HANOVER, Germany — The maple leaf was clearly visible recently at the world’s largest agricultural show.
“There is exposure here that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Lionel Labelle of the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership as he stood in the largest booth his organization has ever put together.
“Small equipment, large equipment, specialty, you can find it here. And the marketplace knows it.”
The agricultural world comes to Hanover in November every two years for Agritechnica, and this year included 2,500 exhibits in 27 giant trade fair buildings on the city’s Expo grounds.
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Canadian companies are spending millions of dollars to be in Hanover for the event, and they say they get their money’s worth.
Pat Beaujot of Seed Hawk in Langbank, Sask., is working with his company’s European partner, Väderstad, to bring their narrow-transport, European friendly drills to the global marketplace.
“We get things here we can’t through dealers or partners. We meet farmers from (other countries) who tell us what would make our products better for their farms,” Beaujot said.
Brian Dean of Seed Hawk said Russian producers told the company at the last Agritechnica that farmers in the former Soviet Union aren’t ready to give up on traditional fall tillage, despite the apparent value of zero tillage.
For this year’s show, Seed Hawk debuted a coulter on its parallel link hoe drill, creating an opening system that would work better in tilled soil than the company’s strictly no-till design.
“It was a farmer who told us, we worked with Väderstad to develop it and we release the product,” he said.
Beaujot said Seed Hawk has also learned by talking to farmers at the show that there was a market for drill sizes that it was giving up on in Canada.
“Thirty, 40 and 50 foot units are very popular in these markets. So we started building them again,” he said.
Farmer Randy Johner made the trip looking for technology ideas for his 17,000 acre farm in southern Saskatchewan.
“The agricultural equipment technology you find here has several years on us. We can learn a lot in a forum like this,” he said.
The Midale farmer was specifically looking for vertical tillage tools that he might want to import.
After two years of flooding, the Saskatchewan farmer is looking for ways to manage crop residue and prepare his seed beds.
Reinhard Grandke of DLG, the farm organization that runs the show, said Canada had one vendor at the show seven years ago. This year there were 100.
Rob Ziola of STEP has invested a record $750,000 in the show.
As well, Manitoba and Saskatchewan each have central pavilions at the event.
It is expected the show will register a record 400,000 farmers and agricultural industry representatives this week.
