2016 National Farm Machinery Show: The Attendees Tell The Tale

Recently, I – and truth be told, most of the agricultural industry – gathered in Louisville, KY, for the annual National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS). Now in its 51st year, the NFMS typically attracts more than 300,000 visitors and just shy of 900 exhibitors to the Kentucky Exposition Center’s sprawling building over the course of four days in early February. As such, it serves as a pretty good measure of what kind of year is ahead for most folks that make their living from agriculture.

From all appearances, the 2016 NFMS was a big success. Foot traffic among the myriad booths and exhibits was heavy, but not packed shoulder-to-shoulder as in some of the agriculture industry’s “glory years” between 2009 and 2012. Marketplace talk on the show floor itself tended to vacillate between two recently-in-the-news topics – the continued drop in grower income levels as commodity prices remain low and nervousness regarding the wave of consolidations now sweeping through the crop protection suppliers sector.

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However, the best gauge of agricultural market strength or weakness doesn’t come from the conservations that take place on the center’s floor. It’s the attendees themselves that tell the tale. With so many visitors, the overall cross-section of folks at your typical NFMS is quite vast. But in general, attendees fall into two distinct categories – observers and buyers.

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As the names imply, observers are simply at the event to “kick the tires a little” on whatever equipment is on display. Most NFMS attendees – around 75% or so – fall into this group. Buyers, on the other hand, are looking to make purchases, and often snatch up whatever they can right off the show floor.

So what was the ratio this year? According to most ag retail equipment suppliers, there were a higher number of buyers in 2016 – approximately one in three vs. one in four – than in 2015. In fact, several ag retail equipment manufacturers such as GVM and Doyle Equipment Manufacturing Co. had “sold” signs placed on the various exhibit pieces at their NFMS booths.

“We’ve had very good traffic at the show,” said Erin Hutchison, a representative for GVM. “So far, it looks like it will be a better first-half of the year for us.”

I’m sure I speak for many in agriculture when I say that, hopefully, this will continue to be the case throughout the rest of the year as well.

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