India’s agricultural equipment suppliers face a tough challenge to compete with the growing band of multinationals who are supplying custom combine harvesters for the Indian market and setting up dedicated manufacturing operations inside the country.
This year US giant John Deere opened a brand new combine harvester manufacturing centre in the Punjab region. In addition, German multinational CLAAS launched two new combine harvester models specifically designed to handle the multi crop harvesting requirements of India’s farming community.
Now, New Holland are following suit with the announcement that they too are planning to open their own manufacturing plant based in Southern India. The company will be investing an initial $30 million dollars into the plant. Eventually New Holland plan sufficient capacity to manufacture up to 5,000 combines a year.
At a time when sales in Europe and the US are relatively flat, combine makers are increasingly looking to harvest the opportunities available to grab market share in rapidly developing territories like India, China and Brazil. What’s more, certain northern states of India, particularly in the Punjab and Haryana, are beginning to experience shortages of agricultural labour for the traditionally very labour-intensive crop harvesting seasons.
The biggest selling combine harvester in India to date is the Crop Tiger 30 Terra Trac from Claas. This year’s new models from Claas, the Crop Tiger 40 and Crop Tiger 40 Terra Trac, promise even greater dominance. Both combines were designed in India with Indian farming conditions paramount in the unit’s development.
These new models from Claas, coupled with the new manufacturing facilities from Deere and New Holland will supply cutting edge agricultural technology to Indian farmers, whilst presenting a formidable challenge to India’s home grown agricultural equipment suppliers.