On Thursday, AGCO Chairman, President and CEO Eric Hansotia participated in the 2025 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. Hansotia spoke about AGCO's retrofit and technology development strategies and about its PTx technology arm. He also offered a few words on tariffs and Ukrainian reconstruction, once peace comes to that European nation.
For the entire interview go to AGCO at: https://investors.agcocorp.com/….
The following are a few of Hansotia's comments from the fireside chat. They have been edited for space and organization.
TARIFFS AND TRADE
"There is a little uncertainty in the air these days. But at the end of the day, the world's got to eat. We would like stability. We'd like open markets. And we would like certainty. It's unclear how long (tariffs are) going to last. Right now, we're just kind of hoping for some kind of continuity and stability."
GERMANY AND UKRAINE
"One of the hot topics in Germany right now is what may happen in Ukraine. You know, Ukraine has been battered over these last three years. At least 30% of their crop land is no longer usable because of the war. But when peace (comes), there's a very high likelihood of a big rebuilding effort in Ukraine. Not only has the land been destroyed, so has equipment. It was targeted by the enemy to try and take out the infrastructure for growing food. If (Russian forces) saw a combine or a tractor, they were often targeted. There's a big need for replacing that equipment and helping farmers get back to being productive. That could be a boost for business."
TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT
"We've increased our engineering budget 60% over the last several years. But one of the things that makes AGCO unique is in addition to making our machines smarter, we've got this entire other division (PTx). It's just a pure tech division, and that group is looking at ways to create technology modules that you can put on an existing machine, giving them a new capability. We call that retrofit. So, once a farmer has a 5-year-old machine or an 8-year-old machine, they can retrofit it with a technology that now gives it a new capability. We do this on all brands of equipment."
STRATEGY OF RETROFITS
"No. 1, we serve all brands. No. 2, we do that through a dedicated tech channel ... all they sell is technology upgrades. They don't sell planters or sprayers or combines or tractors. Instead of talking about horsepower and lift capacity and hydraulics, they can go out to the farmer's crop and say, 'I see you've got an issue with your crop. Let's talk about what technology can fix that.' That's an entirely different skill set than the typical machinery salesperson."
FARMER-FIRST FOCUS
"We want to be the most farmer-focused company in the industry, spending time in the field with farmers, understanding their pain points and being fast at solving them in a way that produces a really fast (return on investment). When we come up with a new module that can solve a problem, we go to market first through retrofit. That allows us to be way faster, like two to three years faster, oftentimes, than a typical OEM (original equipment manufacturer) waiting until they can be ready ... on a global scale."
PTX INNOVATIONS
"Historically, we've been producing one or two new features a year, a new module or new releases. Now we're in the three to four range. Our aspiration is to get up to 10 plus per year."
AUTOMATION AND AUTONOMY
"There are about 600 tasks that a farmer still does (interacting) with the machine. Every one of those are an opportunity for us to make the machine intelligent (and) do it better than the operator can do it on its own. Our mission is to make the farmer 20% more profitable through each (autonomous) step we do. Our new sprayer has a targeted spraying feature. This new target spraying feature has cameras on it that look down into the field in real time, using AI libraries, identify the difference between the weed and the plant, and spray only the weed, saving (as much as) 70% of the chemical (that would have been applied). We're also selling autonomous kits today. We make an existing tractor an autonomous tractor. The first (task) we've automated is the grain cart. As (the combine) fills up, it summons the tractor and grain cart, no driver in the tractor. The combine unloads into the bin behind the tractor. When (the combine) is empty, it releases the tractor, and the tractor can either go pull off to the side or drive to the side of the road, if it's full, and unload. The next (autonomous operation) will be tillage ... We're investing so heavily in this because we see the advantages for the farmer and their profitability. The uptake has been strong. We're sold out of both our autonomy kits and our target spraying for this year already, in our first year being in the market."
Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com
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