SA agriculture equipment sales likely to moderate in 2022
The robust tractors sales in January 2022 are the tail end of the 2020 and 2021 “party” phase and could soon moderate as the year progresses.
Thinking about SA agriculture equipment industry
South Africa’s tractor sales for 2021 amounted to 7 680 units, up by 26% from the previous year. The combine harvester sales amounted to 268 units in the same period, up by 46% from 2020.
Will the positive trend of South Africa’s agricultural machinery sales persist?
I worry that the purple patch might slow down for the agricultural machinery sales, not because of a drastic change in farmer finances (we expect a good crop in 2020/21 season). But the source of my pessimism is the cyclical nature of machinery sales.
A potential turning point for SA poor tractor sales might be close
This has not been a good year for South Africa’s farming sector and related industries. The effects of poor summer crop harvest which in turn influence farmers’ financial position have spilt over to the agricultural machinery market which has been subdued all...
Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and the author of “Finding Common Ground: Land, Equity, and Agriculture.”
Sihlobo is Senior Lecturer Extraordinary at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University.
He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University.
Sihlobo was appointed as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council in 2019 after serving on the Presidential Expert Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture between 2018 and 2019.
He is also a member of the Council of Statistics of South Africa (Stats SA) and a Commissioner at the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC).
Sihlobo is a columnist for Business Day and Farmers Weekly magazine.