Tractors in India

 

Tractors in India is a major industry and significant contributor to its agriculture output

gains.

In 1947, as India gained independence from British colonial empire, the level of agriculture

mechanisation was low. The socialist oriented five-year plans of the 1950s and '60s

aggressively promoted rural mechanisation via joint ventures and tie-ups between local

industrialists and international tractor manufacturers. Despite these efforts, the first three

decades after independence local production of 4-wheel tractors grew slowly. By the late

1980s tractor production was nearly 140,000 units per year, and a prevalence rate of less

than 2 per 1,000 farmers.

After economic reforms of 1991, the pace of change increased and by late 1990s with

production approached 270,000 per year. In early 2000s, India overtook the United States as

the world's largest producer of four-wheel tractors. FAO estimated, in 1999, that of total

agricultural area in India, less than 50% is under mechanised land preparation, indicating

large opportunities still exist for agricultural mechanization.

In 2013, India produced 619,000 tractors accounting for 29% of world's output, as the

world's largest producer and market for tractors. India currently has 16 domestic and 4

multinational corporations manufacturing tractors.

In 1949, Eicher Good Earth, was set up in India with technical collaboration with Gebr.

Eicher a of Germany, imported and sold about 1500 tractors in India. On 24 April 1959

Eicher came out with the first locally assembled tractor from its Faridabad factory and in

a period from 1965 to 1974 became the first fully manufactured (100% indigenization)

tractor in India. In December 1987 Eicher Tractors went public and in June 2005 Eicher

Motors Limited sold Eicher Tractors & Engines to a subsidiary of TAFE called TAFE Motors

and Tractors Limited.

Eicher also produced tractors under the Euro Power and Eicher Valtra brands under

license from Valtra, an AGCO brand.