Letter from Europe: Europe waves goodbye to the old family farm show

Monday, March 2, 2009

No more are the big agricultural shows aimed at the general visitor from the countryside, complete with wife and kids. Now they are targeting the serious spenders

by NORMAN DUNN

Specialist visitors are now wanted at agricultural exhibitions – and they'd better have money to spend and solid investment plans for their farming businesses.
The chances are that they'll be asked all about these when they pass through the gates of a European farm show.

Is the "sacred" visitor count at farm shows really the best criterion for the success or otherwise of the event? When money is tight, exhibitors want to know more. What percentage of visitors are even farmers? Are there potential buyers among them and, if so, how many?  And what level of spending power might they have?

This winter, questions like these were raining down on visitors to the big European shows – "EuroTier" in Germany, for example, with over 1,700 exhibitors and 130,000 visitors. Its organizer, the German Agricultural Society (DLG), nowadays backs up these bare figures with intensive programs of face-to-face interviews to plumb visitor potential.

"The budget for these independently-run surveys during the event is substantial," admits Fritz Rach, DLG's press manager. "But it's crucial nowadays to know what the visitors have come to see and what their investment plans are.

Are they interested in new equipment, or maybe going to diversify and try something new?"

DLG runs a series of dedicated shows now, including the cattle-and-pig-oriented EuroTier, which also includes separate smaller "shows-within-shows" for poultry, aquaculture and  bioenergy production. On alternate years, the spotlight turns to farm equipment with animals left out of the picture altogether.

Rach says that specialization brings the right people to events, but he also sees nothing wrong with a wide variety of livestock subjects. "There are a lot of potential synergies in running a poultry show or a bioenergy production event as part of a cattle and pig exhibition. Visitors can find general equipment that serves all sectors." 

He remembers when the German shows were more aimed at the general visitor from the countryside, complete with wife and kids. "There would even be refrigerators and washing machines on display for the farm wives. This is no good nowadays. Exhibitors of expensive machinery want to know that serious spenders and specialists are coming."

Just how right this route is can be seen by the fate of other shows that have stuck with "a day out for the whole family" routine. These can be found in the form of English county shows, where there's something for everyone – from pipe bands to circus clowns and parachute demonstrations – but, in the last years often just a token appearance by farm equipment and livestock equipment suppliers.

Another big continental farm show, Denmark's Agromek event, is also changing from an all-round exhibition to alternating annual livestock and farm equipment specials. The Danish shows are, of course, smaller-scale than in Germany, where there are 400,000 farmers to start with. Denmark has fewer than 40,000 farms now with half of those only small-acreage part-time businesses.

Despite this, more than 51,000 visitors turned up for the last four-day Agromek in November, some 15 per cent of them travelling from other countries. "But there's still an argument for some diversification at our shows, because we feel the synergies between livestock and crop are too great in Denmark to be ignored," argues Gunnar Buck of Agromek.

But how are the potential customers treated by the exhibitors on their often extremely expensive stands nowadays? Certainly, the biggest difference is the general atmosphere of "business only." Gone are the days when there was free beer for most and maybe a bite to eat.   

Now, many of those perhaps genuinely interested in some piece of equipment end up queuing to get attention, while last year's big spenders are rushed into the VIP lounge.

Accepted wisdom in Europe this last winter was also that a few words of Russian (the language of real farming investors in the last few years) would get you ushered straight to the champagne bar on many a stand. Particularly at specialist farm equipment shows, things could get very frustrating for the ordinary farming Joe who is interested "only" in a new 60-h.p. workhorse for his medium acreage. Who can blame him for breaking off and climbing into the cab of a half-million Euro combine harvester for a few moments of dreaming?

And isn't that just the trouble with gauging customer value on stands with awesome farm machinery? Even penniless farm journalists can seldom resist taking a quick seat way up there behind a 20-metre cutter bar and pretending to be a farmer! BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.