Likewise the scale of India’s market and improving production technologies make it a relatively new source of tractors for the West.Īlthough tractor sales growth in China has stalled over the past two years, the trend towards better-equipped machines – and big investments there by Western manufacturers – have strengthened the country’s potential for export sales.Īnd in the sub-100hp and compact tractor sector, South Korea is already a strong player in the global production network. Turkey has huge manufacturing capacity – its tractor market, in unit terms, is one of the biggest in the world. Today, only CNH Industrial’s New Holland plant in Essex survives as a major tractor assembly centre, with JCB’s Fastrac production line near Cheadle, Staffordshire, being the only other source of UK-built tractors.įurther afield, Austria, France, Germany and Italy have managed to retain tractor production on a large scale, as have Japan and the United States – the latter being the source for the majority of the highest horsepower models used in Britain.įor simpler, lower-powered models with thin profit margins, lower-cost locations are increasingly being exploited. Long gone are the glory days when the vast majority of tractors used on UK farms were built in UK factories.