‘Going green’ drives research at New Holland

Jaco du Preez, marketing manager for New Holland in Southern Africa, spoke to Janine Ryan about how the company is going green with its new methane-powered tractor.

- Janine Ryan

The sale of agricultural machinery has boomed in South Africa over the past two years, according to the sales reports published by the South African Agricultural Machinery Association.

Jaco du Preez, marketing manager for New Holland in Southern Africa, says that the boom in sales is largely due to the high prices of commodities. Favourable weather conditions have also seen local farmers produce bumper maize, wheat and soya bean crops, while the Russia-Ukraine conflict has driven the prices of these commodities even higher.

“There is a lot of opportunity for farmers to export their produce to international markets. While exporting to Europe is becoming more difficult, due to the Russia-Ukraine war, there is still plenty of opportunity for farmers to export commodities to other countries in Africa,” says Du Preez. He adds that South Africa is in a good position to assure not only its own food security, but also to improve the food security of other countries on the continent. “Farmers have produced high yields of good-quality crops over the past few years. Therefore, their cash flow is much better now than it has been for a while. We see this in the boom in machinery sales; farmers buying machinery is an indication of good yields.

“This is a good opportunity for farmers to invest in machinery with improved technology, as they are currently in a position to afford this.”

In 2020/21, New Holland saw a particular jump in the sale of combine harvesters, with a market of around 300 units in this year alone.