A RECENT York Auction Centre online sale of second-hand farm machinery attracted unprecedented interest with more than 1,800 bidders from across the UK, Europe and other countries around the world including Egypt.

The centre reported a record 122,000 views of the online catalogue, which generated sales of 93 per cent of the 4,000 lots up for auction. Trailers were in extremely high demand and the sale included a Stewart GX16 grain trailer (10) which sold at £10,500, and a Bailey 14T and Larrington 11T both selling at £12,500.

Tractors also attracted strong demand with sales including a John Deere 6830 (60) sold at £24,500, a New Holland T7040 (10) sold at £28,000 and a Massey Ferguson 6480 (08) £22,500 and a MF 230 (83) at £9,000.

The lockdown period continues to have significant effect on the secondhand farm machinery market with long delays for delivery of new machinery due to factory closures, shortage of component parts and increased commodity prices, particularly steel. This in turn has seen high demand for secondhand equipment.

Richard Tasker, senior partner at York Auction Centre, said: “This time of year is always a popular time for machinery purchases as it is a quiet time in the farming calendar, money in the bank from BPS and produce sales and time to plan ahead for the forthcoming season. The quality and quantity of machinery on offer resulted in this being an outstanding online auction with the sale attracting huge attention from buyers from around the world wanting farm machinery. Interestingly though is this time of year usually sees strong demand for fertilizer spreaders but not this year with the cost of filling them; also the demand for ploughs has dropped with the move to non inversion and carbon sequestration.

“The sales field was open pre and during the sale for people to view the machinery and on the final day of the online sale a number of bidders from as far afield as Ireland came to York Auction Centre to see the machinery in person and used our internet facility to place online bids."

York Auction Centre holds the York Machinery Sales every month. The next sale takes place online between March 25 and 30.