Accredited official statistics

Machinery investment on farms in England: 2014/15 to 2023/24 - statistics notice

Updated 1 May 2025

Applies to England

This release provides estimates of machinery investment and sales made by farmers in England between 2014/15 and 2023/24. The results are sourced from the Farm Business Survey and relate to March to February years, with the most recent year covering 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024.

We would value user feedback on these statistics. Please send any feedback to fbs.queries@defra.gov.uk.

Key results

• Overall, the total amount spent by farms in England on machinery was £2.3 billion in 2023/24. In real terms, this was 3% lower than the 2014/15 value.

• Between 2022/23 and 2023/24, the average (mean) net expenditure (purchases less sales) on machinery decreased by 1% to £35.5 thousand per farm.

• In 2023/24, around three quarters (74%) of farms purchased machinery.

• The highest average (median) spend was on tractors, at £62.8 thousand, an increase of 14% compared to 2022/23.

• On average (median), farms spent £92 thousand on new tractors and £30.6 thousand on used tractors.

• Of farms buying new machinery in 2023/24, the average (median) amount spent per farm was £16 thousand, an increase of 1% compared to the previous year.

• Of the 7% of farms using grants to buy machinery in 2023/24, the average (median) amount used per farm decreased by 23% to £5.4 thousand; grants were mostly used to buy cultivating equipment and other machinery.

Points which apply throughout

1. The Farm Business Survey is the source for all data presented in tables and charts unless otherwise stated.

2. All figures relate to England, unless otherwise stated, and cover a March to February fiscal year, with the most recent year shown ending in February 2024. Fiscal years are shown in YYYY/YY format, for example, the period of 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024 is shown as 2023/24. To ensure consistency in harvest/crop year and commonality of subsidies within any one Farm Business Survey year, only farms which have accounting years ending between 31 December and 30 April are included in the survey. Aggregate results are presented in terms of an accounting year ending on the last day of February, which is the approximate average of all farms in the Farm Business Survey.

3. Data is expressed in current prices unless otherwise stated. Standard FBS practice is to report comparisons between the latest and previous survey years at current prices, whilst longer-term comparisons are presented in real terms. Real terms prices use the latest GDP deflator data, published 30 September 2024 at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ybgb.

4. All financial figures have been rounded to levels which are appropriate for their scale, for example, figures over £1 billion are rounded to the nearest £100 million, and figures between £1,000 and £100 thousand are rounded to the nearest £100. All percentages have been rounded to the nearest 1%.

5. The acronym ‘LFA’ refers to Less Favoured Area. These areas were established in 1975 to provide support to mountainous and hill farming areas. They are areas where the natural characteristics (geology, altitude, climate, short growing season, low soil fertility, or remoteness) make it difficult for farmers to compete.

6. Where dataset tables are referred to in the text, this refers to the ‘Machinery investment on farms in England: 2014/15 to 2023/24 - dataset’ file, which can be found on the publication landing page. These tables also contain further data on machinery investment, including breakdowns by farm type, farm size, performance band and farmer age.

1 Trends in machinery investment, 2014/15 to 2023/24

Figure 1: Total machinery purchases and sales in real terms at 2023/24 prices in England, 2014/15 to 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 1

Figure notes:

1. The breaks in the series shown in 2017/18 and 2022/23 represent changes in the method used to assign farms to a specific farm type. Where breaks occur, values have been calculated using both methods for comparability.
2. Values are shown here with 95% confidence intervals, which give an indication of the degree of uncertainty around an estimate; the lower and upper limits show the possible range around the published averages.
3. Real terms prices use the latest GDP deflator data, published 30 September 2024 at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ybgb.

Figure 1 shows that, in real terms, over the 10 years between 2014/15 and 2023/24, there were fluctuations in total machinery purchases by farms, with peaks in 2017/18 (£2.5 billion) and 2022/23 (£2.6 billion). The lowest real terms values were in 2016/17 and 2019/20, both at around £2 billion.

As with purchases, total machinery sales in real terms were highest in 2017/18 and 2022/23, at £580 million and £600 million respectively. Total sales were lowest in 2015/16, at £460 million in real terms.

In general, total machinery purchases and sales tended to follow a similar pattern to Farm Business Income, which also peaked in both 2017/18 and 2022/23. This suggests, understandably, that higher incomes lead to higher levels of machinery purchasing.

2 Machinery investment by type of machinery

Figure 2.1: Percentage of farms buying and selling machinery by machinery type in England, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 3.1

1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.
2. 95% confidence intervals are shown for total sales and total purchases; these give an indication of the degree of uncertainty around an estimate; the lower and upper limits show the possible range around the published averages.
3. In cases where the sample contains between 1 and 5 farms, results are suppressed with the symbol ‘c’ (confidential)

Figure 2.1 shows the percentage of farms buying and selling each type of machinery in 2022/23 and 2023/24; this is the percentage of the whole population of farms, rather than just those that bought and sold machinery.

In 2023/24, 61% of farms bought, and 21% of farms sold, ‘other’ machinery; this category comprises trailers, other movable and fixed agricultural and non-agricultural specific machinery, office machinery and food processing machinery. In the 2024/25 survey, ‘other’ will be split out into further categories to allow for more detailed analysis.

Aside from the ‘other’ category, the next most common type of machinery bought was small vehicles (cars, motorbikes, etc.), with 21% of farms purchasing them in 2023/24. The next most common machinery type sold, after ‘other’, was tractors, with 15% of farms selling them in 2023/24.

The least common machinery types for farms to buy and sell were lorries and green technology. In 2023/24, less than 1% of farms bought lorries and 5% bought green technology, while less than 1% of farms sold either.

There were minimal differences in the percentage of farms buying or selling machinery between 2022/23 and 2023/24. When looking at all machinery, the percentages of farms buying and selling both decreased by 2 percentage points, to 74% and 39% of farms respectively. When comparing machinery types, the biggest difference was in tractors, where the percentage of farms buying decreased by 5 percentage points to 20%, and the percentage of farms selling decreased by 3 percentage points to 15%.

Figure 2.2: Average (median) purchases (of farms buying) and sales (of farms selling) of machinery in England, 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 3.2

1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.
2. 95% confidence intervals are shown for total sales and total purchases; these give an indication of the degree of uncertainty around an estimate; the lower and upper limits show the possible range around the published averages.
3. In cases where the sample contains between 1 and 5 farms, results are suppressed with the symbol ‘c’ (confidential)
4. Cases where confidence intervals could not be calculated due to small sample sizes are suppressed with the symbol ‘x’ (not available)

Figure 2.2 shows the average (median) amount that farms bought or sold machinery for in 2023/24. The average values are calculated based only on the farms which bought (for purchases) or sold (for sales) that particular type of machinery. For example, the calculation of the average amount spent on cultivating equipment only includes farms which bought cultivating equipment.

On average, farms buying new machinery spent £16 thousand, while farms buying used machinery spent £12.2 thousand. Farms received an average of £7.9 thousand for selling their machinery.

The highest spend on both new and used machinery was on tractors, with farms spending an average of £92 thousand on new tractors and £30.6 thousand on used tractors. Conversely, the lowest spend on both new and used machinery was on other machinery, with farms buying spending an average of £6 thousand on new and £3.5 thousand on used machinery in this category.

Sales followed the same pattern, with the highest average return, £25.5 thousand, from selling tractors and the lowest average return, £3 thousand, from selling other machinery.

Due to low sample sizes, figures for average spend on new lorries, as well as used lorries and green technology, were suppressed. Figures for average sales of lorries and green technology were also suppressed.

Figure 2.3: Average (median) value of grants used for machinery purchases per farm in England, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Source: Dataset table 4.2

1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.
2. 95% confidence intervals are shown for total sales and total purchases; these give an indication of the degree of uncertainty around an estimate; the lower and upper limits show the possible range around the published averages.
3. In cases where the sample contains between 1 and 5 farms, results are suppressed with the symbol ‘c’ (confidential)
4. Cases where the value and confidence limits are all zero are indicated with the symbol ‘w’ (none recorded)

Figure 2.3 shows that, of the farms using grants to buy machinery in 2023/24, the average (median) amount per farm decreased by 23% to £5.4 thousand. Grants were mostly used to buy cultivating equipment and other machinery, with an average of £19.3 thousand and £4 thousand, respectively, per farm.

While there were year-on-year differences in the average grants for both cultivating equipment and other machinery, there was a large amount of overlap in the confidence intervals for these averages. This suggests that the differences may not be significant. Large confidence intervals tend to result from high variability, for example, reported grants for cultivating equipment had a range (the maximum value minus the minimum value) of around £22,200 in 2023/24.

Due to low sample sizes, figures for grants used to buy tractors, small vehicles (cars, motorbikes, etc.), harvesting equipment and green technology were suppressed. No farms in the 2023/24 survey reported using grants to buy lorries or green technology.

5 What you need to know about this release

5.1 Contact details

Responsible statistician: Cat Hand

Public enquiries: fbs.queries@defra.gov.uk

For media queries between 9am and 6pm on weekdays:

Telephone: 0330 041 6560

Email: newsdesk@defra.gov.uk

5.2 National Statistics Status

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. An explanation can be found on the Office for Statistics Regulation website. Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2014. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards (see contact details above). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Since the latest review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have made the following improvements:

• Reviewed and improved data presentation to better meet accessibility guidelines

• Automated production of the statistics using Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP)

• Reviewed and improved accompanying commentary.

5.3 User engagement

As part of our ongoing commitment to compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics we wish to strengthen our engagement with users of these statistics and better understand the use made of them and the types of decisions that they inform.

We invite users to make contact to advise us of the use they do, or might, make of these statistics, and what their wishes are in terms of engagement. Feedback on this statistical release and enquiries about these statistics are also welcome.

5.4 Survey content, methodology and data uses

The Farm Business Survey is an annual survey providing information on the financial position, physical characteristics, and economic performance of farm businesses in England. The sample of farm businesses covers all regions of England and all types of farming.

Data for the Farm Business Survey are collected through face-to-face interviews with farmers, conducted by highly trained research officers.

The data are widely used by the industry for benchmarking and inform wider research into the economic performance of the agricultural industry, as well as for evaluating and monitoring current policies. The data will also help to monitor farm businesses throughout the Agricultural Transition period.

5.5 Availability of results

All Defra statistical notices can be viewed on the Statistics at Defra page.

More publications and results from the Farm Business Survey are available on the Farm Business Survey Collection page.

6 Technical note

6.1 Survey coverage and weighting

The Farm Business Survey only includes farm businesses with a Standard Output of at least £21 thousand, based on activity recorded in the previous June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture. In 2023/24, the sample of 1,373 farms represented approximately 51,300 farm businesses in England.

Initial weights are applied to the Farm Business Survey records based on the inverse sampling fraction for each design stratum (farm type and farm size). Dataset table 16 from the Farm Accounts in England publication shows the distribution of the sample compared with the distribution of businesses from the 2023 June Survey of Agriculture. These initial weights are then adjusted, using calibration weighting, so that they can produce unbiased estimates of a number of different target variables. More detailed information about the Farm Business Survey can be found on the technical notes and guidance page. This includes information on the data collected, information on calibration weighting and definitions used within the Farm Business Survey.

6.2 Definitions

Machinery type

Tractors: wheeled tractors, crawlers, self-propelled sprayers, tele-handlers, bobcats, diggers/excavators, forklift trucks.

Cars etc.: the farm share (i.e. excluding private share) of cars, agri-buggies, utility vehicles and other off road vehicles, three and four wheeled motorcycles designed as all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, and trucks and vans with an unladen weight not exceeding 3.5 tonnes.

Lorries: larger goods vehicles and lorries over 3.5 tonnes unladen weight.

Green technology: all plant and machinery associated with the generation of renewable energy such as solar panels, wind turbines, anaerobic digester (AD) units and boilers.

Other machinery: trailers, other movable and fixed agricultural and non-agricultural specific machinery, office machinery and food processing machinery.

Net expenditure

All purchases (new and used) minus sales.

Farm type

This refers to the ‘robust type’, which is a standardised farm classification system.

From 2023/24, the classification of farms is based on 2017 standard output coefficients. The 2022/23 results have been recalculated and presented in this release to allow comparability between 2022/23 and 2023/24. The results published here are therefore not directly comparable with those published in earlier years, which are based on previous standard output coefficients. More details on the impact of the change can be found on the Changes to Farm Typology: Use of 2017 Standard Output Coefficients page.

Farm size

Farm business size in the United Kingdom is measured in Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) rather than by Standard Output grouping or land area. The SLR of a farm represents the normal labour requirement for all the farm’s cropping and livestock activities under typical conditions. This is measured in Full Time Equivalents (FTE), which is the number of full-time workers required. The SLR is calculated from standard coefficients applied to each enterprise on the farm. The standard coefficients represent the input of labour required per head of livestock or per hectare of crops for enterprises of average size and performance.

Farm business size	SLR
Part-time	Less than 1 FTE
Small	1 to less than 2 FTE
Medium	2 to less than 3 FTE
Large	3 to less than 5 FTE
Very Large	5 or more FTE

Performance band

Economic performance for each farm is measured as the ratio between economic output (mainly sales revenue) and inputs (costs). The inputs for this calculation include an adjustment for unpaid manual labour. The higher the ratio, the higher the economic efficiency and performance. The farms are then ranked and allocated to performance bands based on economic performance percentiles.

• Low performance band - bottom 25% of economic performers.

• Medium performance band - middle 50% of economic performers.

• High performance band - top 25% of economic performers.