In this episode of On the Record, brought to you by Associated Equipment Distributors, we dive into the results of the 12th annual Precision Farming Dealer Benchmark Study. In the Technology Corner, Noah Newman shares one dealer’s outlook for precision sales in 2025. Also in this episode, we get a behind the scenes look at Kinze’s Blue Equipment store and a look at used high horsepower tractor trends. And, in this episode we’re introducing a new standing feature that provides a regular update on commodity prices.

   

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TRANSCRIPT

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• Precision Dealers Expect Improved Sales in 2025 After Flat 2024
• Dealers on the Move
• Dealer Expects Better Sales in 2025, but First Few Months Will Be Telling
• Commodity Prices See Improvements
• Inside Kinze’s Company Store, Blue Equipment
• Used Equipment Update: High-Horspower Tractor Inventory Up 19.5%
• DataPoint: New Equipment Inventory Levels Remain Elevated

Precision Dealers Expect Improved Sales in 2025 After Flat 2024

While precision farming sales and service revenue was down on average from the previous year, most dealers are optimistic things will bounce back in 2025 according to the 12th annual Precision Farming Dealer Benchmark Study. 

Nearly 33% of dealers surveyed estimated their sales and service revenue was down 2% or more from 2023, while 40% reported little or no change. 20% said their revenue was up 2-7% and about 7% reported an increase of 8% or more. For comparison’s sake, all dealers surveyed in last year’s study reported an increase in precision sales and service revenue from 2022.

About 27% of dealers estimated their total 2024 precision farming revenue to be $500K or less, while another 27% were between $1-$2 million. 20% made between $500K-$1 million, about 7% were between $2-$3 million, another 7% were between $4-$5 million and a little over 13% made more than $5 million.

Looking ahead to 2025, 60% of dealers surveyed forecast at least a 2-7% increase in revenue from precision farming sales, while almost 30% expect little or no change. About 7% forecast revenue to decline 2-7% while another 7% forecast a drop of 8% or more.

You can find the full report in the February issue of Farm Equipment and on precisionfarmingdealer.com 

Dealers on the Move

This week’s Dealers on the Move are Prairie State Tractor, Martin Tractor and Heritage Tractor, as well as Reisterer & Schnell and AgWest.

John Deere dealer Heritage Tractor announced that Prairie State Tractor and Martin Tractor are merging with Heritage Tractor. The combined operations will have 43 stores across Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois.

Wisconsin-based John Deere dealer Riesterer & Schnell has acquired single-store Eis Implement for a total of 14 locations. Eis was the 2024 Dealership of the Year. 

Canadian AGCO dealer AgWest announced it was moving into Weyburn and Yorkton, Saskatchewan through the acquisition of Agriterra Equipment locations. 

Dealer Expects Better Sales in 2025, but First Few Months Will Be Telling 

60% of dealers expect their precision sales to go up at least 2-7% this year according to the 2025 Precision Farming Dealer Benchmark Study. Spud Armstrong, precision specialist for New Holland Rochester, shared his sales outlook at the Precision Farming Dealer Summit earlier this month. He’s optimistic that business will be better after a slow 2024, but says these first few months are going to be very revealing. 

“The government's going to pass out some money to farmers is the best way to say it. I don't know how soon that money will hit their bank accounts, but I would assume that that would help pick up some of the things that we sell. If that doesn't get there before spring, I don't know if we're going to pick up much or not. Our biggest, busiest season is going to be in this January, February, March, April. That's when we sell a majority of our products. So, I don't know. That money, they're talking like maybe end of February, somewhere in March. And if that doesn't get there until then, it's going to be tough for us to get that stuff to be able to get an order to get here, whatever we got to do. And so, I don't know, I'm optimistic that it'll be the 2-7% up (increase in sales from last year), but I feel like we're probably going to be in that little to no change (in sales increase) where we're going to land.”

26% of dealers surveyed predict little or no change in precision sales this year. We’ll have a full breakdown of the survey soon on PrecisionFarmingDealer.com. 

Commodity Prices See Improvements 

As of January 29, corn prices were $4.97, soybeans closed at $10.60 and wheat closed at $5.62.

Compared to the prices 2 weeks ago, corn was up 19 cents, soybeans were up 18 cents and wheat was up 15 cents. 

Inside Kinze’s Company Store, Blue Equipment

Ag Equipment Intelligence editors visited Blue Equipment, Kinze Manufacturing’s new full-service store located on its vast manufacturing campus in Williamsburg, Iowa. Dealership Sales Manager Justin Render provides an overview and tour of the new showroom and modern repair shop for Kinze equipment sold, traded and repaired in Southeast Iowa. The store, which originated after a local dealer’s retirement, also sells Ag Leader, Martin-Till, Lundell Plastics and Yetter.

Here’s what Justin had to say about the store. 

Justin Render: We are on the north end of the Kinze Manufacturing facility. We are in the old repower building, our offices, which is right behind us here, where we used to repower the John Deere articulates back, oh, boy, I don't know the exact starting point, but probably, I'm going to say mid '90s, all the way up through the late 2010 range. So that's where we started base operations in 2019, 2020 when we stood up the dealership.

We had a dealer here in Iowa County that retired. It was an open area for Kinze for a while, and the family decided, "Hey, let's take advantage of the facilities that we have and start up a dealership." So we are a whole goods dealership, primarily focusing on Kinze product, grain carts, planters, and tillage. We also do competitive units and trade those in as well, and wholesale parts, as well as a full service shop out back. So that is more or less what we do here.

We've got two bays where we can pull in a full 24 row planter and unfold it. Right now, actually, if you want to, we can go out and look. We've got a green cart that we've got tore apart and then a rebuild on a 3665.

Mike Lessiter: Do farmers know that you're here?

Justin Render: A lot of them in the local area do. We're still getting our name out, doing a lot of traveling. So our areas of responsibility are Poweshiek, Iowa and Johnson County. So you find some guys that, yep, know they're here, and other guys that didn't even know there was a dealership here at the Kinze facility. So, yep, being on site makes things muddy a little bit, but we're still trying to get our name out and about.

Used Equipment Update: High-Horspower Tractor Inventory Up 19.5%

In our last episode we looked at the used combine market. This time we’re going to turn our attention to tractors with 100+ horsepower. According to Sandhills Global, used high horsepower tractor inventory levels have been trending upward for 6 months despite a slight month-over-month decrease in December. 

Inventory was up 19.5% year over year. The used 175- to 299-horsepower tractor category showed the largest month-over-month inventory decrease at 2.2%, while the used high-horsepower, which is 300 horsepower and greater, category led the way in year-over-year inventory increases at 29%.

Asking values decreased 1.5% month-over-month and about 8% year-over-year in December, continuing an 8-month-long downward trend. Used 175- to 299-horsepower tractor asking values declined more than other categories, posting 1.76% month-over-month and 10.38% year-over-year decreases.

DataPoint: New Equipment Inventory Levels Remain Elevated

This week’s DataPoint is brought to you by by the Dealership Minds Summit, returning to Iowa City July 29-30. To register, visit DealeshipMindsSummit.com.

According to the latest Dealer Sentiments & Business Conditions update, new equipment inventory levels remained elevated in December with a net 65% dealers reporting inventories too high vs. a net 78% reporting inventories too high the prior month.

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