New figures from the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) show that 44 new tractors were registered in Northern Ireland in January, up 83% on the 24 units registered in the same month last year.

Meanwhile, UK tractor registrations also had a strong January, recording a monthly total of 586 machines. This meant it remained well above the level from January 2020, up 17%.

Increase

The AEA noted that this was the fourth time in the last five months that there were year-on-year rises of this rate or faster.

That meant that the number of machines registered was close to the average of recent years, for the third month in a row, suggesting the tractor market is close to being back to normal after the challenges of the last year, where yearly UK sales were down 13.8%.