ACI Bureau
John Deere, one of the largest tractor manufacturers, rolled out its 28hp tractor for small farmlands with advanced technology and features suited for orchard and paddy farming. The new four-wheel drive 3028EN tractor is developed by John Deere India and manufactured at its Pune facility.
The company has another tractor facility at Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, and a plant for making harvesters at Sirhind in Punjab. It has total capacity to manufacture 132,000 tractors. Recently, John Deere crossed the production milestone of 1 lakh tractors. Of these, 24,000 units have been exported and 70,000 units are meant for the domestic market.
Present in India for the past 20 years, John Deere has invested in state-of-the-art factories, innovative products, and new services to help Indian farmers be more productive. Besides the tractor and harvester plants, John Deere India has an Electronics system manufacturing facility, Engineering Centre and Technology Centre in Pune, Parts Distribution Centre in Nagpur, and a Captive finance company to provide financing solutions to its customers.
“Our journey in India began 20 years ago with the introduction of advanced product features such as power steering, oil immersed disk brakes, planetary reduction, force-feed lubrication and high torque machines. John Deere was the first to introduce these features in India and they have now become industry standard. We are proud to have helped lead India from subsistence farming to Agri-entrepreneurship. We have partnered with crop value chain partners for a holistic farm solution and have also introduced important safety features such as roll over protection and seat belts. Our product advances have been immensely valued by our farmer customers,” Satish Nadiger, Managing Director, said.
John Deere is also meeting the need to bring new technologies to tractors and farm equipment that lower the overall cost of farm operations, reduce the number of operations needed in the field, and improve the speed of seeding and fertilizing equipment.
For instance, he said, introduction of technologies such as a front PTO (power takeoff) and specially designed front farm implements have helped reduce the cost of some operations by more than 25 percent.
John Deere Technology Centre provides services and solutions adding value in areas of product engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, IT solutions and customer support services to various John Deere businesses globally.
The Engineering Centre has responsibility worldwide for John Deere’s design and innovation in utility tractors. Nadiger said product features such as perma-clutch, front PTO, power reverser, telematics and airconditioned cabin have been welcome features for customers. Adding ‘Green System’ farm implements and John Deere combine harvesters have created holistic farming solutions, he added.
Nadiger said John Deere’s investments over the past 20 years have been successful. He said, tractors and harvesters made in India are exported to more than 110 countries and John Deere India has received the Export Excellent Promotion Council award for 15 consecutive years.
In 2017 John Deere acquired the Wirtgen Group, the world’s largest road construction company. It has a factory in Pune. John Deere sells its tractors in India through 525 dealers and 1000 touch points that are located across the country. With the launch of the new John Deere 3028 EN, the company now retails tractors ranging from 28 hp to 120 hp in India.
Rajesh Sinha, Director, Sales and Marketing, said, “We provide John Deere products for a variety of agro-climatic conditions and crop types and this has been key to our growth in India. Our product portfolio serves individual farmers, contract farmers and entrepreneurs who are in the business of custom hiring.
Mukul Varshney, Director, Corporate Affairs said, “The current environment and priorities of the central and state governments are to bring agricultural reforms and increase farmers’ income. Precision and advanced technologies in the agriculture crop value chain are critical. Industry, academia and governments are coming together to have a far-reaching impact on productivity and farmer profitability. John Deere will continue to be a leader in these efforts and work on behalf of our customers.”
