The computer, the connection between farmland and tractor. Maschio Gaspardo business has grown by 50% in a pandemic year

While many companies have gone bankrupt during the pandemic, Maschio Gaspardo’s profit – an international agricultural machines company – has grown by 50% in 2020. Mirco Maschio, President of the Operational Company, has revealed in exclusivity for Q Magazine what made possible such performance.

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SUCCESS IS BUILT IN THE FAMILY

It has been 58 years since the Maschio brothers opened the company in Italy. Its rapid economic growth was due to a favorable context. “During the economic boom, Italy underwent major changes. The company has integrated into the trends of the period of growth, offering the market innovative solutions to support the mechanization of agricultural processes”, says the president of the holding.

The development of a commercial distribution network was followed by international expansion and the opening of subsidiaries in France and Germany. “It was an organic growth, through the development of new products and technologies, to which new goods were added after the purchase in 1983 of the historical company Gaspardo Seminatrici”. Subsequent concerns were focused on proposing a full range of products for all the stages of the agronomical cycle.

The business stayed in the family: at present, the two Maschio brothers, Mirco and Andrea, run the company and adapt the products to lower CO₂ emissions.

“In 2003, I was personally responsible for the starting and development of a greenfield-type investment at our factory in Romania.”, declares Mirco Maschio for Q Magazine.

In addition to its subsidiaries in Europe, America, and Asia, the company owns production facilities in Italy, China, India, and Romania. It is expanding in areas where it still has a low presence, such as Africa and South America, focusing on “developed markets, where the importance of technology and digitalization is fundamental, such as the United States and Australia”.

“The customer has become the center of our activity”, says our interlocutor. The business model focuses on the capacity to understand the customer’s needs through direct communication in the network of contractors, dealers, and large farms. One of the main factors of growth of the company is the customized relation, tailored for each customer: “We are working on providing solutions that are less general and increasingly oriented towards specific needs.”

DIGITALIZATION, AS THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE

How could agriculture, a millennia-old activity, which is at the base of human civilization, be digit? Maschio Gaspardo shows that it is possible and gives an example for this challenge, having as pillars of development the use of revolutionary technologies and the sustainability of agriculture. The company is constantly improving its products through technological innovation “to respond to the increasing demand for adequate equipment for high power tractors, to reduce costs by combining multiple operations into a single step and to provide solutions for sustainable agriculture, which helps to adapt to climate changes, by improving farmland management”.

“Digital innovation and sustainability are the strategic drives” of the development of the agricultural equipment company. The upgrade of this niche starts with the “electronic and digital evolution of the field, which changes the relationship between tractor and equipment”. The new technologies require the agricultural equipment to use sensors and programs “in order to determine not only how to work on the field, how to collect data, but also how many seeds, how much fertilizer or pesticide to use. The outcome is a more efficient agriculture, which guarantees higher outputs, optimizes costs and reduces waste, while at the same time reducing the environmental impact.”

Caring for the environment is a central concern of the new technologies for agricultural equipment. “Precision agriculture aims to have agricultural intervention precisely as much as necessary, to maximize output, while protecting the environment”, added the owner of the company.

HOW HAS AGRICULTURE FARED DURING THE PANDEMIC?

Paradoxically, although many agricultural companies recorded losses, Maschio Gaspardo recorded an increase of 50% in 2020 compared to the previous year. This performance is due to the uninterrupted flow of work during the lockdown: “During the pandemic, all our companies worldwide have continued to serve their end consumers, who were thus able to work to provide the food that we all need. This was yet another confirmation of the strategic role of agriculture, but it also mattered, however, for continuing to win market segments ahead of our competitors.”

While technical unemployment was a temporary solution for many agricultural companies, the Italian company attempted another approach, taking inspiration from the strategy of the factory it owns in China: “We knew in advance the protocols to adopt to limit the spread of the disease at the workplace. We tried to build a climate of safety among employees, through very good access to information”.

ROMANIA, “A COUNTRY WITH AN IMPORTANT AGRICULTURAL CALLING”

The Maschio Gaspardo factory in Chișineu-Cris (Arad County) has become the largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment in Romania, a performance achieved also with the help of EximBank.

According to the president of the company, the reasons why they chose to open a factory in Romania are the large consumer market, the surface of available farmlands, and the human potential for agriculture. “We chose Arad County because of the high level of expertise in metal processing technologies and because it is strategically located both for Europe and Eastern Europe, where most of the equipment produced in Romania is delivered. In fact, the Maschio Gaspardo factories abroad were not set up to relocate production, but for us to expand into markets with highly competitive local producers”, declared Mirco Maschio for Q Magazine.

Despite Romania’s agricultural potential, we are surpassed at production level by countries with less agricultural lands, being below the European average. The president of the company explains this anomaly as “a consequence of the low level of investments and training for small farmers, which can also occur at the level of large farms. One reason is that Romania has only recently started to benefit from European support for agriculture. However, Romania is recovering fast, thanks also to investments in the mechanization of agriculture, in digitalization and infrastructure, which will allow it to reach its full potential in the medium term.”

FARMERS’ TRAINING, ESSENTIAL FOR PRODUCTIVITY

Maschio Gaspardo  implements long-term solutions for  Romania’s current agricultural deficit: “Farms need to reach increasingly ambitious targets, such as an exact control of production costs, increased outputs, processing and, in particular, the interpretation of production-related data.” Mirco Maschio considers that “professional training is one of the key factors for the development of agriculture in this country”. Therefore, the company has become also involved in training future farmers and in 2016 founded an academy with the same name, “to improve the level of technical and commercial knowledge regarding agricultural equipment, among our customers, employees, and representatives worldwide.”

The factory in Romania specializes in the production of agricultural equipment for low plowing, plows, and round balers

EXIMBANK, SUPPORT TO DEVELOP THE buSINESS

“The collaboration with EximBank began in 2017 and continues to this day, being the main bank of Maschio Gaspardo Romania”, according to the owner of the company. The partnership has aimed from the start the development of the company, and “the bank was actively involved in this process, financing the implementation of investment and expansion projects at the factory in Chisineu-Cris.”

Mirco Maschio recounts the experience with the financing bank: “In November 2021, our company signed a reverse factoring contract with EximBank, for a maximum amount of 9,000,000 RON,  to support our suppliers. This type of financing allows our suppliers to finance their current business at a special interest rate, offered by EximBank, thanks to the support and securities provided by Maschio Gaspardo Romania.”

The effects of the financing are visible: “The investments made with the help of EximBank support the production increase by approximately 20%. The production area was enlarged by approximately 5 700 sqm and new machines were purchased, equipped with high technologies”, declared the owner of the company.

President of EximBank, Traian Halalai

Other Romanian companies can also benefit from this resource provided by EximBank,  to traverse the pandemic and continue to develop business plans and strategies. Within a governmental program, launched in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, large companies and SMEs with a turnover of over 20 million RON in 2019 can receive financing and guarantee products with the state aid component, provided by Exim Bank.

EximBank supported a 20% production increase

Romania has the sixth largest population in the EU and the fourth largest rural population. Thus, it has the sixth largest market for food and the fourth highest human potential for agriculture. We are, however, surpassed in terms of the agricultural outcome by countries with much smaller agricultural areas. France, with an agricultural area twice and a half times as large as ours, has a production level five times higher. Italy, Spain, and Germany, with agricultural areas twice the size of Romania’s, have a level of production three and half times higher than ours.