Views: 3 Author: PEAK Publish Time: 2024-11-11 Origin: Original
In the deep autumn of Changsha, Hunan, the Xiang River reflects the shadows and the fragrance of osmanthus flowers fills the air.
From October 26th to 28th, the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, known as the "largest in Asia", was grandly held at the Changsha International Convention and Exhibition Center. The exhibition attracted more than 2600 domestic and foreign exhibitors, with a total exhibition area of 250000 square meters and over 200000 visitors, an unprecedented scale. Unlike the bustling scene presented at the exhibition, this year's agricultural machinery market did not give people a feeling of "prosperity". From the beginning of the year until now, it has always been "chilly".
Let's look at the market through the national agricultural machinery exhibition, perhaps we can get different inspirations and feelings from different perspectives.
01 Large scale expansion of traditional product categories
At the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, we will find that the trend of large-scale production of traditional agricultural machinery products such as tractors, grain combine harvesters, and tillage machinery is becoming increasingly evident.
Taking tractor products as an example, the maximum horsepower tractor displayed at the exhibition was marked as 600 horsepower, and over 15 brands of tractors with 300 horsepower and above were exhibited. There were countless tractors with 100-200 horsepower, and the speed at which domestic brands are seizing the high ground of the industry is accelerating.
Looking at the category of harvesters, we also noticed that this year's exhibition not only showcased conventional wheat wheel harvesters, rice track harvesters, traditional ear picking corn harvesters and other products, but also showed vigorous growth in large-scale grain combine harvesters (also known as grain harvesters). Not only did foreign first-line brands attract the attention of attendees, but domestic brands also performed impressively. Roughly speaking, more than 10 large-scale grain combine harvester brands were exhibited at this exhibition, and domestic brands are accelerating the research and development and manufacturing of large-scale and high-end products.
At this exhibition, there are various emerging agricultural machinery categories that are eye opening, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, kiwi fruit harvesting machines for garden machinery, small robots for mountain machinery, field weeding robots, unmanned electric tractors for facility agriculture, oil tea harvesting machines for special crops, various types of Chinese herbal harvesting machinery, cabbage harvesting machines for vegetable operation machinery, etc., all of which demonstrate the rich and diverse characteristics of China's agricultural machinery equipment categories.
As is well known, since entering the stage of upgrading and transformation in 2015, the agricultural machinery industry has clearly shifted from scale development to high-quality development. The saturation decline of traditional category markets and the rise of emerging category markets are intertwined, constantly giving birth to new industrial forms. In recent years, the government has fully implemented policies to enhance agricultural mechanization in hilly and mountainous areas, effectively driving the leap of characteristic agricultural machinery industries applicable to diverse landforms, crops, and different application scenarios. At the same time, with the gradual saturation of the traditional agricultural machinery market, many agricultural machinery enterprises have increased their attention to the industry's weak areas and emerging fields of specialty crop machinery. More and more technological innovation achievements have taken root, promoting the continuous progress of the agricultural machinery equipment industry.
According to statistics, China's agricultural machinery and equipment system is sound, capable of independently developing and manufacturing over 4000 types of agricultural machinery products in 65 major categories, 350 medium categories, and 1500 sub categories required for 7 categories including agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, agricultural transportation, and agricultural product processing. I believe that in the future, in sync with the development of modern agriculture, the agricultural machinery industry will create more matching agricultural machinery products to jointly promote the process of agricultural modernization.
03 Intelligence is flourishing
At the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, we can always feel the atmosphere of intelligent technology: equipped with high-end and large-scale agricultural machinery products with advanced sensing systems, intelligent control systems, and intelligent operation systems, the operation is more convenient and efficient; Rice transplanters and harvesters equipped with automatic driving and digital recognition systems can adjust their walking paths and achieve unmanned and automated operations; The intelligent digital seedling raising factory can achieve automatic control of water and fertilizer integration... Various intelligent equipment and technology applications have refreshed people's understanding of traditional agricultural production.
There is no doubt that intelligence is becoming a major trend in the development of agricultural machinery and equipment industry. Both traditional agricultural machinery products and emerging agricultural machinery products have given birth to a "new look" with quite intelligent characteristics under the support and integration of electronization, intelligent perception, big data applications, the Internet, the Internet of Things, satellite positioning and navigation, human-computer interaction technology, etc.
In recent years, the application of intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment has played an important role in improving agricultural production efficiency and quality. For example, in the plowing and land preparation operations of farmland such as trenching, ridge formation, and deep plowing, the application of tractor Beidou assisted driving (system) can effectively avoid wrong and missed rows, accurately control straightness and connecting row spacing, and improve operation quality; In the sowing process, precision seeders, integrated harrow seeders, and other products with functions such as layered precision fertilization and seed fertilizer monitoring are applied to ensure precise sowing, uniform seed placement, and consistent depth; In the field management process, the promotion and application of crop protection drones have achieved precise spraying and sowing operations for various crops; In the harvesting process, the widespread application of intelligent and efficient harvesting machinery can timely detect the operation dynamics, and through the installation of Beidou navigation positioning terminals on the harvesting equipment, provide information such as the operating area and location of the agricultural machinery to the operator, improve harvesting efficiency, reduce harvesting losses, and so on.
It can be seen that intelligence is endowing the agricultural machinery and equipment industry with more infinite possibilities.
04 International Elements Full
In recent years, international cooperation in the agricultural machinery industry is in full swing. At the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, we not only saw the world's leading agricultural machinery brands John Deere, Case, Kras Claas, Deutz Fahr, Kubota and other products were unveiled, but also the world-famous agricultural machinery brands such as Kuhn KUHN of France, Lemken of Germany, Maschio Maschio of Italy came to the exhibition with their luxury product lineup. At the same time, they also attracted enterprises from Italy, Germany, Canada, Türkiye, Japan, Algeria, South Korea and other countries to participate in the exhibition.
During the 2024 National Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, there were over 2000 registered foreign visitors. At the China International Agricultural Machinery Trade Summit held during the event, more than 600 foreign buyers from over 30 countries in the Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, and other regions engaged in trade negotiations with Chinese enterprises. At the same time as the exhibition, international activities such as the 10th member meeting of the Asia Pacific Agricultural Machinery Association Council, the China Russia Smart Agriculture Matchmaking Conference, and the Thailand Vietnam Agricultural Machinery Market Analysis Report Conference were held, which can be said to be full of international elements.
China has always been a major market for the global agricultural machinery industry. According to data released by the China Academy of Commerce, the market value of Chinese agricultural machinery will be 585.7 billion yuan in 2023, attracting the attention of global agricultural machinery enterprises due to its huge market size. From a global macro perspective, in recent years, the international political environment has been turbulent and the economy has generally declined. However, China is not only politically stable, but its economic operation is also stabilizing, and more and more foreign businesses are entering the Chinese market. At the same time, with the implementation of the national "the Belt and Road" strategy and the rapid improvement of domestic agricultural machinery level, the export of domestic agricultural machinery products has been steadily moving forward, and China's agricultural machinery industry has become increasingly important in the international market.
Overall, the international strategic cooperation of "bringing in and going out" in China's agricultural machinery industry has achieved significant results. Domestic agricultural machinery enterprises have achieved new performance in the "dual market" operation of domestic and overseas markets. The layout of foreign agricultural machinery brands in the Chinese market has also driven competition and integration between domestic and foreign brands. Globalization has become an indispensable label for China's agricultural machinery industry and market.
05 Large scale product localization level to be tested
Through the exhibition, we can clearly see that there is a clear trend of "one big and one small" in domestic agricultural machinery products, especially the large-scale production, which has undoubtedly become one of the highlights of the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition.
Taking tractors as an example, products with 300 horsepower, 500 horsepower, and even higher horsepower are no longer rare. Among them, there are first tier brands, second - and third tier brands, as well as new brands entering the market. To be honest, product display is only one aspect of industrialization, and the specific product quality and operational effectiveness still need to be verified by users and long-term operations. As far as the current situation of the domestic agricultural machinery industry is concerned, there are barriers and shortcomings in many fields such as the national fourth row amplified horsepower engine, clutch, hydraulic system, digital control system, core raw materials, etc., which require domestic enterprises to continue to tackle and break through. For the entire machine, reliability indicators, especially the mean time to failure (MTTFF) before the first failure, need to be highly monitored.
It cannot be denied that the development of new products, commercialization, product maturation, and industrialization is a gradual process that requires continuous innovation, improvement, and perfection. It requires countless efforts and sweat, and the efforts of all agricultural machinery workers are commendable. We believe that with the continuous acceleration of innovation in the domestic agricultural machinery industry, domestic agricultural machinery and equipment will soon seize the commanding heights of global agricultural machinery.
Next year, the market is expected to improve
Through the 2024 China International Agricultural Machinery Exhibition, we feel the resilience, perseverance, infinite enthusiasm, and continuously accelerating pace of innovation of all agricultural machinery workers. Overall, in 2024, domestic agricultural machinery enterprises did not have an easy time, and the overall agricultural machinery market slowed down almost throughout the year. However, the footsteps of agricultural machinery workers have never stopped moving forward.
There is a high probability of a positive trend in the agricultural machinery market in 2025.
Firstly, after several years of development, the impact of the epidemic on the agricultural machinery market has been completely eliminated. The impact of the epidemic cannot be ignored and must be faced directly without excessive elaboration.
Secondly, the agricultural machinery market has been in a continuous downward trend from 2023 to 2024, with market sales hitting a bottom and the probability of rebound increasing.
Once again, the huge market inventory formed by the upgrading of emissions from "National III to National IV" in 2022 has been significantly reduced after two consecutive years of digestion, and market competition is expected to become normalized.
At the same time, with the implementation of the national agricultural machinery subsidy policy, scrapping and updating policy, and the stricter assessment and supervision of the timeliness of subsidy fund realization in the new three years of 2024-2026, it will become a driving force to promote the slow rise of the market.
