Fresh off the launch of its latest Farmall tractor at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville earlier this year, Kurt Coffey, Case IH’s vice-president for North America, spoke at the show to a couple of trends he’s seeing in farm equipment.
Technology often plays a role in improving how things get done on the farm — and Coffey says FieldOps, an online tool Case’s parent CNH released in 2024, has been connecting with farmers.
FieldOps provides real-time display monitoring of Case IH machines across equipment brands to see their location, duty status, job completion time and more.
Users can also integrate on-farm data from other compatible sources into FieldOps to help streamline their farm operations.
“That new launch is probably resonating the most with our customer base,” Coffey says, as it allows them to improve farm management practices for a relatively small investment.
At the show, Coffey also offered his perspective on the state of the machinery market.
New equipment sales remained soft from the previous year, he says, and the brand has been taking steps to ensure dealers were able to maintain a good inventory of used equipment.
“We saw another downturn challenge about 10 years ago,” he says. “What we’ve learned is ‘Let’s be steady, let’s get ahead of the change.’”
For Case IH, that included building up its used machinery inventory in mid-2024 and lowering used equipment values. The company took this approach in order to ensure “general health” across its dealer network, he says.
“We’re taking it in stride,” he says. “This is an 180-year-old brand and we’re going to still be here in another 100 years.”
