Demand for on-farm storage and grain transport options is booming across Australia's cropping zones.
For two Australian manufacturers, order books are filling up fast, while second-hand grain bins are selling for above new prices in some instances.
Orders are booked out for 2022 and selling is underway for 2023 for Queensland-based business Finch Engineering.
Situated at Kaimkillenbun on the Darling Downs, the Finch family has been manufacturing grain bins since 1983.
According to Finch Engineering national sales manager Brett Edwards, the need for mobile field bins has increased tenfold.
Mr Edwards said the demand for mother bins has been phenomenal and the business was selling twice as many units as it had almost a decade ago.
He said when people ring up, "they don't want a price, they want to order one".
Finch's mother bins are made out of Australian steel and vary in size from 55 to 145 tonnes. From start to finish they take about three weeks to construct.
"When I started in 2013, 95 per cent of inquiry was for chasers and 5pc for mother bins," Mr Edwards said.
"Four years ago that went to 70pc for chasers and 30pc for mother bins.
"In the last six months it has swung around to 60pc inquiry in mother bins and 40pc for chaser bins."
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Mr Edwards said when farmers were looking at buying it was often a case of whether the product was "a solution to a problem or a long-term investment".
Some farmers were willing to pay above new prices to solve a problem, he said, and cited an example of a five-year-old mother bin going for $16,000 above 2022 pricing.
It is a similar story for grain bin and silo manufacturer, Ahrens.
Ahrens Rural group general manager Aaron Bain said farmers were wanting to store more grain on-farm, and as a result, Ahrens' 1000 to 1500 tonne flat bottom silos were proving popular.
Mr Bain said he was expecting above average sales inquiry to continue in line with last year.
While the start of the year is typically a slower time, Ahrens Rural has experienced greater sales inquiry in the first two months of this year than it has previously.
Year-to-date inquiry for the business has increased 70pc compared to two years ago.
In 2021 Ahrens Rural delivered 2800 silos across the country, a 14pc increase on the year prior.
"The biggest increase was in NSW, where we had an 88pc increase on units in the 12-month calendar year," Mr Bain said.
"We have planned in our production schedule for north of 3000 units this year across our product range."
Ahrens is headquartered at Kingsford, South Australia, and operates factories and offices across the country.
Mr Bain said order books for Victoria were already out until October, with availability in the other three states from June onward.
With production schedules locked in six months ahead of time, Mr Bain said they were able to procure steel well in advance and overcome raw material shortages, which were being faced globally.
In turn this meant the business could provide greater assurance to customers that they would receive their finished product on time.
While individual farming needs varied, both Mr Edwards and Mr Bain said the trend was the same: farmers across Australia were stepping up the size and amount of gear they were buying.
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