M&M looks beyond tractors to increase farm equipment

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), India’s largest tractor manufacturer, is currently waiting on the far side tractors to spice up its farm equipment business. the corporate is sharply acting on the farm machinery system because it views this space as a strategic growth chance, said Shubhabrata Saha, chief of operations, farm division, M&M.

The growing specializes in farm machinery comes against the background of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s formidable set up of doubling the financial gain of farmers by 2022.

It is additionally a step to increasing competitive intensity and economic process within the tractor phase amid a lag in short demand. M&M’s Q1FY20 domestic tractor sales stood at 82,913 units, down 15 August 1945 year-on-year. The management estimates a subdued FY20 growth of fifty in tractors, which is a lot of profitable than the company’s own vertical.

The focus on rising farm productivity within the predictable future comes from the government’s thrust on doubling the financial gain of farmers and form factors like the shortage of labor, aggressive population, and depleting groundwater resources, Saha said in an interview.

“Productivity per inch of farmland can get to increase considerably and this can result in quicker penetration of farm mechanization as a measure to adopt higher agricultural practices," he said.

M&M, that is additionally the leader within the domestic tractor market with a 41.4% share in FY19, sees new opportunities in crop-specific farm machines, products, and services around crop care, crop inputs, soil mapping, and testing, pestilence protection victimization drones and alternative areas.

“In India, the application of a tractor is primarily land preparation. it's hardly used once the plant grows or the crop is harvested. The business is slated to ascertain an inflection purpose shortly once the appliance of specific farm machinery is going to be able to impact farm productivity and farmers’ lives," Saha said. The M&M official quoted samples of crop-specific farm machinery deployed for potato farming, rice transplanters, sprayers employed in gardening and others, to buttress his case.

The use of crop-specific machines like those used for potato farming and rice transplanters are terribly restricted in India and, thus, can see important growth in penetration within the close to future, Saha said. M&M says the company is functioning on localizing a variety of those technologies, together with harvesters, to create them cheap for farmers in India.

“We are working on soil mapping to assist farmers to estimate the correct input of fertilizers. we tend to expect consecutive 3-5 years to be terribly exciting for farm instrumentality. Also, the govt is predicted to offer a fillip to farm mechanization," he said.

The company has been quick to increase its capabilities and portfolio below its farm instrumentality sector, which covers farm machinery and tractors business. it's created eight acquisitions in four years.

M&M got access to technologies around rice-transplanters and associated price chain, harvesters and farm implements with the acquisition of the 33rd stake in Japan’s Mitsubishi Agriculture Machinery (October 2015), 35th stake in Finland’s Sampo Rosenlew (March 2016) and a 75th equity stake in Turkey-based Hisarlar.

M&M’s Belgium-based Dewulf group exposed it to potato farming instrumentality, that it plans to supply to Indian farmers.

The company’s latest acquisition of an 11.25% stake in Switzerland’s agriculture technology startup Gamaya SA offers it access to hyperspectral imagination analytics, computing, and machine learning, that captures and interprets helpful data on the state of crops for the farmers.

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