AGCO posts lower profit as falling crop prices hit farmers

Oct 29, 2014

Reuters - Agco Corp posted a lower quarterly profit on Tuesday as growers around the globe, faced with falling prices for farm commodities, purchased fewer tractors and harvesters.

The company, which makes equipment sold under the Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra brand names, reported a third-quarter net profit of $65.0 million, or 69 cents a share, down from $125.2 million, or $1.27 a share, during the comparable quarter last year.

Revenue fell 13 percent to $2.2 billion.

Analysts, on average, expected the Duluth, Georgia-based company to post a profit of 62 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. (Reporting by James B. Kelleher in Chicago; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.