Tractor sales slump up to 27% as EIMA 2026 opens in Bologna

Tractor sales fell 13% in the United States between January and September 2026, and the figures are worse elsewhere: Argentina recorded a 27% decline between January and June, and Brazil lost 19% between January and July. Those numbers, presented by Italian farm machinery federation FederUnacoma, frame the commercial backdrop for EIMA International 2026, which opened in Bologna yesterday and runs until 14 November.

The scale of the downturn is unusually broad. It hits the Americas, Europe and Australia at the same time, sparing only the high-volume Asian markets.

What is driving the decline?

Speaking at the pre-expo press conference on 9 November, FederUnacoma President Mariaterisa Maschio — the federation's president, whose organisation represents Italian agricultural machinery manufacturers — said the sector had entered a critical phase despite healthy underlying demand for mechanisation.

"Despite rising and increasingly diversified potential demand, the agricultural machinery market is currently experiencing a critical phase," she said.

Maschio identified three converging pressures: weak economic conditions, climate pressures and geopolitical tensions. On the farm side, rising energy and fertiliser costs are squeezing margins at the same time as production volumes fall.

"Declining production, combined with rising costs, is resulting in lower farm incomes, which objectively limits farmers' ability to invest in new technologies," she explained.

That squeeze reaches manufacturers too. Industrial costs have climbed, forcing list prices up at precisely the moment when farm customers can least afford to pay them.

"Machinery manufacturers are facing rising production costs and consequently higher list prices precisely at a time when agricultural businesses are experiencing a significant reduction in spending capacity," Maschio said.

How deep do the national numbers go?

FederUnacoma's presentation compiles registration data from the major tractor markets:

• US: down 13%, January to September 2026
• Canada: down 10% over the same period
• Brazil: down 19%, January to July
• Argentina: down 27%, January to June
• Australia: down 11%, January to September

Europe weakened as well during the first nine months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Germany fell 6%, France 3.3%, Spain 4.6% and Poland 18.8% — the sharpest contraction in the EU dataset.

Italy, the host market, tells the same story in more detail. Tractor registrations fell 5.4% in the first ten months of the year, to 13,592 units. FederUnacoma expects total turnover in the Italian agricultural machinery industry to decline 4.3% in 2026 to roughly €13.7 billion, with exports down 5.1% to €4.1 billion.

To put that in perspective: Italy's projected €4.1 billion in machinery exports is close to the value of falling sales in Poland alone expressed in percentage terms for the whole European decline — a measure of how far the weakness has spread beyond any single national market.

Where is the growth?

China and India buck the trend. India is expected to pass one million tractor registrations in 2026, supported by strong demand for low- and medium-horsepower machines — the segment many Western manufacturers have de-emphasised — and by government-backed agricultural development programmes.

What role does EIMA play against this backdrop?

FederUnacoma Director-General Simona Rapastella said technological innovation remains the sector's central response to agricultural challenges, and the fair's structure reflects that. She highlighted advances in digital agriculture, artificial intelligence, sensors, electrification and robotics as areas where machinery can lift productivity, strengthen food security and address environmental pressures.

The numbers behind the event give manufacturers their reason to keep showing up: 1,800 exhibitors, including 690 foreign companies from 45 countries, displaying roughly 60,000 machinery and equipment models across 14 product sectors and seven specialised showcases.

For farmers and contractors tracking machinery pricing, the practical signal is clear. With manufacturers carrying higher list prices into a market of weakening demand, the balance of negotiating power at this cycle's trade fairs is shifting toward the buyer. Watch the order books reported out of Bologna this week, and the fourth-quarter registration data from Italy and Germany, for the first indication of whether the downturn bottoms out in early 2027.