Whether it's building a road or boring post holes, primary producers are increasingly purchasing their own earthmoving gear to get jobs done.
Skid steers have been popular for quite some time but some dealers are now witnessing a shift toward larger equipment like wheel loaders.
LiuGong distribution manager Johnny Inferrera said the LiuGong 856H wheel loader was the company's best selling product.
Mr Inferrera said these machines were being used for fence clearing, internal road building on farms due to the wet seasons and shifting lime fertiliser.
"What we've seen is a massive uptake in numbers across Australia, especially in WA, where this product is very well received and an accepted brand here now," he said.
"We've seen that fourfold in serial number retails across Australia over the last 12 months and the tax incentives have obviously helped us."
Mr Inferrera said LiuGong provided simple, effective machines that were well supported by the McIntosh & Son dealer network.
He said rather than waiting for a contractor to become available, some farmers were finding they could get a lot more work done by owning their own machine.
"The cost-effective purchase price of these, as well as the expense of actually bringing in a contractor, it's an investment in an asset that you've actually got all the time," he said.
For some farmers with John Deere tractors, purchasing earthmoving equipment that can also be monitored through JDLink was an attractive proposition.
AFGRI Equipment construction sales representative Leigh Esplan said the commonality between the products made life easier for farmers.
"The engines are very similar across the tractors and the construction gear as well, so a lot of them are liking that commonality for parts and one stop dealer for servicing," he said.
Mr Esplan said he had seen an increase in demand for compact track loaders, skid steers and mini excavators.
He said the variety of attachments available for these products now made them a convenient purchase.
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While he had received a few inquiries for wheel loaders at the Dowerin GWN7 machinery field days last month, Mr Esplan said it wasn't as high as some of the other categories.
"It's a little bit of a surplus machine and obviously the purchase price is a little bit larger on a wheel loader than it is a skid steer," he said.
"If they are not getting the utilisation out of it, they are probably not going to spend their money there."
Perry Read is an earthmoving contractor for the agricultural industry based at Lower Chittering in Western Australia.
The self-confessed "Caterpillar man" recently upgraded to a Caterpillar 950K loader and over the past five years has bought a second-hand roller and a new skid steer.
Mr Read said one of the selling points of newer equipment was the improved technology available and the reduced maintenance.
"I find anything up to $100,000, no worries new, but past that you've got to make sure you've got the workload to cover the repayments so larger machines I'll buy second-hand," he said.
New Holland construction product manager Jim Pike said they had seen the market explode year-on-year.
"When COVID hit we expected everything to slow down but it's really had the opposite effect; 2020 was a huge year, last year was even bigger and we expect this year to be bigger again," he said.
In terms of product purchasing choices, Mr Pike said skid steers were used by farmers across Australia and around the world.
At last month's AgQuip field days at Gunnedah, NSW, he also had customers calling in to talk about track loaders they had bought and how useful these machines had been in wet conditions.
"They can get out on the wet land where they haven't been able to get a skid steer with wheels or even their utes," Mr Pike said.
As well as demand from farmers, New Holland has seen equipment being purchased to build housing developments and from governments for road and infrastructure works.
"Those together, on top of farmers and people in the agricultural sector seeing the usefulness of construction equipment, have come together at the same time and helped see growth in the industry," Mr Pike said.
Yello Equipment national operations manager Craig Manuel said in some cases the initial outlay for equipment was cheaper than bringing in a contractor.
The company is the distributor of Sany equipment in Queensland and NSW and have been in the industry just over three years.
Mr Manuel said there were a variety of jobs farmers used earthmoving equipment for including building dams, fencing, clearing blocks and trenching for irrigation.
He said these machines were also being used in flood-affected areas to clear drains and gutters.
"They can keep the asset, do what they have to do, and at the end of that period they can sell the asset and it still holds its value fairly well," he said.
Wideland Group is the Queensland and NSW distributor for JCB and general manager Chris Swain said traditionally demand had been for telehandlers, and to a lesser extent, loaders and skid steers.
He said multi-purpose machines like telehandlers and skid steers allowed farmers to overcome some of the labour challenges the industry was facing.
"I think there's been a trend towards updating machinery, whatever that is, given the seasons we've had and we are seeing an increased requirement for these types of machines," he said.
"The second factor would be the tax incentives around at the moment; it's a prime time."
