By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — You may have attended agriculture equipment shows in the past and gawked in amazement at the enormous size of some of that machinery. Some of those behemoths wouldn’t fit in most barns.

Did you ever wonder who is buying some of those gigantic pieces of equipment? Chances are good it’s not your next-door neighbor; in fact, most purchasers are overseas. The world is straining for modern farm machinery, and the United States is widely considered to manufacture the highest-quality and most advanced equipment around.

“International sales of large construction or forestry equipment, as well as semi-trailer trucks, is not unusual,” said Rich Vacha of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers of South Vienna, Ohio. “More than 100 used semi-trailer trucks were sold to one buyer in the Middle East during one of our massive auctions recently, in Miami.”

Ritchie Bros. is headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia, but has a satellite office in South Vienna. The Canadian company is an industrial auctioneer that has 110 locations in 25 countries and 44 auction sites worldwide. It sells through unreserved public auctions a broad range of used and unused industrial assets that are used for the agricultural, mining, forestry, petroleum and marine industries.

The fact that new and used farm machinery from the U.S. is heading overseas is a reflection of the country’s expertise in the world of ag iron. The U.S. is ranked No. 1 in the sale of new machinery sales worldwide, shipping out just short of $10 billion worth in 2015 – and those sales increased to $12.9 billion in 2017.

Sales figures released by the International Trade Administration show Canada is the top customer of U.S.-manufactured agricultural machinery, at $2.93 billion, followed by Mexico at $1.21 billion. Australia is third at $775 million, Germany at $382 million and Brazil fifth, at $274 million.

Rounding out the top nine are Chile ($227 million), Southeast Europe, including Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia ($129 million), Poland ($73 million) and Ukraine ($62 million).

These figures don’t include sales of irrigation equipment, particularly center pivot sprinklers, grain storage buildings and precision agriculture technology. The U.S. is the world leader in the production of this type of equipment.

“Although the sales of farm machinery has been in a slump since 2014 because of lower commodity prices worldwide, items like low- and medium-horsepower tractors and sprayers have seen increases,” said Catriona Rigley, press release manager at Research and Markets Co. “U.S. exports to China, Russia and the Ukraine have flourished as well.”

Of those three countries, she said Ukraine saw the biggest growth in new machinery purchases, as sales skyrocketed 204 percent in the first half of 2016, with tillage and planting equipment in hot demand.

“Trends suggest that the market growth potential for used equipment lies mainly in developing regions such as China, India and Brazil,” Rigley added.

She said her firm predicts the global farm equipment market to grow around 10 percent over the next decade, to reach approximately $368 billion by 2025. The Asia-Oceania area (China, India and Indonesia) is also predicted to dominate the market for farm iron.

“Although little information is available regarding international sales of used equipment, the U.S. enjoys a reputation of being home to high-quality large machinery,” said Doug Mitchell of JD Equipment, based in London, Ohio.

“Machinery from the Corn Belt, in particular, is highly sought after when foreign buyers are looking to invest in used equipment. The U.S. is best known for making large machinery suited for large farms growing grains.”

Mitchell noted that depressed commodity prices are hurting overseas sales of used iron. Other factors affecting sales include the strong value of the U.S. dollar and added import taxes. “Increasingly, countries are adding more regulations on imports, which makes exporting challenging,” he explained.

The next Ritchie Brothers auction will be held in Columbus, Ohio, on April 11. Call 937-568-9500 for more information about this sale.