Claas Balers Turn 30
Claas built its first variable chamber round baler - the Variant 100 - in 1996, so 2026 marks 30 years and the fifth generation of the Variant name, recently complemented by the new Cerex Series introduced in 2025.
Potential demand for agricultural technology remains high, but economic factors are holding the sector back. Mariateresa Maschio: worldwide politics must revitalise the economy and promote cooperation.
On the eve of the recent EIMA 2026 Biennual Machinery Expo, the impact of Inflation, the climate emergency and the crisis in farm incomes are hampering sales of agricultural machinery, which are continuing to fall across most main markets. This overall picture was outlined in Bologna by FederUnacoma President Mariateresa Maschio, ahead ofthe global exhibition dedicated to agricultural and gardening machinery.
In the United States, between January and September, tractor sales fell by 13 per cent, continuing a downward trend of the last four years, where between 2021 and 2025, the number of machines sold has fallen by over 100,000 units from 318,000 to 196,000.
The picture is similar for Canada, where sales have fallen by over 9 per cent, while in Latin America, in Brazil, tractor sales were down 19 per cent in the seven months to July, and in Argentina, a 27 per cent decline was recorded in the six months to June 2026.
Maschio also highlighted the figures for the main European markets, where year-to-date in the nine months to September, tractor sales fell by 6% in Germany, dropped 3.3% in France, saw Spain down 4.6 % and, alarmingly, Poland falling by substantial 18.8%. Among the main European markets, only the UK bucked the general trend, gaining a 17.4% increase, recovering some of the large declines seen in 2024 and 2025.
An even sharper decline was recorded in Turkey, with a 46.2% slump in tractor sales for the first eight months of 2026, driven by rising production costs, a loss of purchasing power and limited access to credit.
Intertestingly, the two Asian giants, China and India, were bucking the global trend, where government incentive schemes are providing support for the agricultural machinery sector. In June, China recorded a 5.5% increase in tractor sales to 178,000 units, while in September India recorded a 15% increase, taking sales to 900,000 units registered since the start of the year.
Maschio reminded a cadre og journalists from around the World, that the medium- and long-term trends confirm the central role of agricultural machinery in the development of the agricultural economy, as every region in the world needs machinery, equipment and tools to improve productivity, sustainability and the quality of production. Estimates by the research business ExportPlanning predict, in this context, a growing demand and an increase in trade within the sector of around 4.5 per cent per annum between 2026 and 2029, which could be driven precisely by the need for equipment for complementary activities.
