China's agricultural machinery industry has great development potential for harvesting machinery

Driven by the purchase subsidy policy of agricultural machinery, the level of Agricultural Mechanization in China, especially the level of machine income, is constantly improving. However, with the transformation of agricultural production mode, the environment faced by the agricultural machinery market in China is also undergoing profound changes.

Not only that, affected by multiple factors such as the adjustment of agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, this year's agricultural machinery industry, especially the harvesting machinery industry, is facing fierce competition. The era of quality and brand competition has officially come, and the harvesting machinery industry in the adjustment period has begun to rethink technology upgrading.

If we fail to pass the threshold of technological upgrading, we will be eliminated. Gao Yuanen, honorary president of China Association of agricultural machinery industry, pointed out the bottleneck of the industry. He believed that China's harvest machinery industry should strengthen its sense of hardship and accelerate the pace of industrial transformation and upgrading.

In this context, the China Agricultural Machinery Industry Association held a seminar on the technical upgrading of China's harvesting machinery in Weifang, Shandong Province on August 4. Industry leaders and experts from well-known enterprises at home and abroad jointly discussed the technical upgrading and practice of domestic harvesting machinery.

The industry continues to grow

Harvesting machinery is a very typical and important product of agricultural machinery products, which has been attached great importance by relevant departments and industries of the country. Gao Yuanen told China industry news that China's harvesting machinery started in the 1950s, when the models imported from the former Soviet Union began to be produced in China. Although it seems to be a very backward model, it was very marketable at that time.

In the 1970s, China's harvesting machinery began to sprout independent innovation. The representative products include DONGFANGHONG-54 hanging wheat and rice combine harvester and the enduring Xinjiang-2. These products not only solved the problem of mechanized production to a great extent, but also laid a foundation for the development of harvesting machinery in China.

In the 1980s, China began to increase the intensity of technology introduction. Cooperating with world-famous harvesting machinery enterprises including John Deere company of the United States has broadened the vision of the domestic harvesting machinery industry.

Since 1993, small harvesters, piggyback corn ear harvesters, vertical axial-flow harvesters with a feed rate of more than 6kg / s, self-propelled corn ear harvesters, crawler vertical axial flow rice harvesters and other products have come out one after another. Today, China has formed a relatively complete industrial system of harvesting machinery for major grain crops such as wheat, rice and corn.

Gao Yuanen believes that the growing harvest machinery industry has two characteristics: first, the production capacity has been greatly increased. Not only has the number of enterprises increased rapidly, but the industrial chain has also become more mature. The supporting system of parts and components including hydraulic parts and engines has been gradually formed, and the industrial capacity has been greatly improved. Second, the product quality has been greatly improved. Many manufacturers have widely purchased advanced equipment, and their R & D and manufacturing capabilities have been continuously improved.

Harvesting machinery has made important contributions to the development of agricultural mechanization. Many models, including wheat harvester and corn harvester, are independently developed and manufactured in China. Gao Yuanen sighed: how great a leap has been made in the number of harvesting machines in China from 70000 to 1.5 million now.

The rapid development of the industry began in 2004. Driven by the central government's policy of strengthening agriculture and benefiting agriculture, especially the policy of purchasing subsidies for agricultural machinery, the agricultural machinery market, including harvesting machinery, has seen a round of rising prices. Although there has been a drop in the period, the industry has maintained a rapid growth trend.

A large number of well-known enterprises have developed rapidly. For example, Foton Lovol, Huzhou Xingguang, Tianjin yongmeng, etc. respectively lead the mainstream product fields such as wheat harvester, rice harvester and corn harvester. Some enterprises have performed well in several product markets, and some have created a legend of development.

While local brands are developing rapidly, foreign brands are also making a lot of money in China.

Take Kubota company of Japan as an example. It has dominated the rice harvester market in China for a long time. Although several of its products were suspended by the Ministry of agriculture at the beginning of this year and their subsidies have not been restored so far, Kubota has seized the market through a series of promotional methods and has still achieved good results. John Deere of the United States has also developed corn harvesters suitable for China's national conditions through its plant in Heilongjiang and has obtained good market returns.

The gap has not narrowed

Gao Yuanen reminded that China's harvest machinery industry should take precautions when the market is good, especially to keep alert to the problems that have plagued the industry for many years.

First, the core technology is not fully mastered. For example, how to really realize the multi-function of the harvester. Another example is that the world's advanced combine harvesters have become an information hub, which can automatically realize fault feedback and automatic adjustment. Information technology has been widely used.

This view was recognized by Li Yingjun, manager of AGCO (China) Investment Co., Ltd. He told the reporter that after nearly a hundred years of development and innovation, foreign harvesters are colorful. Their technical status is mainly reflected in the aspects of large-scale, universal, intelligent and informatization. At the same time, they pay attention to environmental protection.

Li Yingjun said that with the development of modern agricultural technology represented by precision agriculture, the technology development trend of foreign high-power harvesters will continue to develop in depth along the direction of large-scale, intelligent and informatization, and on this basis, a high degree of integration of informatization among agricultural equipment will be realized.

Secondly, the level of key basic components is not high. There is still much room for improvement in both the engine and the drive axle. Product homogeneity is serious. Many so-called innovative models only make subtle changes on the old models, and product convergence cannot keep up with market changes.

Secondly, there is an obvious gap between manufacturing and management level, and the industrial structure is unreasonable. There are more than 100 harvesting machinery enterprises in China. The industry has excess capacity, and vicious competition occurs from time to time. Price competition has gradually become a habitual means. With the promotion of market-oriented reform of agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, the industry is bound to undergo great changes.

Finally, the industrial chain is not perfect. Gao Yuanen pointed out that despite the rapid development of harvesting machinery, post-processing equipment such as drying and storage cannot meet the demand. And this is where the opportunities for future development lie.

The reporter learned that with the formal arrival of the adjustment period of the agricultural machinery industry, the problems in the development of the harvesting machinery industry began to highlight. It is worrying that local brands will be at a disadvantage in the fierce competition. Rice harvesters, cotton harvesters, sugarcane harvesters and other key products are almost monopolized by Japanese Kubota, Yangma and American giants, leaving less and less opportunities and space for domestic enterprises.

There is much to be done in the future

Gao Yuanen believes that although the development of the industry faces many problems, there is still the possibility of rapid and sustainable development.

From the perspective of industry status, harvesting machinery solves the problem of rural labor. More importantly, with the adjustment of agricultural industrial structure, the role of harvesting machinery will become more prominent and there will be greater market space.

From the perspective of market demand, the harvesting machinery market is changing from a fast-growing market to a stable updating demand. The update demand is relatively stable. According to the number of updates of 10 units per year, there is a market demand of about 150000 units per year. Gao Yuanen said.

From the perspective of product varieties, the product varieties of China's harvesting machinery industry are relatively single, and the machines and tools in the fields of cash crops, vegetables and fruits are relatively lacking, which provides a new impetus for the future development of the industry.

Ning Xuegui, Deputy Secretary General of the China Association of agricultural machinery industry, believes that the market demand for agricultural machinery in China is undergoing a major shift, which is manifested in the expansion of agricultural machinery users from single farmers to cooperatives, family farms and large agricultural machinery households. The demand of agricultural machinery in China is developing towards large-scale and double operation. Multifunctional and high efficiency are becoming the key words of harvesting machinery.

As Gao Yuanen said, the low level of key basic components is the main contradiction that restricts the upgrading of harvesting machinery products. It is the responsibility of component enterprises to improve the level of domestic harvesting machinery. Therefore, in June this year, Chen Zhi, President of China Association of agricultural machinery industry, and Ning Xuegui, Deputy Secretary General of China Association of agricultural machinery industry, led more than 30 heads of leading enterprises of agricultural machinery parts to the United States for inspection and business exchanges. This is the first time that China Association of agricultural machinery industry has organized component enterprises to go abroad for inspection and exchange.

The delegation inspected the Dutch tractor factory and gearbox factory of kessnew, the John Deere tractor manufacturing factory and the harvester factory. We also visited John Deere suppliers, a farm served by John Deere and a 4S service shop of John Deere for exchange and learning.

High level of digitalization and automation in the manufacturing process of multinational companies; High end manufacturing equipment is widely used and ergonomics is reasonable; The manufacturing environment is clean and pollution-free; The key parts are self-made, and the enterprise has mastered the core manufacturing technology, which greatly improves the added value of the products and enhances the competitiveness of the enterprise. Ning Xuegui shared his investigation experience.

In Ning Xuegui's view, the progressiveness of an enterprise is manifested in five aspects: advanced enterprise culture, excellent products, loyal users, advanced manufacturing technology, excellent supply chain and perfect after-sales service. He believes that enterprises should speed up the pace of information construction to meet the era of big data; Accelerate the improvement of enterprise service capacity and increase service income; Improve the core competitiveness of parts enterprises; Speed up the transformation of production mode, and use excellent equipment to improve manufacturing consistency.

Wang Legang, vice president of Agricultural Equipment Technology Research Institute of Foton LOVOL International Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., said that large-scale agriculture is an inevitable requirement for the development of large-scale agriculture, multi-function and high efficiency are the inevitable requirements of customers for comprehensive benefits, and vertical axial flow technology will become the mainstream technology of large-scale harvesters in China. The driving safety and comfort of machines and tools, the convenience of operation and maintenance, the self-adaptive automatic control technology of working conditions, and the remote service information technology are the main development directions of human-machine engineering technology.

Therefore, Foton Lovol is accelerating the upgrading of manufacturing technology. The company invested 360 million yuan to focus on the construction of large-scale harvesting machinery coating workshop, large-scale harvesting machinery assembly workshop and harvesting machinery testing ground; Invest 52 million yuan in processing, welding, coating and assembly to ensure the consistency and stability of product manufacturing quality; It also invested 60 million yuan to introduce more than 90 sets of automation equipment, focusing on manufacturing automation, testing automation and logistics automation, and improving efficiency and quality assurance capability.

According to Yang Yanjie, director of the first manufacturing department of Kubota agricultural machinery (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., Kubota is committed to building a system in which everyone can operate correctly. The company improves the operation quality through various measures such as improving the skills of employees, ensuring accurate operation, and visualizing on-site management, so as to ensure the product quality.