more suppressed when the Canadian dollar is strong vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar, such as the period from 2010 to 2012, than when the Canadian dollar is weak.”

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Shares of the world’s largest farm equipment maker rose six per cent, lifting peer Caterpillar, which also reported a profit beat last week amid moderating demand, nearly three per cent.

Higher prices, implemented two years ago following supply chain complications and a surge in demand for industrial and agricultural equipment, have helped U.S. machinery makers to shield their profits from an industry-wide slump.

“Deere’s pricing power was reflected well in Q3 as price helped to dampen impacts from contracting volumes,” CFRA Research analyst Jonathan Sakraida said.

Deere maintained its 2024 net income at about US $7 billion, even as sales of new machines have shrunk amid a decline in crop prices and high borrowing costs, which have also forced dealers to limit inventory restocking.

U.S. farm incomes are forecast to plunge in 2024 due to a sharp decline in commodity prices, heightened production costs and shrinking government support.

“By keeping inventories in check, we have been able to maintain solid price realization,” said Deere’s director of investor relations, Josh Beal.

Deere also said it expects an improved favorable price realization in its agriculture segments in 2024 compared to its previous targets.

For the third-quarter, Deere reported a net income of $6.29 per share, compared with LSEG estimate of $5.63, while net sales and revenue decreased 17 per cent to $13.15 billion.

“We’ve prudently and proactively adjusted production schedules in our large agriculture business at a faster pace than ever before, in order to reduce field inventory in our end markets,” CEO John C. May said.

Deere said in June it would cut some production jobs and reduce salaried employees to keep a tight lid on costs.

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Typically though, its a technology more commonly applied on the dairy farm. Now though, that interest is spreading more onto beef farms and feedlots, and Ag in Motion attendees got a chance to compare and contrast models that they might want to add to their own equipment fleets.

Four companies, Penta Equipment, Jaylor, Highline and Trioliet, demonstrated their TMR mixers at the outdoor farm show. Event attendees watched as forage, silage and grains were dumped into each unit, processed and then sent out the conveyor in the form of feedable TMR. Attendees were then able to get a closer look at each result.

Glenn Buurma, president of Penta, said TMR mixers are a versatile product.

“Vertical feed mixers, if they’re set up correctly, every mouthful is the same,” he said. “And there’s really nothing that a vertical feed mixer will say no to.”

“We can go from the toughest hay to the nicest hay, we can go from big round bales … to big squares that are all falling apart,” Buurma added. “We can take a not-so-great bale and add it with a nicer bale and get a great ration. We can take corn stalks and add some wet feed … and have an awesome ration.”

Buurma has seen significant interest from the beef sector. In fact, he said, their list of beef customers is increasing more than their dairy buyers.

“There’s nothing that’s going to have a quicker payback for a beef farmer than a feed mixer,” he said.

The post Total mixed ration mixers go head to head at AIM appeared first on Country Guide.

The piece of equipment’s first production model was released in December 2022 and the first pieces for purchase rolled off the line in February 2023.

It was received with such intrigue that even though Schulte didn’t have one at Ag in Motion or on their Saskatchewan lot in 2023, an out-of-province farmer who’d seen it online approached them at AIM 2023 and asked for the first one they got, said Mike Siroski, Schulte’s Saskatchewan and United States territory manager.

Siroski added that the man didn’t care that it wouldn’t come off the production line until October.

The equipment made in February 2023 was sent to the eastern and midwestern United States. The market is hot there, explained Siroski, as their previous competitor in that area discontinued their product. In Canada, the most interest comes from Alberta and Manitoba.

“It puts two processes into one, eliminating labor,” Siroski said. “It’ll bring in rocks from a width of 19.19 feet wide with this hydraulically-driven wind rower. And then it’s connected directly to the rock picker. It’s got a rock picker built into it with a three and a half cubic yard bucket. So, you’re doing virtually two things at once: you’re preparing the ground by bringing the rocks in, and you’re picking them so you can haul them off.”

There doesn’t need to be two people driving two different units and using twice the fuel. Even though the equipment costs nearly $160,000, it could prove less expensive in the long run. Siroski explained efficiency comes not only from the incorporation of the two individual pieces, but from size. Their largest windrower is only 14 feet wide, making this 19-foot combination a quicker option.

The windrower also cleans off the dirt and levels the ground while pushing the rocks into a 1.5 foot row to be picked up.

The windrower rock picker needs a tractor of at least 150-horsepower, but it’s easy to transport. The windrower sides fold up, making the machine only 10 feet wide. The height to the top of the rock bucket is just over nine feet high, which makes for easy storage.

It has two hydraulic systems, one that attaches to the tractor and the other that the attaches to the PTO to run the windrower. Siroski added that the PTO system is a closed system, with its own filtration system and hydraulic cooling.

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The Stratus AirSprayer, a new drone tool unveiled by Saskatchewan-based Precision AI in July, is unlike anything she’s seen so far.

“I think they’ve got something really special,” says Meisser, who was invited to see the AirSprayer in action during field testing in New Mexico in May.

“There are a lot of things that make the Stratus AirSprayer unique,” she adds. “I think it will change how the farming community starts to think about managing crops. It’s going to shift some mindsets.”

The Stratus AirSprayer is different than the quadcopters and fixed-wing UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) typically associated with ag drones. Essentially, it’s a powered paraglider — one that can carry heavier loads and stay aloft much longer than conventional drones.

Daniel McCann, founder and CEO of Precision AI, says the advanced, autonomous aerial sprayer was designed to increase efficiency and maximize field time in the kind of large-acre farms found in Western Canada.

“Spray drones are great if you have 40 acres of onions or something like that,” says McCann. “But if you’ve got 10,000 acres of canola, good luck getting a small drone sprayer to cover that.”

The body of the Stratus AirSprayer is 3.25 metres (10 feet, eight inches) long, 2.1 metres (six feet, nine inches) wide and 2.25 metres (seven feet, five inches) high. It weighs 700 lbs. (318 kg) empty and can carry a payload of up to 833 lbs. (378 kg).

The machine has a three-blade propeller at the back powered by a Rotax 100-horsepower gasoline engine, and it relies on a 541-square-foot (50.3-metre) parachute or “soft wing” to stay aloft.

McCann acknowledges the Precision AI team was a bit worried at first about how the UAV’s parachute would go over, given that it’s so different.

But he says that really hasn’t been a concern, once farmers are shown how the Stratus AirSprayer works, and they can see how handling the parachute isn’t any harder than folding and unfolding a spray boom.

The flight speed of the AirSprayer is just under 40 m.p.h. (61 km/h) and it is able to take off from a farmer’s field as long as there is 350 to 500 feet (107 to 152 metres) of runway room available. When the job’s done, the hardware can be loaded onto a flatbed truck or a 12-foot trailer, and the canopy folded and packed up into an easy-to-carry travel bag.

The Stratus AirSprayer can carry 100 U.S. gallons (378 litres) of herbicide, fungicide or insecticide solutions, which according to Precision AI is almost 20 times more than smaller ag drones. A bigger payload means more time in the air and more acres covered in a day.

The gas-powered AirSprayer can fly up to five hours before refueling, which McCann maintains is an obvious advantage over electric drones. “Your typical spray drones, even the big ones, typically max out at about 10 minutes of airtime, then you’ve got to swap batteries and refill it,” he says.

All this can mean substantial savings for farmers. Precision AI maintains it costs less than $3 per acre to operate the Stratus AirSprayer, a fraction of the cost of traditional drone technology which it says ranges from $6 to $13 per acre.

The automated Stratus AirSprayer can do precise GPS-guided broadcast sprays in two interchangeable swath widths, one 18 feet (5.5-metre) wide and the other 30 feet (nine-metres) wide.

A Generation Two version of the AirSprayer, slated to be released soon after the Generation One model, will feature green-on-green spray capability, developed by Precision AI with the use of artificial intelligence and advanced computer vision.

McCann says even with its high-tech capabilities, the Stratus AirSprayer isn’t difficult to operate and maintain, adding to its appeal to farmers. “Except for the onboard AI system, everything can be fixed fairly easily.”

While the Stratus AirSprayer is designed to allow farmers to do large-scale aerial applications on their own, it isn’t meant to compete directly with crop dusters and other aerial spraying businesses. Instead, Precision AI views them as potential partners as the UAV is unrolled in the Canadian market.

That likely won’t happen right away, as the Canadian government hasn’t yet approved using drones in aerial applications of crop protectant products. Precision AI is on a committee to advise Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) on the necessary changes required to allow spraying from UAVs.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got the technology that can be used as an automated aerial sprayer. It’s built out, and we just need to wait for the regulatory environment to catch up,” says McCann.

Precision AI hopes the PMRA will follow the lead of U.S. regulators and release a decision soon approving the use of drones for ag chemical applications. In the meantime, Precision AI plans to continue testing in the U.S. as well as on farms in Western Canada as it prepares for a limited release of the Stratus AirSprayer next year.

Meisser views the AirSprayer as a good value proposition, both in terms of productivity and return on investment. She also sees it as a very practical solution for farmers looking to get the most out of their crops.

“The Precision AI team is really connected to the farming community and are trying to build solutions for farmers with farmers. I think that they’re solving problems that matter,” she says.

“I think they just got down to brass tacks to determine what does this (machine) really need to do.”

In Meisser’s eyes, it won’t take long for the Stratus AirSprayer to gain traction among farmers once it catches on with leading-edge ag adopters and influencers willing to give the technology a try.

“You just need some strong ambassadors to showcase the technology,” she says. “Farmers are the most innovative people I know. They solve problems on a daily basis, and it doesn’t take any of them too long to identify where they see value. I think they will embrace it.”

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“This is certainly completely disruptive to our equipment dealers that are using the CDK platform,” said John Schmeiser, president of the North American Equipment Dealers Association, Canada.

Tech firm CDK’s software was taken offline last week after a cyberattack by the BlackSuit ransomware group. CDK is being asked to pay tens of millions of dollars by the hackers. Reuters reports that the company expects dealers to be offline until at least June 30.

CDK provides business management software to dealers of all makes of farm equipment, so major dealers of John Deere, CNH and are working without digital systems across the country. CDK is also the leading provider of management software to automobile dealers and thousands of those dealerships are offline.

CDK says it has 15,000 North American dealers on its system.

Wawanesa, Man. farmer Jeff Elder said he was able to get the parts he needed at a Rocky Mountain Equipment dealership in Brandon, however staff were relying on memory to find parts or looking them up on their phones.

“They had resorted to writing down orders on paper,” said Elder via text. “He couldn’t invoice me and said I would receive an invoice by email whenever they could get that done.”

Rocky Mountain Equipment declined to comment.

“Everything is being done manually,” said Schmeiser. “You can just imagine the amount of time that our dealerships are spending on manual processes.”

Parts are tracked and managed through digital inventory systems.

“We have to actually know where the part is, in, in a bin, to go out and find it and fulfill that customer’s order without using our computer system to tell us where it is or how many that we have on order.”

Invoicing also has to be manual, said Schmeiser.

Equipment can be sold, but the process is manual and inventory isn’t available on a computer system. Tracking orders is also challenging.

Farmers are spraying and preparing combines for harvest so dealers continue to work as best they can.

“We can’t shut down the business, we have to take care of the customer,” Schmeiser said. “Dealers are really managing through this as best as they possibly can.”

Schmeiser said the situation will be a wake up call for the industry and will place even more emphasis on cyber security.

“I think as an industry as a whole, this whole situation is going to be looked at, at every sector, from the manufacturer point of view and the equipment dealer,” he said.

“We’re asking our customers or farm customers to be a little bit patient with our dealers, as we work through this problem. This is this is an issue that is not only frustrating for our equipment dealers, but can be frustrating for our customers as well.”

—Headline updated June 26.

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