Use a word like “adjustments.” But “panic” or “collapse?” No, those words don’t describe Curt Blades’ feelings or his views about what he sees in the agricultural equipment industry right now, despite headlines about thousands of layoffs in the heart of farm country.
Blades, Association of Equipment Manufacturers Senior Vice President, uses a weather analogy to describe the situation. “There are storm clouds that we're dealing with…some very real storm clouds.”
Curt Blades bio
· Association of Equipment Manufacturers Senior Vice President
· Meredith Corporation Group Business Development Director, Marketing & Business Development Manager, National Sales Manager, Sales & Marketing Manager, Sales Development Manager for Successful Farming
· Blades Resources Principal
· MachineryLink Business Development
· Farmland Industries Inc. Strategic Marketing, Farmland Grain
Like almost anyone working in the agricultural industry, Blades is optimistic about the future. Growing up on a century farm in rural Shelbina, Missouri, connected him to the land. He hasn’t lost that touch.
Commodity prices aren’t great, and farmers are reducing or delaying major purchases. But Blades sees the silver lining in those storm clouds.
“Unfortunately, it's not the prices that we'd like for it to be. But nothing puts a smile on a farmer's face like a good crop.”
Those farmers just need a larger global market for those good crops. They don’t have what they need yet.
AEM tracks tractor sales. Those sales lay out the reality of agriculture and show what is behind headlines about layoffs from some of agriculture’s largest farm suppliers.
Tractor sales have dropped this year and have fallen lower than sales from 2021.
Blades said that he never wants to forget that people aren’t numbers, and he understands that thousands of people losing their jobs impacts families across the country.
He thinks that the market is adjusting as farmers have adjusted.
Lower commodity prices and lower overall farm income have farmers waiting to make purchases of larger items like tractors. “Tractors and combines are fun. They're fun to talk about. They're fun for farmers to buy. They're fun to drive. Everything about them is awesome,” Blades said.
But there is the cost. “That stuff…it gets expensive. So, you don't wake up tomorrow and decide that you're going to buy a combine. That's a considered purchase. You have to feel really good about the future of your farming operation to make that investment,” he said.
“Those investments are being questioned just a little bit.”
The manufacturers are reducing production to let the market catch up, Blades said. This affects both new and used equipment. Retailers don’t want supply of new or used equipment to build up too high, a lesson learned from a few years ago when farmers were flushed with cash thanks to better prices and government aid.
RELATED: Curt Blades told Brownfield Ag News in 2023 how tractor sales had fallen after parts of the industry surged following the COVID-19 pandemic. See that story here.
“It’s really important that supply matches the demand. And manufacturers learned some pretty valuable lessons about 15 years ago when we had a huge run up on commodity prices. And then the market kind of fell out,” Blades recalled.
“We were stuck with a lot of excess inventory out there,” he said.
And manufacturers don’t want to endure the same situation in 2024 and have supply overwhelm demand.
“That's why you've seen these adjustments that have been happening.”
