General Development Economic Development of the Agricultural Machinery Industry

From the European as well as from the global perspective, the agricultural machinery sector experiences an economic downturn since mid-2014. The previous peak phase was marked by an increased purchasing power of the farmers in the wake of agricultural commodity price increases. While the emerging and developing countries strove for a higher degree of mechanization in agriculture, in order to increase the productivity of the sector and to prevent the rural exodus, in the established and "mature" markets, the large technological leaps in agricultural engineering increased the demand for new machines. However, no end to the recession is foreseeable for the year 2015 due to clear signs of saturation in major markets.