German agricultural manufacturer Lemken is to exit the crop sprayer market and increase its focus on sustainable solutions including weeding hoes. The move is a result of the limited size of the company’s current share of the sprayer market, and is in tune with discussions around sustainable crop care and constantly increasing regulatory requirements in the crop protection sector that demand new methods of weed control.
Lemken CEO Anthony van der Ley said that after operating in this segment for more than 10 years, it had not reached a market-relevant size.
“The legal requirements in each of our markets are increasing and becoming more and more disparate. This means that there is no single Lemken field spraying standard that can meet our quality standards and the variety of customer preferences, with which we could achieve a satisfactory production run,” he added. “We’re also seeing that, even from a consumer standpoint, the boundaries for chemical crop care products are becoming ever higher. Although we introduced several future-focused new models at Agritechnica 2019, and our team is extremely motivated by the great reception, we’re choosing this moment to break from our field spraying range in a responsible manner.”
As a family-owned company, Lemken is taking this step to position itself strongly and independently for the future. This means that it intends to strengthen and expand its soil cultivation, drilling technology and crop care product areas in order to sustain its position as an innovative market leader. In doing so, crop care will in future be concentrated on sustainable solutions – including the comapny’s recently introduced fertiliser spreaders.
Lemken also acquired the Dutch hoeing technology specialist Steketee two years ago for this reason; creating the opportunity to combine mechanical weed control with precise, selective band spraying or spot spraying, thus contributing to environmentally sound solutions when compared to broadcast spraying. At the same time, the new process saves farmers time and money.
Mr Van der Ley has seen a trend to meet the increasing demand for mechanical weed control with intelligent controls.
“Not only does Steketee offer a range of innovative hoeing technology, it also has the most intelligent camera technology on the market,” he said. “We want to connect these machines to our digital solutions and make them adaptive. The environment is changing very fast right now. This is why farmers and contractors are now positioning themselves, whether they farm organically or conventionally, and are choosing the best model for them to be able to farm smartly and sustainably. It is a future theme for all of us, to ensure global food security despite environmental restrictions”.
Lemken’s site at Haren, where the field sprayers have been produced, will be retained and, in fact, be expanded to assemble seed drills in the future. This step will allow expansion to meet the steep rise in demand for these products, and make space for future models planned in the seed drilling and precision seeding areas.
The move will also free up additional capacities at Lemken’s main site at Alpen for the production of soil cultivation equipment. Farmers who own the company’s sprayers are guaranteed a continued supply of replacement parts, as well as continued access to customer service. Orders will also be accepted and fulfilled up until the end 2020.
For more information visit: https://lemken.com/en/.
