Tehran Times Economic Desk
He noted mechanized agriculture's status is yet to be determined in the country and the required investment has not been made in this field as it depends on the government's macro policies.
Some tractor and combine manufacturing factories fail to provide the farmers on time and the delay inflicts great damages on them.
Pirne'mati, a marketing expert, said the government's late allocation of subsidies is the main reason behind the delay in deliverance of tractors.
The unplanned yearlong purchase of tractors is low in the early months of the year. Sometimes there is no purchase due to lack of agreement and understanding between the banks and the city and provincial rationing by the AJM, but in the closing months, the products are sold more than the monthly production. This process causes the agricultural machines to be spared from farmers at the proper time.
Engineer Marandi believes that the after-sales services are not good, and this problem cannot be resolved by supervision, laws or bylaws only.
He says that the factories have purchased their productions without paying attention to their ten-year commitments in regard of providing the spare parts, and it has brought about numerous complaints to the Mechanization Center by the farmers.
"Certain producers do not live up to their commitments even during the guarantee period, because they know that there is no competition in this arena. However, this process will be changed and replaced by a new process established in the Mechanization Center in the future", he stated.
Meanwhile, Iran's Tractor Manufacturing Co. puts the on-time accessibility to certain imported parts as a condition for the quality of the after-sales services.
Hussein Salehi, the managing director of Sirjan Tractor Manufacturing Co. says that according to the law, every producer is tasked to consider 10 percent of the spare parts for production, while no subsidy is allocated to the imported parts, which prevents rendering the limited after-sales services.
According to the experts, the correct planning is prerequisite to render proper after-sales services, and the farmers should have no concern about providing the parts, and every manufacturing unit is charged to provide the costumers with the spare parts at the proper price and within 10 years.
The issue of offering after-sales services is also true about the imported tractors. Given purchase of 1500 heavy-duty tractors with 150 hp from France, England, and Finland, and that 100 combine harvesters and 500 heavy-duty tractors are predicted to be imported this year, there is still question on supplying the spare parts of these machines. In this regard, Engineer Torkan notes, "In our country, the after-sales services have many problems. Although the urban consumers cannot receive suitable services from the sellers, they have fewer problems than the farmers. Thus, the mechanization center has tasked the contracted foreign manufacturing companies to render proper services." Delayed license plate for tractors, combine harvesters
To purchase the agricultural machinery, the farmers need bank loans, and Bank Keshavarzi offers these loans against security for property. Since, most of the farmers do not have the security for property suitable to the required credits, thus, the bank accepts the agricultural machines as the security on the condition of obtaining the license plate. For this purpose and in order to keep the agricultural machines, obtaining license plate for the machines was approved by the cabinet in 1995.
In 2003, Law Enforcement Forces deputy for traffic affairs embarked on preparing the required software to issue the license plates for agricultural machinery, and based on the ratifications of the Interior Ministry's Supreme Council for Traffic, the agricultural machines were expected to receive plates since early 2004, but no measure has been taken in this regard, and the responsible organizations have given no explanation for it. Torkan said, "In the recent years, the traffic deputy called for the Ministry of Industries and Mines to issue approval for the manufacturing units as well as the units importing the agricultural machines and has set this approval as the precondition for issuing plates. It seems that the precondition has created a difficult scenario in the process."
Since the world economic conditions and standards are different from those of Iran, issuing the quality approval creates difficulties for the numbering process, while numbering aims to enhance the purchasing power of the farmers and thereby increase demand according to the Fourth Plan.
Speaking about issuing the approval, Engineer Nosrati, expert for auto and engineering services in Industries Ministry said that the traffic deputy has called on this ministry to issue the technical approval for the agricultural machines, which consists of taking the approval of these machines from Karaj arable centers on their signature as well as the safety certificate of EEC according to the European standards. However, due to the problems of the country's tractor and combine harvester manufacturing companies, which are impossible to be resolved at the current conditions, the safety standards of the parent factories are presently taken for their products instead of the EEC certificate in order that these factories have the opportunity of adopting their technologies with the world standards. Commenting on the conditions of the imported products, Nosrati noted, "In order to use the high-quality agricultural machines, the imported tractors and combine harvesters should be approved by the Department of the Environment, thus we have set difficult conditions on these machines."
According to the experts of the Department of the Environment, issuing the approval for domestically manufactured agricultural machines, like other passenger cars, is subject to presenting a document indicating the observation of environment protection standard's rules and regulations. For the imported machines, the documents such as the Euro2 standard certificate are required.
© Tehran Times 2005
