Agco confirms plans to idle most North American production
By Lyle Niedens, Bridge News
Kansas City--July 8--Agco Corp., the third largest U.S. maker of farm
equipment, said today it plans to idle most of its North American production in
the final months of this year, laying off about 630 workers, as it attempts to
cope with the worst downturn in the farm economy in a decade.
Judith Czelusniak, an Agco spokeswoman, said that barring an unexpected
increase in orders, the company's Independence, Missouri plant will shut down
for the year on Aug. 13. Of the 413 workers at the plant, which makes combines,
huge machines used to harvest crops, only 113 will remain to service parts, she
said.
Czelusniak said Agco's plant in Coldwater, Ohio, currently in the midst of a
four-week shutdown, will be closed for the year on Oct 1, also barring an
increase in orders. Layoffs there will total about 300 workers, she said.
Another manufacturing plant in Lockney, Texas, which employs 56 people,
will also close for the year on Oct. 1, with about 30 expected to be laid off,
Czelusniak said.
Agco, which is suffering along with other large agricultural implement
manufacturers in the worst U.S. farm economy downturn since the mid-1980s, has
already idled production at its Willmar, Minnesota, plant, which makes sprayers
and chemical applicators. Since May, half of the facility's 250 employees have
been out of work.
The shutdowns will leave the Agco's plant in Hesston, Kansas, which makes
hay equipment in a venture with Hesston Corp., as its only functioning
machinery-making facility later this year.
"We will close lines as we need to, to bring inventories in line," Czelusniak
said.
This has been a tough summer for Agco, which owns such well-known farm
machinery brands as such as Massey Ferguson and Gleaner, as farm commodity
prices--a leading indicator of farm equipment demand--have plummeted.
Agco, which sells 70 percent of its equipment outside the United States, cut
1,400 jobs last
year as the U.S. farm economy deteriorated, and scaled back production at plants
in England and France.
Czelusnia said that demand for its machinery outside the U.S. has begun to
stabilize and that the U.S. is currently the only region where some of its
production lines are not running.
End
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