Anyone at last week’s SIMA show at Paris might have thought that it was almost entirely filled with giant French, German, Dutch, Italian and US manufacturers. But UK companies, though not exactly thick on the ground, were reporting good business.

A total of 22 UK firms were at the show under their own names, but a wander through any of the halls revealed various items of UK-made farm machinery on exporters’ stands.

Tim Dudfield from Grantham, Lincolnshire, firm Farm Electronics says 20% of his firm’s potato store refrigeration equipment is exported, with much of that going to France. He says orders so far for 2009 are considerably up on 2008, with lots of good enquiries from last month’s LAMMA show. The cost of the stand is also helped by a £1000 grant from the UK government.

On the Agrilead stand, which was showing machinery from a number of UK companies, including Sumo,Garford and Lishman, Claydon were showing their latest direct drill. Spencer and Oliver Claydon reported that interest in the equipment was good, though language can still be barrier when dealing with French farmers.

Over on the stand of Gloucestershire firm RDS, managing director Richard Danby said 75% of the firm’s products were now exported. The company makes monitors for sprayers, combines and loaders and sells mainly to machinery manufacturers. It has been attending the Paris show since the 1970s and says it now sells more in France than in the UK.

Graham Stannard at the Agricultural Engineers Association confirmed that UK farm machinery exports were rising. They went from £1.25bn in 2006 to £1.3bn in 2007 and then jumped to £1.5bn in 2008.

Though one or two big companies, like New Holland and JCB, are substantial exporters, most UK exporters are small-to-medium firms like Simba, Harry West, Teagle and a number of self-propelled sprayer makers.

And though 2008 was a good year for exports, it was an even stronger year for imports, as better farm profitability sucked in imports from the big European and US firms. In fact the AEA reckons farm machinery exports jumped by 35-40% in 2008.

This was also affected by big rises in sales of types of machines – like combines – that the UK doesn’t make at all.

Largely because of that, the UK balance of trade dipped from a surplus (£200m) in 2007 to a small deficit (£50m) in 2008. It’s also worth noting that back when the UK had three big tractor factories (MF, Case-IH and New Holland) the UK farm machinery balance of trade exceeded £1bn.