Estimation of the Remaining Value for Grape Harvesters Based on Second-Hand European Market Online Data

Wilson Valente Da Costa Neto,Pilar Barreiro Elorza

doi:10.3390/agronomy11091802

Abstract

Assessing the remaining value (RV) of agricultural machines is essential to compute the depreciation costs, especially in the second-hand market, although previous scientific studies have employed the scrap value as an estimate of RV (10 years of life). Since Brazil, a developing country, is at the very first steps of the process of grape harvest mechanization, it is likely that second-hand grape harvesters will be mainly machines that will be imported and employed for this task. ASABE has developed a methodology to evaluate RV based on an experimental formula that takes into account the auction value, the age and the intensity of annual use. Our work adjusted the RV coefficients for grape harvesters based on the online European market (Spain and France) considering 1290 visited reporting brands, models, ages, hours of use and sale value, refined to 89 unique records. For self-propelled grape harvesters, two types of ownership were identified based on the normal distribution of annual use intensity: private owners (22) and farm service providers (6), with an average RV of 28% and 40% of auction value, respectively. For trailed harvesters, the average RV for a machine age shorter than 13.5 years was 36% of the auction value compared to 12.5% for a life of more than 24 years. The performance of the RV models (R2) based on the formulation of ASABE (American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) amounted to 0.86 and 0.85 for self-propelled and trailed harvesters.

Highlights

The importance of mechanized systems in viticulture is readily assumed due to their efficiency, productivity and reduction in production costs which provide a better use of resources in general, increasing international competitiveness as long as product quality is maintained or improved [1,2].Grape harvesters were initially conceived in the United States in the 1950s, and France began mechanized harvesting trials in the late 1960s [1,2,3]
To contribute to the very first steps of the process of grape harvest mechanization, a database of second-hand grape harvesters was gathered based on the online European market (Spain and France) considering 1290 visited ads in the period from September to October 2017, refined to 89 unique records (44 complete)
The estimation of the remaining value (%) for grape harvesters was addressed by means of ASABE formulation

Summary

Introduction

The importance of mechanized systems in viticulture is readily assumed due to their efficiency, productivity and reduction in production costs which provide a better use of resources in general, increasing international competitiveness as long as product quality is maintained or improved [1,2].Grape harvesters were initially conceived in the United States in the 1950s, and France began mechanized harvesting trials in the late 1960s [1,2,3]. According to [4], France (750,000 ha of vineyards [5]) prevails internationally in grape harvesting manufacturing and commercialization, with 600 machines destined for the domestic market in 2016 and exported in the same period (36% total Spain). In Spain (975,000 ha of vineyards), the beginning of mechanical grape harvesting took place in the mid-1990s with its first 15 units, while currently amounting to almost 3000 units, with 50% of them being the trailed type [6]. Self-propelled grape harvesters provide a significant 47% to 64% improvement in average field performances compared to trailed harvesters [2,3,4,5,6,7], fixed and variable costs should be taken into account to assess the profitability threshold for each of them. The depreciation cost (main contributor to fixed costs) can be computed as a function of list

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