Our Challenges
Taking up the Challenge of Large-scale Dry-field Farming in Europe in a Bid to Solve the World’s Food Problems
France is not only the world’s fifth largest economy, but also one of the largest agricultural producers and exporters in Europe. It is also a very affluent country, with a calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate of about 130%. It also has a thriving dairy farming industry, and the country is known as the “breadbasket of Europe” on account of, among other things, its cheese production, which is among the highest in Europe.
Kubota entered France in 1974, establishing Kubota Europe S.A.S. to supply compact tractors of around 50 horsepower to the European market. The main applications for these tractors were light civil engineering work such as soil preparation in parks and clearing sidewalks, as well as light work such as mowing grass. Our compact tractors—durable and easy to use—were highly regarded in their field. Later, in 1986, we established a production site in Spain for medium-sized and large tractors for agricultural use. The purpose behind this move was to expand our business not only in Spain but also throughout Europe. However, for a variety of reasons, in 1994 Kubota was forced to withdraw from the production of medium-sized and large tractors in Spain. But as finding solutions to food problems caused by the world’s increasing population is an important challenge for Kubota, it was absolutely necessary for the company to enter the European dry-field farming market if it were to tackle these issues in earnest.
In 2010, Kubota launched a much anticipated project aiming to make a full-scale entry into the European dry-field farming market. By doing so, we also set ourselves the challenge of developing large tractors for dry-field farming. Encouraged by requests from Kubota users to produce large tractors, we conducted careful market research, and decided to target 130 to 170 horsepower tractors for development. However, Kubota was a late entrant into Europe's market for large tractors. In order to gain an advantage over our competitors, we needed a tractor that played to Kubota’s strengths. Therefore, we focused fully on ensuring ease of use, pursuing the fine-tuned operability that we had cultivated in the development of rice farming equipment in Japan and applying this to large tractors for dry-field farming. This led to the introduction of the M7001 series in 2015. Kubota’s first large tractor for dry-field farming was met with delight not only in France, where we had won the trust of many farmers through our compact tractors, but in other parts of Europe, too.
It is said that the world’s population will reach 9.5 billion by 2050, but that the area of cultivated land will only increase by five to ten percent. Inevitably, we will need to increase our food production efficiency if we are to overcome this problem, especially in the dry-field farming sector, which has about four times as much area under cultivation as rice. A new challenge has begun in Europe.
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