RB Global Inc. announced last Wednesday (March 4) it will buy Nebraska-based BigIron for an undisclosed sum, expecting to close the deal in the second half of this year.

BigIron, whose roots in the auction business date back to 1984, is now billed as “a scaled, agriculture-focused online marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of agricultural equipment, land, livestock, and other farm and ranch assets.”

According to RB Global, BigIron processed about $885 million in gross transaction value in the 12 months ending last Sept. 30, including about $520 million worth of farm assets and vehicles and about $365 million in farmland and real estate transactions (all figures US$).

“BigIron brings a talented team with deep ag sector knowledge and an established sales footprint that will continue operating as a stand-alone brand while being complemented by the Ritchie Bros. industrial footprint,” RB Global CEO Jim Kessler said in a release. “This will create opportunities to serve even more customers through a combination of onsite, offsite, and digital channels and solutions.”

BigIron co-founder Ron Stock noted BigIron will remain a stand-alone operation within RB Global, with he and co-founder Mark Stock “involved in the business as usual.”

“Through this combination, we gain a larger platform and additional resources, which is expected to help us deliver even greater choice and liquidity to all the sellers we serve,” Mark Stock said in the same release.

RB Global dates back to the founding of Ritchie Bros. in Kelowna in 1958, from which it expanded its services into the U.S. and overseas and bought several Canadian and U.S. auction firms, becoming publicly traded in 1998. Its corporate headquarters has since moved to the Chicago area.

In its last fiscal year ending Dec. 31, RB Global booked $412.8 million in net income on total revenue of $4.28 billion, handling a gross transaction value of $15.9 billion.

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The agreement allows for RME to sell the drill through its other locations in those provinces if demand grows.

The agreement will also see RME sell another of K-Hart’s products, which is currently under development, the Raptor stripper header.

K-Hart CEO Adam Reid said the company will debut the new header at the Ag in Motion farm show near Langham, Sask., in July.

“This partnership brings together an experienced dealer organization that understands local conditions and supports farmers with strong product knowledge and dependable service … giving producers added confidence in K-Hart equipment and the support behind it,” he said.

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However, the Sowa family at Wadena, Sask., about 200 km east of Saskatoon, say they have no plans to change their multi-brand, single-store business model.

Bill Sowa, 93, a founding member of Wheatbelt Sales, still comes in every day to the business his family members and partners now operate. The dealership can trace its origin back 60 years to 1965.

WHY IT MATTERS: With many farm equipment dealerships now merged into chains to achieve economies of scale, farmers might wonder if any other retail business model is still making a go of it.

“I was in Toronto and got interested in bringing back used vehicles,” recalls Sowa.

“We got really large into bringing back cab and chassis trucks. It was a real niche market. We would bring them back and put boxes and hoists on them.

“We were bringing as many as 70 trucks a year, so we decided to go into business. We decided if we’re going to do that, to take on a dealership.”

In the inventory

Incorporating Massey Ferguson and GMC franchises into the business was the start of what Wheatbelt Sales has become today.

“We dropped GM after a couple of years because we found out we could make more money with used vehicles,” says Sowa.

“It kind of interfered with bringing back used vehicles. People could afford them more, too. That had a lot to do with it.”

Eventually, Wheatbelt Sales also undertook another unorthodox sales initiative: selling used equipment to overseas customers. It also sought to sell equipment widely across the Prairies rather than just into its local area.

MORE READING: Can your cash flow handle new machinery payments?

Part of the business philosophy has been to have a large number of machines on the lot ready for delivery to customers.

“Bill’s always been a big believer in inventory,” says co-owner Jim Sowa.

“If you don’t have it, you can’t sell it.”

Originally the business was located at Invermay, Sask., but eventually the owners saw a need to relocate to a larger community, so they chose Wadena, about 50 km west.

Construction started on a large new building there in 1978 and the move was made in 1980. However, there was already a MF dealer there, so Wheatbelt had to drop that franchise.

With the need to take on a new equipment line, Versatile became the choice. It and Kubota are now the core brands at Wheatbelt, along with a number of short-lines such as Bourgault.

Standing solo

Over the years, Bill says he developed a good relationship with manufacturers, which he believes helped the dealership by getting customer feedback directly to them and ensuring new machinery arriving on Wheatbelt’s lot was designed to meet customers’ needs.

“When I was in Toronto, I got involved with Massey engineers,” he says.

He also became friends with Peter Pakosh, one of the founders of Versatile.

Sowa credits the dealership’s continued single-store viability to having a succession of good partners. The family members now invested in the business have also brought a lot of experience and expertise in their respective fields, which has benefited the company.

Over the years the service department has become a major part of the dealership, and the family recognizes that parts support is key to maintaining customers. With nine service technicians on staff, Juston Sowa, also a co-owner, says the company could still use another four.

“I would say service has become a big part of our business,” adds Jim.

Being supportive of the dealership’s staff has also helped retain existing employees for the long term, he says.

“We had a (60th anniversary) event, and it was very touching to have some employees come up and say they felt like family with us. Treat people the way you want to be treated, and that gets you the furthest.”

The company was reorganized in 2003 under the current ownership group, allowing a couple of the original partners to retire. However, the original intention to focus solely on a single-outlet business remains in place.

“We have no intention of opening any other outlets,” says Bill.

“If we do any expanding, it will be right here in Wadena.”

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The disputes have lowered farm incomes in North America — reducing the ability of farmers to buy new equipment — while having also increased manufacturing costs, making equipment more expensive.

WHY IT MATTERS: Aggressive U.S. government economic actions in 2025 reduced corporate profits across the agricultural equipment sector.

The imposition of countervailing tariffs on U.S. soybean sales caused a major income loss for U.S. farmers. Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola depressed some farm incomes here. Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada, which represents Canadian ag equipment manufacturers, estimates the sector saw a 30 per cent sales decline over 2025 as a result.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), which tracks tractor and combine sales, shows sales were down in both the U.S. and Canada.

In two-wheel drive tractors above 100 horsepower, the U.S. saw a dramatic overall sales decline of 22.6 per cent for the year. Four-wheel drive tractor sales declined 41.6 per cent and combine sales fell 35.6 per cent.

The picture in Canada was a little brighter, but still showed softer tractor sales. Hundred-plus-horsepower tractor purchases fell 12.1 per cent; four-wheel drives, 23 per cent. But combine sales grew about three per cent.

All of this happened as the farm equipment industry was already near the bottom of a demand cycle, with sales already slow going into 2025.

With Chinese tariffs on canola slated to return to more normal levels, Canadian farm income is likely to improve in 2026 — assuming weather events aren’t a factor.

In the U.S., the government has promised a second bailout to mitigate reduced incomes from trade disruption caused by the Trump administration, so there is some optimism for improving sales conditions in 2026.

But as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration maintains an aggressive posture toward imposing sanctions and tariffs on an apparent whim, as well as threatening military action toward historic allies, it’s anyone’s guess how the GDP of western nations will be affected. Farm incomes will be caught in that web.

Bottom lines

It is clear, however, that ag machinery brands will continue to face reduced margins in 2026. John Deere, for example, estimated mid-year in 2025 that tariff costs would add US$600 million to its costs for that fiscal year. It expects that problem to continue into 2026.

Much of Agco’s product line is built outside of North America and imported, making those machines subject to significantly higher tariff rates than machines built in the U.S.

Agco CEO Eric Hansotia said earlier in 2025 that the company would try to reduce the effect on imported equipment sticker prices by averaging tariff costs across its entire product line.

All brands in the machinery and automotive sectors are facing similar cost increases.

A statement by AEM said tariffs on steel and aluminum alone would impact U.S. manufacturing costs for brands by about seven per cent. That almost certainly means farmers will continue to face higher sticker prices on future machinery purchases.

Adding further uncertainty to equipment sales in 2026 is the upcoming renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

During a visit to a Ford assembly plant in Michigan in January, Trump said of the CUSMA agreement, “There’s no real advantage to it. It’s irrelevant,” putting its future in jeopardy.

More recently he added: “If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100 per cent Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the USA.”

That would violate the existing CUSMA agreement.

Ignoring trade agreements, though, has become standard fare for the president. This past week, he said he would unilaterally change a trade agreement with South Korea, upping the tariff rate to 25 per cent, simply because the legislative process there hasn’t ratified the deal quickly enough to suit him.

All this means no agreement with the U.S. can be considered firm and binding as long as the current U.S. administration remains in power. It will only remain in force until the president decides it isn’t.

The U.S. is now arguably the least reliable trading partner on the globe. That means how ag equipment sales will shake out this year is far from certain. Under the current U.S. administration, manufacturers’ costs and market access going forward are completely unpredictable.

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“The FX4 SP and FX4 18S are built for grain operations that require reliable, high-throughput conveyors that range from 8,000 to 10,500 (bushels per hour),” AGI’s senior vice-president for North American farm and global portables, Paul Brisebois, said in a press release.

The self-propelled mover kit available for the FX4 SP with all-terrain tires makes moving the conveyor around for those less-than-perfectly-located grain bins a little easier. The conveyor comes with a 37-horsepower Vanguard gas engine that moves grain through a 10-inch tube using a 15-inch belt.

Those features give this model an 8,000-bushel per hour capacity.

An under-hopper skid plate improves belt protection and allows for easier cleanup at the end of a job. It also offers a low-profile collapsible hopper and handler to allow for more clearance under trucks and hoppers.

The FX4 SP is available in 39-, 44- and 49-foot lengths. It’s available under the AGI Batco, AGI GrainMaxx, AGI Hutchinson and AGI Westfield brand names.

The FX4 18S electric top drive conveyor uses a larger 12.75-inch tube and an 18-inch belt, giving it a 10,500-bushel per hour capacity. It’s available in 39- and 44-foot lengths.

A new steel hopper option is available as well as what the company calls a “no-nonsense” discharge hood to better direct grain flow straight down. For durability and better performance, the belt runs on a new, larger drive roller.

“The FX4 18S is all about capacity and control,” AGI director of global product management Kent Woods said. “We’ve upgraded the belt, rollers and hopper to give farmers a conveyor that performs under pressure and simplifies setup.”

This model will also appear on dealers’ lots under the same four brand names as the FX4 SP.

“This series launch reflects AGI’s commitment to building smarter, more efficient grain handling solutions for farm operations of all sizes,” Brisebois said.

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Israel-based Galileo Wheel burst onto the international market in 2011 with its unique inverted sidewall tire design, which flattens out the tread surface in contact with the ground and creates a longer footprint than a conventional tire, making it perform like a track.

The rebranded name emphasizes that feature. The company describes it as “track-equivalent traction and weight distribution in a tire that installs on standard rims.”

The Trackwheel tires designed for skid steers and irrigation pivots are also airless, like a track, so they aren’t prone to going flat.

“In nearly 30 years in the the material handling and equipment industry, I’ve never seen 100 per cent customer satisfaction in irrigation applications,” said Chris Rice, executive vice-president of sales at Galileo.

“The rebrand makes the value proposition immediate: it’s a tire that performs like a track.”

Market penetration

According to the company, that satisfaction is due in large part to increased traction and flotation.

“They (customers) say, ‘since I bought the tires, the pivot doesn’t get stuck anymore,’ ” Galileo chief executive officer Armin Schon said earlier this year.

“We expect the same bang from the skid steer tires we’re launching.”

The company says it has sold more than 8,000 irrigation tires in the past few years and expects continued strong demand for them, despite their higher purchase price.

To back up their claim of superior performance and justify their higher cost than conventional tires, the brand is offering an impressive 10–year, 10,000 hour warranty.

Galileo Wheel is also hoping to increase its market penetration in the United States and Canada with recently increased investment funds. It sees the autonomous ag machine market as one emerging area ripe for market penetration, due to the segment’s expected 17 per cent annual growth rate through 2032.

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The company was contacted this summer by Time and invited to nominate its unique Razors Edge combine concave to be considered for recognition.

“I thought it was a joke, at first,” CEO Jeremy Matuszewski says.

“We weren’t aware they recognized inventions every year. After we won two awards at Ag in Motion, they reached out and asked if we were interested in applying. So we applied. It was that simple.”

WHY IT MATTERS: A harvesting innovation developed by a Prairie farm equipment manufacturer has now boosted the company’s international profile.

The Razor’s Edge concave beat out five other nominations in the agriculture category.

At Ag in Motion this year, Matuszewski praised the unique design of the concave line, focused more around “how the material flows through a combine.”

The concave line, designed around individual combines, is meant to improve cleaning and separation and removes the need to change between crops.

Farmers can have a slower rotor speed and wider concave clearance, and are also being sold on the design with a promise of more efficient operation and less fuel cost. They’re likewise promised that they can “say goodbye to the hassle of cover plates,” on the company’s website.

Features include a tighter design on the point of the concave with greatest crop impact. Material posted by the company points to lower grain loss during harvest due to fewer bottlenecks in material flow and, in general, better ability to “keep material flow smooth and consistent — no more overloads or downtime.”

History of wins

It’s not clear if winning the awards at AIM was what brought the concaves to Time’s attention, but, “the timing was pretty particular,” Matuszewski says.

Key prerequisites for nomination were that the product had to be new and commercialized this year and found to be making a difference in the market, Matuszewski recalls about the application process.

On its website, the magazine writes that it has been compiling its list of the “most impactful new products and ideas in Time’s Best Inventions issue” since 2000. It adds that editors evaluated each contender on “a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition and impact.”

In all, the magazine recognized 300 of what it terms groundbreaking inventions and 100 special mention inventions across a wide variety of categories. Aside from the recognition and publicity, there is no other reward for the winners.

The final list was announced in early October and the winners will be published in the November print edition.

“They put one (winner) on the cover,” says Matuszewski of the upcoming November issue.

“It is a housekeeping robot. It’s pretty cool. But you can order a cover they’ll ship to you with your invention on it. But it’s not the actual cover.

“Anytime you win an award adds more credibility to the product, but how the product performs is ultimately going to dictate the sales and ultimate growth of that product.”

Time’s list can be found online.

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Polaris says the Ranger 500 was developed to be a “value” machine, but even with a lower price it still had to offer capable performance and the features customers expect.

“Similar to all our vehicle designs, we start with the question ‘What does this customer care about?’ and ‘What do they need from their vehicle?’” says Brandon Kraemer, vice-president of product portfolio, Polaris off-road vehicles.

“With the new Ranger 500, value is key, but it also needs to deliver the Ranger brand’s reliability along with a practicality that is important to this customer. We focused on incorporating the features that a first-time side-by-side owner would find most valuable when working around their yard or property.”

Those features include what the brand calls user-friendly controls and a 28-horsepower engine, along with plenty of interior storage compartments and the ability to add several accessory options. The Ranger 500 offers all that with a simplified maintenance layout that allows for easy access to oil and air filters as well as other regular maintenance items.

That simplified design also extends to easy accessorizing. A factory-installed 2,500-lb. (1,134-kg) winch is available, and adding additional lights is an easy plug-and-play job.

The Ranger 500 has a relatively narrow 58.5-inch width that makes storing it easier than with larger machines that take up more space in the garage or farm shop. Its smaller size also makes it more nimble in tight quarters.

A selectable turf mode unlocks the rear differential to avoid damaging lawns on tight turns.

The rear cargo box gets a lighter load rating than most other UTVs at just 300 lb. (136 kg), but the tow rating is pretty similar to other models at a respectable 1,500 lb. (680 kg). It comes with a standard two-inch hitch receiver and is available with a chassis-integrated snowplow mount.

In past Grainews testing we found that while the smaller machines may lack the carrying capacity of larger models, they make excellent runabouts for quick trips out to the field or around the farmyard.

The most noticeable difference offered by the Ranger 500 is its base price: CDN $14,461, making it one of the lowest-priced machines currently on the market.

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“We wanted to focus on the openers for model year 2026,” K-Hart’s director of engineering Erron Leafloor says.

The openers will be available with a new floating carbide scraper design.

“It’s an upgrade from the traditional carbide edge scraper,” he says. “That (edge scraper) works in most soil conditions. But… in heavy clay or really light soils where the blades might not have much traction, we found a lot of advantages to that low contact pressure scraping.”

The double disc openers can be fitted with an optional stone guard to keep debris out from between the blades and protect the seed tube. That is particularly useful in fields with gopher mounds or other uneven terrain features the openers have to run through. It can be installed just on the front rank, or on both.

“It actually acts as a battering ram to blow through those mounds and keep mud from potentially plugging the seed tubes,” says Leafloor.

Behind the discs is an new packer tire option, which has a chevron lug pattern like a tractor tire. The lug pattern can keep water from running down the rows on hillsides and eroding the seed trench. It also provides what Leafloor describes as pinpoint packing, leaving soil less compressed between the lugs.

“This is important in wet clays sometimes, where you can have crusting where you overpack,” he explains. The packer wheel design also sheds mud a bit better than a smooth wheel.

“A real customer request we’ve worked hard on is getting rid of the greasing regimens on our openers,” he adds, “especially on the disc bearings.”

K-Hart, which manufactures its products at two plants in southern Manitoba and at Elrose, Sask., has moved to maintenance-free bearings with just a single grease point on each opener.

The company has also taken a close look at how the drills deliver seed, adding an optional package to extend the life of product lines on drills that seed a very high number of acres annually.

“We’re going to offer a premium air pack,” says Leafloor. “That’s going to include premium stainless steel pipes. It also includes higher-grade hose. This should give extra life to customers who are really trying to push this machine to its limits.”

The Spyder drill is available in 60-, 66- and 74-foot working widths that use the five-plex design. K-Hart also produces a 40-foot, three-section model.

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The new offerings include more three-point hitch attachments, such as box blades, rotary mowers and small tillage equipment. For the front end, the brand will now offer pallet and bale forks along with snow plows.

And there are new options for its line of UTVs as well, such as fertilizer spreaders and small disc harrows.

“Customer input is at the core of this expansion,” said Steven Benedict, product line manager at Kioti. “Our goal is to make it easier for our customers to find implements that fit their equipment, their work, and their budgets. This new lineup strengthens our ability to deliver reliable tools that help them get the job done season after season.”

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