The tractors familiar to us in Ireland, are mainly the fruit of Anglo American corporations, rather than the products from Asia.
Just why the east has not succeeded, or seriously attempted to recreate, the success they have enjoyed in exporting cars to the west, has long been a puzzle.
Kubota is one company that has made some inroads into the market, but it limits itself to four-cylinder engines in Europe, and hence places a ceiling upon the power output of its range.
Other Asian companies are very much in the same boat, producing low horsepower tractors that are suitable for the smaller farms or plantations that tend to dominate food production in the east.
A survey published in 2014, shows that none of the major Asian economies have an average farm size above 4ha, a situation that had hardly changed in the 54 years previous to that date.
Indeed, in Thailand, India and The Philippines, farm size has actually decreased over the past few decades.
Growing in size and ambition
Given this background, it is understandable why Asia has not posed any serious threat to western tractor makers in the mid- to high-horsepower bracket, but that may be beginning to change.
Last year, several eastern tractor manufacturers took steps to rectify this situation, by introducing tractors that were pushing at the self-imposed power envelope, as well as fitting engines that complied with western emissions standards.
Indian company, Solis, is one of those in the vanguard of this movement with a 110hp, Stage-V-compliant tractor being shown at Agritechnica.
It was also hinted that in future, there might be a machine of 180hp becoming available, but that was still several years away.
Meanwhile, over in China, there are companies with far greater ambitions, and these include YTO and Lovol, both producing tractors in the 300hp range.
YTO has tractors of up to 300hp listed in its range, but it is unclear quite what emissions standards, if any, they meet, and so they remain restricted to the home market and exported to countries which do not insist on them.
On its stand at Agritechnica, Lovol had its P7240 model, a large 4WD drive beast with a CVT transmission.
Unfortunately, there was some confusion as to its output, as the accompanying sign gave the performance statistics for a model known as the P8000, which boasts 340hp, being provided by a 9.5L engine.
This muddle up aside, it is obvious that Lovol is serious about making powerful machines, for it was also showing an eight-cylinder, 16.6L diesel that produces 760hp.
This was attached to a basic transmission and, for the moment, is most probably destined for heavy plant and construction equipment.
Compact tractors for Asia and America
All of these companies are very much aware that there is only a limited demand for compact tractors in Europe – although it is much greater in America, yet that does not mean that the western large tractor market is worth investing in.
The first objection to spending money on developing models more suitable for the west, is the competition from established brands.
AGCO, CNH, John Deere et al, have not reached their present dominance without a lot of effort, and they will respond vigorously to any threat from the east.
Price is the chief advantage that any newcomer has to offer, but as we have seen, western farmers already have that choice and prefer homegrown products, particularly above 100hp.
Machinery prices have increased dramatically over the past few years, yet the interlopers appear to be making little progress in this era of inflation.
So, why should companies from Asia bother making bigger tractors at all?
The answer may well lie in geopolitics. For the past 75 years or so, much of the world has been subject to the American presence on the world stage, with the United States dollar being the first currency of trade.
This is now under threat from the trading coalition of countries known as BRICS, which originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
This month, they were joined by five more countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran.
These states account for around 30% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and over 40% of oil production, and none insist on the emission standards that we do in the west.
Should Chinese or Indian companies be looking to export their tractors, then why bother with Europe?
It will be far easier to displace European tractors from their export markets, especially those that lie within an emerging coalition, aiming to replace the dollar as the world’s currency.
