According to figures released by the AEA, UK agricultural tractor registrations (over 50hp) in December 2020 remained well above the previous year's level.

At 776 machines, the monthly total was up by more than a quarter, compared with December 2019. 

Stephen Howarth, agricultural economist at the AEA, said, "Given the unprecedented year which we have just experienced, AEA has undertaken a reconciliation exercise with DVLA to ensure that we did not miss any registrations from the annual total. This has identified 425 machines which were missing from information supplied to AEA by DVLA earlier in the year.

"Adding these numbers brings the annual total for 2020 to 10,380 units. That is still 14% lower than in 2019 but is similar to the levels recorded in 2015 and 2016, the lowest figures in recent years."
 
Most of the year-on-year decline took place between April and July, say the AEA, when supply chains were adversely affected by Covid-19 disruptions.

"For the final five months of the year, registrations were 11% higher than in August to December 2019 and from September onwards volumes were slightly above the average of recent years," confirmed Stephen Howarth.

A table containing revised monthly figures for 2020 following the additions referred to above can be found here.