Farm suppliers see orders stall as layoffs loom

Companies supplying Denmark’s farmers say new orders have dried up and layoffs are looming as uncertainty over the sector’s future puts investment on hold, DR reports.

Sales of new tractors, combine harvesters and other farm machinery are down 40 to 50 per cent compared with a normal market, says Klaus Nissen, director of the Danish Machinery Dealers Association. Service checks have fallen by at least as much, he says.

Machinery dealers are already preparing to cut jobs in offices, warehouses and workshops. Nissen says member companies have not reported so many redundancies in recent years, although he does not yet have figures for the total.

Several measures affecting agriculture have been introduced or proposed since the Green Tripartite Agreement was adopted in 2024. They include a fertiliser law, a temporary halt to expanding pig farms, an animal-welfare emergency package, a pesticide ban and a proposed four-party agreement on pigs. The measures are intended in part to reduce nitrogen pollution in fjords and pesticides in groundwater, but also affect businesses that depend on agriculture.

The temporary halt to pig-farm expansions has already left suppliers of livestock housing systems with little work, says Claus Hermansen, director of Danish Agroindustry. An internal survey found that nearly a third of the organisation’s member companies in the pig sector are preparing to lay off staff. Hermansen says uncertainty is damaging and has called on politicians to cancel the halt.

Thomas Christensen, head of member services at the Danish Association of Agricultural Contractors and Earthmovers, expects member businesses to lay off as many as one in five employees. He says the measures are being introduced too quickly given their complexity. The association represents 750 businesses with 7,000 employees.

Labour-market researcher Laust Høgedahl of Aalborg University agrees that tighter rules for agriculture will lead to job losses among suppliers, particularly in specialised businesses that rely directly on the sector. While the wider job market remains active, he says, finding work may be harder locally because many new jobs are created around larger cities, while agricultural businesses are often based in rural areas.

Nature and Animal Welfare Minister Christian Rabjerg Madsen says the agriculture sector and its suppliers have had time to adapt. He says the 2024 agreement made clear that nitrogen regulation would be introduced this year, and that the government is sticking to that timetable. Even a one-year delay, he says, would not necessarily remove the challenges.