Material and technical base of agriculture: availability of tractors and the state of tractor construction

Abstract

  One of the main factors affecting the efficiency of agricultural production, timing and quality of agricultural work is the availability of equipment. Among all the variety of agricultural machines, tractors are of key importance. The measures taken by the state to support technical modernization contribute to the partial renewal of the tractor fleet of agricultural organizations, but do not allow to stop the process of its reduction. The existing volumes of purchasing tractors are not enough to radically change the situation. The fleet of agricultural tractors continues to decrease and along with it, the indicators of tractor availability are decreasing, which negatively affects the quality and timing of agricultural work. In terms of availability of agricultural tractors, Russia lags far behind the majority of both developed and developing countries in the world. The growing load on tractors and their high average age lead to violations of agricultural deadlines, increased downtime of equipment, additional material and technical costs for repairs, increased consumption of fuel and lubricants, seeds, fertilizers, etc. In the domestic tractor industry, a difficult situation also remains. The existing nomenclature and production volumes of domestic tractor-building enterprises do not allow to meet the needs of agriculture. There is practically no production of crawler tractors, specialized tractors for gardening and viticulture. In this regard, there is a high dependence on the supply of imported tractors. Despite the significant decline in machinery output in recent years, the Republic of Belarus remains a leader in the production and import of agricultural tractors to Russia and the CIS countries.