Following on from a difficult 12 months throughout last year, the registration of agricultural tractors in Ireland have seen a bounce for the first quarter of 2021 – with registrations up well on the same period in 2020.
According to figures released by the Farm Tractor and Machinery Trade Association (FTMTA) this week, which details tractor registrations up to the end of March, some 1,036 tractors were registered for the first three months.
Tractors
This is up well on the 896 registrations recorded for the same period last year.
In a breakdown of figures across the first quarter, March actually saw little difference in registrations – with 239 machines registered last month, compared to 238 in March 2020.
However, February saw a sizeable 39% increase in registrations – with 319 tractors registered in the second month of 2021 – compared to 229 in February 2020.
Finally, January saw an 11% jump – with 478 tractors registered, compared to the 429 recorded for the first month of last year.
County breakdown
Looking next to where these new tractors were registered, in a county breakdown provided by the FTMTA, once again Co. Cork accounted for the lion’s share – with 144 of the 1,036 machines registered so far this year destined for the “Rebel County”.
The county with the second most registrations so far this year was Tipperary, accounting for 90 tractors across the first quarter. In third place was Wexford, which recorded 71 new machines in the first three months.
County Tractors registered County Tractors registered Carlow 18 Longford 11 Cavan 29 Louth 16 Clare 42 Mayo 48 Cork 144 Meath 52 Donegal 27 Monaghan 23 Dublin 24 Offaly 31 Galway 47 Roscommon 39 Kerry 43 Sligo 20 Kildare 27 Tipperary 90 Kilkenny 61 Waterford 33 Laois 36 Westmeath 34 Leitrim 8 Wexford 71 Limerick 45 Wicklow 17 Total 1,036
At the other end of the scale, Leitrim saw the fewest new tractor registrations with just eight machines registered here in the first quarter.
This was followed by Longford, which saw a grand total of 11 new tractors registered so far in 2021, with Co. Louth rounding out third-lowest figures, on 16 machines across the three months.