Christoph Gröblinghoff has been active in agricultural engineering for decades.

The agricultural engineer, who is the chairman of the board of directors of the traditional Allgäu company Fendt, has already experienced everything, so it was to be assumed - and then came 2022. Compared to the problems that piled up before the mid-fifties, the shirt-sleeved Fendt boss still seems relatively relaxed.

This is mainly due to the bulging order books in Marktoberdorf.

“We have a high demand.

It is 15 to 20 percent higher globally than before Corona and is being pushed by the high prices for agricultural products," says Gröblinghoff in an interview with the FAZ

Uwe Marx

Editor in Business.

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That's the page.

The other: Fendt, this classic among German agricultural machinery manufacturers, has to overcome a number of hurdles from its position of strength.

In addition to the fragile supply chains, the war in the granary of Ukraine, climate change and electrification in the fields, there is also the race to catch up in America, one of the most attractive but also most difficult markets in the industry.

A lot of orders are well and good, but also the prerequisite for all the tasks that Gröblinghoff has to tackle.

Fendt, founded more than 90 years ago and part of the American Agco group since the late 1990s, will probably produce 21,500 tractors this year.

"Provided that there are no further dramatic disruptions to the supply chain," says Gröblinghoff, who has been running the company since the beginning of 2020.

Fendt is thus moving in step with its industry: It would have been better, but another record year, as was initially expected, has moved out of reach - including the all-time high of German agricultural machinery production last year of 10.5 billion euros.

Globally, the market volume was more than 120 billion euros.

A manufacturer without "system relevance"

Number games like this are out of the question.

"We suffer massively from problems in our supply chains, that's what takes the greatest toll on us," says Gröblinghoff.

It's a problem that everyone is currently having, but the urgency becomes clear in the details: "Semiconductors are the tip of the iceberg.

There are chips for which we paid 14 euros before Corona – today they cost 1400 euros on the spot market.” It is quite possible that gas will soon be added as a shortage.

“That would stress us out for a while,” he says.

Fendt is examining alternative energy sources, but these cannot be implemented in less than six months.

What's more: “At this point in time, we cannot assume that we will be classified as systemically important;

neither do our suppliers.”

The Fendt boss expects price increases of around 10 to 15 percent this year, which he has to pass on to his customers.

After all: "We must and can pass on the additional costs in the form of higher prices, because fortunately our customers also benefit from high agricultural producer prices."