415,000 visitors at Agritechnica 2011

November 20, 2011

“Agritechnica 2011 has impressively demonstrated the global importance of agriculture and agricultural machinery and equipment. With over 2,700 exhibitors and some 415,000 visitors, of whom 100,000 came from outside Germany, a new dimension has been achieved.”

These words came from Dr. Reinhard Grandke, Chief Executive Officer of the exhibition organizer DLG (Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft – German Agricultural Society), talking to the press at the close of Agritechnica, the international exhibition for agricultural machinery and equipment, in Hannover on 19 November 2011. He added that this result confirmed Agritechnica’s leading role as global forum for the agricultural machinery and equipment industry.

The following preliminary conclusions can be drawn:

The agricultural machinery and equipment industry and its suppliers were represented outstandingly well at Agritechnica 2011. Over 2,700 companies from 48 countries showed a complete programme of machinery, equipment, spare parts and accessories. The international contingent grew from 47 percent in 2009 to 50 percent. The number of exhibitors has more than doubled in the last ten years. The number of international exhibitors has more than tripled in the same period.

Agritechnica is the agricultural machinery manufacturers’ platform for launching new machinery and equipment. The innovations shown in the areas of electronics, instrumentation and control and data management make it possible to achieve new dimensions in precision and efficiency.

With some 415,000 visitors, Agritechnica has reached a new record level. The figures show an increase of around 18 percent over 2009. This result documents the enormous interest of farmers and experts in the latest machinery and equipment and trail-blazing concepts for the future. In view of the positive prospects worldwide, farmers want to use modern machinery and equipment to optimize professional crop production.

Around 315,000 visitors from Germany came to Agritechnica. An impartial survey of visitors reveals that farmers from all regions were very well represented – 39 percent coming from South and Southwest Germany, 48 percent from North and West Germany and 13 percent from East Germany.

Agritechnica is more international than ever. The 25 percent increase by comparison with 2009 to around 100,000 international expert visitors was accounted for in particular by the Netherlands (over 10,000 visitors), Switzerland (9,000), Austria (8,400), Ireland (6,100), Denmark (6,000), France (5,400), United Kingdom (5,200), Finland (3,300) and Italy (3,200).

With around 18,000 decision-makers and investors coming from the large farms in Central and Eastern Europe, Agritechnica exerted its expected magnetic draw. These numbers represent an increase of 25 percent by comparison with the figures for 2009. Most of these visitors came from Poland (3,200), the Czech Republic (3,000), Russia (2,300) and Ukraine (1,600).

The character of the world’s largest exhibition was impressively affirmed by the rise in visitor numbers from North and South America (6,100 visitors). Visitor numbers from emerging countries such as India, China and Pakistan (2,000) also rose clearly.

About 55 percent of visitors to Agritechnica are business farmers. Roughly 23 percent work farms covering up to 50 ha, 23 percent 51 ha to 100 ha, 42 percent 101 ha to 1,000 ha, and 12 percent more than 1,000 ha. Over 33,000 visitors came from the sector of agricultural machinery trade and distribution, and over 32,000 from machinery manufacturers and the supply industry. Furthermore, some 34,000 contractors from home and abroad came to Agritechnica 2011.

The survey of visitors shows that two thirds of the farmers interviewed assess their current business situation as good. This figure is around 20 percent higher than in 2009. The results also reveal that three quarters of the farmers have concrete plans to invest in the next two years.

As always, the expert visitors showed great interest in tractors and transport vehicles, the entire bandwidth of soil working, as well as harvesting machinery and equipment for cereals, forage and root crops. Substantial interest was also noted in machinery and equipment for sowing and drilling, plant care, fertilizing and plant protection, as well as in accessories and spare parts. The many special offers, as well as machinery and equipment for forestry operations, vegetable growing or municipal applications and landscape care also inspired great interest.

Larger, faster, wider – these attributes continue to describe many developments in agricultural machinery and equipment, but their significance is increasingly and universally being upstaged by a constant influx of new developments in electronics and sensor technology. Today these largely determine the degree of innovation of machinery and systems with the goal of making processes even more efficient, precise, environmentally compatible and thrifty. This was strongly in evidence at Agritechnica 2011 and especially in the Special “Smart Farming - Intelligent and sustainable plant production”. The information offered there on the latest developments in sensor technology, navigation and data management encountered exceptionally high interest among farmers.

Special measures were taken at Agritechnica to counter the foreseeable shortage of skilled workers in the field of agricultural machinery and equipment among manufacturers and in the service sector. In the Special “Workshop Live”, specialists ranging from apprentices to master craftsmen demonstrated their skills and potential on high-tech machines with typical maintenance and service work. Manufacturers also informed interested visitors about attractive career prospects for machine builders, electro-technicians and computer specialists.

The many international forums and events addressing attractive issues of interest to professional farmers and experts are a hallmark of Agritechnica.

Junior staff are a firm part of Agritechnica. More than 10,000 young farmers and students from home and abroad attended the various events at Agritechnica. Particular mention should be made of the panel discussion at which 400 young business people from many parts of Europe discussed farm management and business management issues. Reports by young German and Austrian farmers running farms in Australia, Canada, Poland and Russia met with great interest. One of the highlights of Agritechnica 2011 was once again the “Young Farmer’s Party”, held in the TUI-Arena for the first time this year and attended by over 3,000 young people.