"The luck of the SIMA." (Salon International de la Machine Agricole, farm equipment industry show in Europe)

"The Luck of the SIMA'

ANYONE WHO doubts that the Salon International de la Machine Agricole--SIMA--is the world's biggest event of its kind should go to one of its unloading areas on the morning of a peak day. In a few hours, there might be 600 buses dropping off farmers from all over France and neighboring countries. The crowd at the 1987 SIMA, held in Paris in March, was over 900,000 persons.

The visitors go to see a surprising variety of equipment crammed into five big buildings, one of them three-storied, and spread over several adjacent outdoor areas.

Do the big crowds mean that the farm equipment business is soaring across France?

The numbers say no. Wheel tractor sales, about 55,000 units at retail as recently as 1983, were down to about 38,000 last year. Export sales were off 18 percent to about $600 million and domestic volume was down 6 percent to about $2.2 billion.

So what makes SIMA pull so well?

Claude Jean, who is general manager of SIMA, told Implement & Tractor: "The attendance reflects more the concern of the French farmer for keeping up with new ideas, new techniques. They come even if they have nothing special on their minds. They simply want to stay up to date. But currently, many farmers come looking for something to help them diversify. Wheat growers, for example, may be hunting for a way to switch into pigs or perhaps vegetables.'

Jean added: "French agriculture is incredibly diverse. There are endless variations of crops, soils, weather and so forth that require different mechanical solutions, and that is why SIMA is so big.

"It is also the luck of the SIMA.'

Allocating space

Despite the problems of French agriculture, SIMA has no problem attracting exhibitors. "I am still allocating space, not selling it,' Jean said. "Because of the physical limitations, there is no place to put more equipment.'

Jean commented that if there were more space, it would still have to be judiciously apportioned. "We could sell more space to East European equipment exhibitors,' he said, "but we must first reflect the agriculture of France and Western Europe.'

SIMA had 1,100 exhibitors at the 1987 show. In addition to this main event, the organization also conducts three specialized agricultural-horticultural equipment expositions. Elsewhere in the Paris area, there is SIMAVER in September, organized for professional users of lawn, garden and horticultural equipment (even though the SIMA show itself has a building about 190 by 70 meters in size completely devoted to such lines).

For those interested in equipment for "intensive breeding' of livestock, there is SIMAVIP in December, also in Paris. And at Montpellier in the south of France every November, there is SITEVI, devoted to equipment for vegetable production and vineyard and wine operations.

Attendance of foreign visitors, always important in the international exhibition business, was down this year from 1986. Some American equipment marketers and other specialists were visible prowling the aisles, but the large U.S. agricultural tours seen at SIMA in the past were not. Some of the decline could be laid to the concerns that some people have about the terrorist activities that have plagued Paris in recent times. But Jean observed that much of the diminished foreign attendance was simply part of the hard times of the farm equipment industry everywhere.

Truly international

SIMA is a true international event. Not only are there products and visitors from many developed nations, there is even a section devoted to the needs of tropical agriculture. Dozens of manufacturers, not all of them French, show equipment which is usually very simple in concept and intended to be used under hard circumstances.

Many French farm equipment manufacturers have become export minded. Some of them participate in organizations which specialize, for instance, in marketing equipment in developing nations.

Photo: Claude Jean