Kubota’s agricultural presence in Ireland has been given a boost with the recent appointment of Kevin Pryce as the company’s new dealer manager for Ireland.

Kevin joins Kubota from SAME Deutz-Fahr, where he has been area sales manager since 2008. As part of his previous role, he was responsible for sales performance and management of the company’s dealer network for the Republic and Northern Ireland, including management of pipeline stock and delivery.

According to Kubota UK MD Dave Roberts, Kevin has over 20 years of knowledge and experience of the agricultural market, and the skillset to develop the Kubota brand. He will be responsible for sales and dealer development throughout Ireland.

Commenting on his appointment, Kevin said: “It’s an extremely exciting time to join the Kubota team, during what is a period of significant investment in the agricultural business and the growth of its higher-horsepower tractor range.

“In my previous role I was central to the restructuring of the Irish dealer network, replacing underperforming dealers with those who better represented the company ethos, while also ensuring dealers were ready for incoming higher technological specification tractors. This experience will be key in my new role with Kubota, especially with the launch of M7001, and I’m looking forward to the challenge ahead for me and the brand as it continues with its growth objectives.”

Belarus tractors Ireland

The Belarus tractor range is imported by Colm Kenneally trading under the name Belarus Tractors Ireland. Having taken over from Belarus themselves in 2014, Colm is confident that the range of tractors is suitable for a lot of farmers across Ireland. A full range of parts are in stock and Colm has a team of trained mechanics to carry out the servicing. The price range starts at €14,750 plus VAT for 35hp and €20,750 plus VAT for a 90hp 4wd. Colm has a minimum of five new tractors in stock at all times.

Dealers are required in some areas of the country, depending on the volume of sales. For details, contact sales@belarus.ie or ring 051-898 956

800,000-brick LEGO tractor

All of us at some stage or other have built a tractor using LEGO®, but professional LEGO® builders Sarl ERC Briques have taken this a stage further by building a full-scale model of a CLAAS ARION 460 PANORAMIC tractor.

The CLAAS LEGO® tractor has been named TractoBrick and the mammoth task took 3,500 working hours, used almost 800,000 bricks including 388 different parts and weighs 3.5t.

The idea for the project originated in the Musée du Compa agricultural museum near Chartres in France, which needed a centrepiece for a new permanent exhibition in its great machinery hall. Here it will line up next to almost a dozen real tractors depicting the history of the motorisation of agriculture. The museum, which portrays the history of agriculture and agricultural engineering, is renowned for its first-class exhibitions and attracts more than 50,000 visitors a year.

A first for the Ploughing

Over 90% of the available space has now been booked for the largest outdoor event in Europe.

NPA managing director Anna May McHugh said: “Due to unprecedented demand bookings for this year’s Ploughing Championships are up almost 30% on this time last year. We are delighted that so many have already committed to the Ploughing, because that is a real seal of approval for the event. It is the primary aim of the NPA to make the event better every year for visitors and exhibitors alike and early bookings gives us much more design time.”

This year the core agricultural machinery companies, as always, will be the anchor exhibitors of the championships. The NPA is also at the planning stage of a few new initiatives in the machinery section of the event, which will add an interesting dimension together with a range of new exhibitors featuring in Screggan this September.

With record crowds of 281,000 visitors in attendance last year and excitement building already about this year’s new venue, signals would suggest another great Ploughing is on the way. According to the NPA, the livestock, food and lifestyle sections are almost fully booked, with the huge dome back again, featuring over 100 exhibitors. The motor arena will be significantly bigger following hugely positive feedback in this sector last year.

All of the firm favourite traditional attractions are set to return this year such as sheep shearing, hunt chase, pony games, live music and dancing, vintage ploughing, threshing and sheep dog trials.

In the ploughing stakes, a particularly strong programme has attracted entries from all around the country and Northern Ireland bringing the number preparing to plough in Offaly to over 300 for the three days.

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