Used equipment inventory declined by $10.9 million or 3.8%.
Total revenues declined by 14.0% to $189.5 million.
Agriculture segment product support revenues reported a tenth consecutive quarter of growth versus the comparable period in the prior year, a trend beginning at the inception of the segment.
Gross margin increased to 14.9%, up from 14.3% in the first quarter of 2015.
Gross profit decreased by 10.1% to $28.3 million.

The Association bid farewell to Elaina Jackson in April. Jackson joined the Association staff in 2012 as director of membership. At the time, we counted just over 600 companies as active members. Through her outreach efforts, total membership grew year after year and reached just under 750 member companies.

Highlights from the AEM Ag Flash Report for March. For complete data to to FarmEquip.org/Flash

Members of the Supplier Board of Governors elected Steve Kertesz to a one-year term as chairman during the board’s meeting in Clearwater last week. Kertesz, business development manager at Ingersoll Tillage Group, succeeds Jim Parsons as chairman.

A tax credit established under the Affordable Care Act aimed at small business has gone largely unused. Response to the Small Employer Health Care Insurance Tax Credit, which offers an incentive for small businesses to provide group health coverage, has been underwhelming.

Company founder Jon Kinzenbaw has assumed the role of CEO and Chairman of the Board. Susie Kinzenbaw Veatch, Jon’s daughter, has been named President and Chief Marketing Officer. Brian McKown has been named Executive Vice President and COO.

This is the seventh straight month the overall index has moved below growth neutral. Recent declines are the result of lower agriculture and energy commodity prices and downturns in manufacturing.

Since June of last year, prices for farm products have fallen by approximately 11 percent, and fuel by roughly 25 percent,” said Ernie Goss, economics professor at Creighton University and the keynote speaker at the recent 2016 Spring Conference in Clearwater, Fla

Moves by: Van Wall Equipment, Schenkelberg Implement and
Van Wall Equipment

A seed potato farmer from Post Falls, Idaho, has started a company that will deliver the first driverless tractor this summer. The tractor has no cab, steering wheel, seat, or gauges, will require just 75 horsepower and will be roughly half the size of a contemporary tractor.

PEER Bearing Company was awarded the 2016 FinOvation Award for the TILLXTREME maintenance-free bearing solution by Farm Industry News.

The Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association is among 600 organizations supporting a suit against the Department of Labor to dispute the final draft of the so-called persuader rule.

The rule requires employers to disclose any talks with outside consultants about how to craft their message to workers during union-organizing. It broadens an earlier rule that required disclosure only when these consultants talked directly to workers.

These member companies are celebrating milestone anniversaries with the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association. Their collective membership represents 155 years.

We thank them for their outstanding commitment to this industry and this Association.

Today the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association adds its voice in support of the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act. This important and reasonable federal legislation would require the U.S. Department of Labor to perform a detailed impact analysis prior to implementing changes to the exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees (the “white collar exemptions”) under the Fair Labor Standard Act’s overtime pay requirements.

Fastline Media Group was selected as a bronze winner in the 37th Annual Telly Awards for its piece titled American Farmer: Tools of the Trade.

Fastline Media Group’s American Farmer segment originally aired nationwide as part of the American Farmer TV series on RFD-TV.

In what the New York Times describes as the “starkest illustration yet” of the impact of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court deadlocked in a case that would give public-sector employees the right to refuse to pay union fees.

When the case was argued in January, the court’s conservative majority seemed ready to say that forcing public workers to support unions which they had declined to join violated their First Amendment rights. Justice Scalia’s questions consistently challenged the union position.

Industrial Hard Chrome (IHC), based in Geneva, Ill., has acquired Stelmi America of Marshall, Mich.

Ag Growth International Inc. has announced an agreement to acquire NuVision Industries Inc., which designs and builds complete turnkey fertilizer blending plants and material handling facilities. AGI characterizes the acquisition as a significant step in its strategic entry into the fertilizer sector.

Member companies Thurston Manufacturing and Dethmers Manufacturing, doing business as Demco, announced an agreement last week in which Thurston sells its Circle R Side Dump Trailer line and brand name to Demco.

Deere recently announced it has entered a joint venture with Hagie Manufacturing, which makes high-clearance sprayers. In the agreement, Deere acquires majority ownership of Hagie Manufacturing, which will continue producing sprayers in Clarion, Iowa.

After 29 years with the Italian Trade Commission, Alex Mussa has joined SNA Manufacturing, LLC, as its new director of sales and marketing. Mussa will be responsible for the overall sales growth of SNA’s farm equipment components division.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said because of circumstances such as slower-than-expected growth and collapsing oil prices, he forecasts deficits to exceed earlier projections. The promise of limiting the deficit to $10 billion will not be realized. In fact, the revised deficit projection for 2017-18 is $15.5 billion. This does not factor in the cost of Trudeau’s campaign commitments.

Krone North America is relocating. The manufacturer of hay and forage equipment announced it will move its corporate headquarters from Memphis, Tenn., to Shelbyville, Ind.

The family-owned, 110-year-old business planned the move as part of a strategic plan to grow its North American business.

Association members are on the look-out for strategic thinkers, relationship-builders, and talented communicators. Take a look at these open positions.

Marketing Director (Ad #111)

Sales & Support Specialist (Ad #112)

Sales & Support Manager (Ad #113)

Bad times come and go. To assure operations are positioned for the good times, manufacturers must act strategically to keep their workforce strong and engaged.

John Mills with Rideau Recognition Solutions suggests these strategies for keeping key employees during a downturn.

Three Kansas senators introduced a bill last week to reinstate taxes on owners of limited liability companies. Critics have blamed the loss of tax revenues from LLCs as one of the major culprits in the state’s budget challenges.

Lawmakers in Iowa on Tuesday passed a bill that couples Section 179 with federal tax statute. The state’s political analysts expect Gov. Terry Branstad to sign the bill.

This means Iowa farmers, for the year 2015, will be able to deduct in one year the entire cost of a piece of farm equipment rather than make smaller, year-by-year deductions based on depreciation.

Purdue University researchers have explored the impact of a ban on GMOs and said it could drive up consumers’ food costs by $14 billion to $24 billion a year.

The U.S. government has reached an agreement with the government of Peru to remove barriers for U.S. beef exports to Peru. The agreement opens one of the fastest-growing markets in Latin America to American beef producers.

Farmer panelists on stage at Commodity Classic told the audience that precision farming strengthens their bottom line.

“Every dollar in savings is impacting our profits,” said Dave Nelson, a corn and soybean farmer from Iowa. “It helps to focus on data collected from many different areas of production such as conservation, agronomy, and sustainable precision tools.”

Ag Growth International Inc. has announced the acquisition of Entringer S.A., a Brazilian-based manufacturer of grain bins, bucket elevators, dryers and cleaners.

AGI President and CEO Tim Close said this is the right moment for the company to act.

Six and Mango Equipment LLP, has acquired Grayson County Equipment

Rocky Mountain Dealerships Inc. has released its quarterly and year-end numbers

Forrest Wade Sealey, president of Gaston Sealey Co., Inc., a family-owned wholesale distributor of farm equipment, died Thursday, February 25. He was 64.

Alamo’s Agricultural Division recorded net sales of $47.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to $51 million in the prior year, a decrease of 6%. The division’s full-year net sales were $208.3 million in 2015 versus $214.3 million in 2014, a decrease of 3%.

Well-intentioned elected representatives passed state laws over recent decades to protect independent dealers from giant, multi-national corporations, but now those laws are being used to invoke buyback provisions, which advance “dealer purity,” hamper competition and deprive farmers and ranchers of the choice, value and innovation our members’ equipment brings to the market.

Highlights from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ Ag Flash Reports. For complete data, go to FarmEquip.org/flash.

The plaintiffs—Deere, CNH, AGCO, Kubota, and Husqvarna—also argue the law will terminate the manufacturers’ dealership agreements, creating “substantial uncertainty” in the marketplace.

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) has adopted without deviations two international standards for instructional seats and restraining belts on ag machinery.

ASABE/ISO 3776-2:2015, ASABE/ISO 23205:2014, ISO 12934:2013

Only weeks after the death of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, rural Americans who feared a pummeling by the Obama administration’s environmental rules are feeling the blows.

Alliance Tire has opened its fifth North American warehouse in Bolingbrook, Ill.

Several ag-related companies, universities, and others have formed a coalition to establish a repository of information farmers capture through more sophisticated, electronic equipment.

The new organization—the Agricultural Data Coalition, or ADC—plans to help farmers better control, manage and maximize the value of their data.

Ag Growth International Inc. has released financial results for the three- and 12-month periods ended December 31.

Meteorologist Dan Hicks of Freese-Notis Weather isn’t banking on the early fieldwork that some agronomists expect. With above-normal soil moisture in much of the Corn Belt and rainfall in states from Missouri to Ohio, fields may be fairly wet in March and early April.

The S3 family of companies has named Joe Gallant as its new General Manager for S3 Wireform of Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Gallant is a senior operational leader with more than 25 years of experience.

Despite wetter-than-average weather in California, some farmers are looking at another year of a zero federal water allocation, even as billions of gallons of water continue to be dumped into the ocean to save the three-inch Delta smelt.

“So we’ve not only decimated our economy, we’ve not only done enormous harm to millions of people, but we haven’t accomplished the stated purpose of these laws, which was to improve the environment.”

Check out this list of member companies celebrating milestone anniversaries. Collectively, they bring more than a century of experience to our Association.

Wells Fargo & Company has announced completion of the purchase of the North American portions of GE Capital’s Commercial Distribution Finance and Vendor Finance businesses, as well as a portion of its Corporate Finance business.

The United Soybean Board plans a digital communications strategy this year focused on technological innovations in farming, and it’s seeking information from companies who manufacture.

As we move inside the three-week line on the countdown to Clearwater, we are celebrating. There is work still to do, of course, but because of you, we face these remaining tasks fueled by success.

Over 300 Executives and Guests Now Registered

We are hovering on a new record attendance for the number of executives registered for Spring Conference, and we have shattered a previous record for exhibitors in the Supplier Product Showcase.

Results of the IndustryWeek Salary Survey have been released. Pay is holding steady and job satisfaction remains high, but economic challenges are tempering optimism.