The UK’s agriculture sector is well developed and the country is one of the pioneers in adapting to the industrialization of agriculture sector in the world. UK is characterized by a relatively small sized agricultural sector, and a trade deficit. Despite a cautious outlook for the EU market for agricultural machinery, the UK market will be one of the rare regions to exhibit positive growth across categories, mainly driven by a projected growth in the value of exports.
The market for agricultural machinery in UK is affected by factors like an optimized supply chain, productivity concern, experienced labour force and involvement of FDI in agriculture. Moreover, additional factors influencing sales for agri-machinery in UK are: Cyclical downtime (after the boom in sales over 2011-2013), lower commodity prices leading to reduced income for farmers, the repercussions of the Russian embargo, and a new EU policy (CAP: Common Agricultural Policy) set to introduced in 2015. The market for agricultural machinery in UK is worth billion, and is expected to grow at CAGR 1.6% in the 2015-2020 period.
Starting with common tools of farming like plough and sickle, the agricultural machinery industry has products to offer in every stage of a crop cycle. Here market segmentation is done on the basis of product and phase type, for example, tractors, plowing and cultivating machinery, planting and fertilizing, harvesting machinery etc. The combine machine of scarifying, fertilizing and seeding is popular in UK; the plough, mineral fertilizer applicator, combine harvester and grain thresher are also in great demand. The UK market for tractors is expected to decline by about 2% in 2015. Furthermore, a decline in combine harvesters is expected over the year. However, overall, the market is expected to recover over the forecast period.
Competitive Landscape
The agricultural machinery market in UK is dominated by major foreign-owned companies. The UK agricultural machinery and equipment industry face stiff competition from renowned players like Deere and Company, AGCO Corp., CNH Industrial N.V, Kuhn, Massey Ferguson, CASE IH, New Holland, operating in market place. The local players focus on niche segments which are ignored by the big companies here.