SA’s combined harvester sales continue to show strong growth ahead of a bumper crop this season, the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz), an organisation that represents commercial farmers and agribusiness enterprises nationally, said this week. Recent agricultural machinery sales data showed that 23 combine harvesters were sold in March 2017, up 21% from the previous month and 64% from the corresponding period in 2016. However, the chamber said the optimism in the agricultural machinery market may be short-lived as the weaker rand could increase the cost of equipment. In addition, escalating farm debt could also prevent some farmers from investing in machinery. In 2015 the total real farm debt was at R142bn, which was a record in a database that began in 1980, the chamber said. Wandile Sihlobo, the head of economic and agribusiness research at Agbiz, said the growth in combine harvester sales reflected the positive prospects of summer crop production. The overall summer crop pro...
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