BRITISH FARM IMPLEMENTS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25736, 23 February 1949, Page 5

BRITISH FARM IMPLEMENTS

BIG OUTPUT FORECAST 200,000 TRACTORS, MAINLY FOR EXPORT (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 22. A report on the coming year’s operations prepared by the “P.E.P.” organisation (Political and Economic Planning) for the British agricultural engineering industry discloses that British tractor manufacturing firms hope to produce 200,000 machines this year, and that the total production of agricultural implements and equipment may reach £70,000,000 in value —double the war-time peak. Of the 200,000 tractors, about 40,000 will be sold on the home market and the remainder will be exported. With this reinforcement, British farmers will be using 300,000 tractors, and may claim to be the most highly mechanised farming industry in the world. The great problem for the British agricultural engineering industry is whether, in the face of increasing American competition, it can sell 160,000 tractors abroad in the next 12 months. The report considers that the prospects of doing this have been improved by the extent to which British farm implement makers have opened up new markets since the end of the war.