Sales of new tractors in Northern Ireland for the first six months of 2020 were down 37.5% on 2019, figures from the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) have shown.

The total number of agricultural tractors registered for road use in Northern Ireland for the first half of 2020 was 218, down 131 on 2019. The Northern Ireland market accounted for 4.2% of the total UK sales.

Meanwhile, the total number of agricultural tractors registered for road use in the UK for the first half of 2020 was 5,195, almost a quarter lower than in the equivalent period last year.

UK trends

A decline was apparent across all power bands, except for the most high-powered machines. All bands below 160hp saw a fall of between a quarter and a third in the first six months of this year.

The drop was slightly smaller above this power level but only machines above 320hp saw a rise in registrations, being up 9% year on year. This pattern suggests that the decline in average tractor power seen in 2019 will be reversed this year.

The average power of tractors registered in the latest six months was just over 170hp, up by nearly 5hp on the same period last year.

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