Disappointing but not entirely unexpected news has come out of CEMA, the European association representing the agricultural machinery industry in Europe this week.
The association has issued a statement saying that in line with expectations, 2016 demand for farm machinery in Europe is set to end up with a drop.
They also say the outlook for 2017 does not look much better, with lower or at best stable demand expected for most agricultural machinery products.
This news of course follows a year of monthly notifications from the AEA which, with depressing regularity, informed us about how tractor registrations were down that month year on year.
Although that said, the last notification of this type which we carried in the Weekly Update a couple of weeks ago, showed a spike in the figures. October had actually seen a 33.5% increase in tractor sales compared to October in 2015.
The AEA pointed out what this means to the overall figures so far in 2016 is they are only 1.4% down on where they were last year. Which while clearly is far from ideal, may not be the utter disaster which some were fearing.
And this not all bad theme is repeated to a degree by the CEMA statement actually. It says despite the negative trend overall, certain countries have performed relatively well. France and Spain were among the most positive markets in Europe. However, it does go on to say demand in the French market started to slow down in the second half of 2016, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming month - resulting in a further estimated decline of around 5% in 2017.
On the other hand, the outlook for the Spanish market is positive for 2016 and the next year, with a 5% increase expected for 2017.
CEMA say Germany is set to rank among the worst-performing markets in 2016, decreasing by 9%. The decline is set to continue in 2017, yet at a much slower pace, with an expected -2%.
And for us, CEMA says demand in the UK continues to be weak, particularly for non-tractor farm machinery. For 2017, they believe the market will stabilise. In the same way, markets in Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands will likely experience a small decrease in 2016.
You can read rest of the statement here which goes into detail about how different agricultural equipment types have fared in Europe this year. None of it makes the most cheering of reading.
Until at the end of the statement where they say that their Business Barometer survey of companies within the agricultural machinery industry is slowly recovering from its lowest ever point. They suggest that the business mood based on current sentiment is that improvements could be seen towards the end of next year.
But this is of course specifically the agricultural machinery side of the industry we're talking here. Whilst figures are more difficult to attain for garden machinery and professional turfcare equipment, the impression given from various sources is that these have seen some degree of success this year.
Just last week in fact we ran the story about how sales of cordless garden machinery were up 133% in the first six months of this year compared to 2015. And at at the GGP Conference earlier in the autumn Duncan Martin told the dealers the company had seen its most financially successful year in its history.
So as we heard many times at the Service Dealer Conference the other week, independent dealers have the ability to diversify and change their focus much more easily and quickly than large organisations. During these periods where big kit isn't selling so well, the smaller stuff becomes the company's lifeblood.
No doubt at some point in the future there will be a reversal of fortunes for ag and grass machinery - and when it does, the dealer network with all their resourcefulness should be able to react accordingly.
