Not every farm tractor is… well, a farm tractor.

Sometimes a piece of equipment so identified with working between the rows is called upon to work between the ditches. Oh, and work in the ditches, too.

“We’ve got 360 miles of road, and part of those miles is dirt road,” says Andy Brandt, the public works director in the rural municipality (RM) of Taché, just to the southeast of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. “And when it comes to ditches, you can multiply that number by two,” he says, adding that some of those drains are 9 feet deep.

There’s a lot to tend to in those hundreds of miles, and a lot that can challenge equipment. Road maintenance and mowing in the warmer months. Snow moving in the winter. Important work. “We have quite a bit of heavy equipment,” says Brandt: “Graders, excavators, track loaders… right down to farm tractors.”

For RM Taché, those farm tractors are a Fendt 716, currently in service, and a Fendt 718 that is on order.

He mentions the Fendt tractor particularly is under “heavy use,” busy with the kinds of daily chores that might be expected of a Fendt on a farm. In fact, the work may be even more demanding, “to the extreme where they work up to 16 hours (a day), in 30-below-Celsius weather,” he says.

Keep in mind, too, that means an operator is pulling some extreme hours in extreme conditions, too, and down time is not an option. Says RM Taché’s Lead Hand, Ken Manaigre: “The amount of square miles we cover is very demanding on the equipment we have, and downtime for us is service not being rendered to our taxpayers,” he says.

“A rural municipality is similar to a county in the United States,” says Brandt. “We are a government jurisdiction; we collect taxes and provide services for our residents.” Besides managing the public works team and projects in the RM, Brandt also makes recommendations to the RM Council (again, like a county commission or city council in the States) on how best to spend public funds on equipment.

“I’m not going to them asking for heated leather seats or anything like that,” laughs Brandt, “but I am asking them for the best. And my council is very supportive of that.”

Having the best equipment on hand means working through demanding jobs in the time and fashion that taxpayers and decision-makers expect, says Brandt. A good snow can mean 4 to 5 feet covering roadways, clogging ditches, and drifting to double that height. Besides clearing roads, which residents expect within a day’s time, snow must also be cleared from ditches to avoid drainage problems that can lead to flooding.

Meanwhile, Manaigre is no stranger to covering miles, or acres, in the cab of a tractor. “I was born and raised on a farm here in Taché… a fairly large farm, large equipment, large tractors,” he says. Brandt says Manaigre helps the RM keep up with the ever-evolving equipment landscape, something that can be a significant challenge for government entities, especially when it comes time to spend the taxpayers’ money.

About two-thirds of the land in RM Taché is in farms, including that of Manaigre’s family. Brandt says he has “watched some (other) local farmers utilize Fendt tractors in our municipality over the years. We’ve always dreamt about using a Fendt.” There is a growing following of farmers in the area that rely on Fendt as their workhorses.

Farmers keep their eyes open, says Brandt, and like Manaigre and his family, they keep up with the trends. “I hear it all the time from farmers,” says Brandt. “They’re always demoing other brands, but they keep coming back to the Fendt line.”

Story by Jamie Cole

“Some of the local farmers were using Fendt, and we dreamed about it, having it in our fleet,” says Andy Brandt, public works director for the rural municipality (RM) of Taché in Manitoba, Canada.

Brandt and his operators, some of whom have ties to farming, know that Fendt is the class of farm tractors. Many have used other brands, both on the job in RM Taché and on the farm, and “keep coming back to the Fendt line,” says Brandt. The performance, power and comfort of the Fendt line made it as right for the demanding work in the RM as it is for demanding work on the farm, and the return on investment is undeniable. That led to the RM purchasing a Fendt 716 and 718; the former has been at work for years already and the latter is on order.

Just which benefit of the Fendt ownership has the biggest return is a tough question to answer, says Brandt. “They’re all pretty important in my eyes,” he says. The first he mentions might not be as easily quantifiable in dollars as it is in personnel performance, he says, but when he approached the RM Council (similar to a county commission or city council in the States) about the purchase, he made the case effectively. “Our operators are much more comfortable in the Fendt, and I tell my council that if we can provide a better work environment for our operators, they are going to perform at a higher rate.”

He mentions one operator that told him he could work hours more in the RM’s Fendt than the John Deere that had been their primary tractor. “Where it was really evident,” Brandt says, “the guys would mow in the Fendt for 12 to 14 hours a day. They would come out of that Fendt tractor and would walk up to me and say, ‘You know what? I can go another few hours, if you want.’”

Ken Manaigre, whose family farms in RM Taché, agrees. “The creature comforts are second to none,” he says, but notes that some other aspects are indeed more quantifiable. “The transmission system is very unique to it, as far as helping with fuel efficiency,” he says. All the operator has to do is set the speed, and the Tractor Management System adjusts the transmission and engine to its optimal performance for fuel economy.

The result has been about a 30% savings in fuel over the John Deere, or some $700 a month based on the intense workload the Fendt carries.

Meanwhile, Manaigre calls working with their dealership, AgWest Ltd., “seamless. Any issues we’ve had, they’ve taken care of us.” Down time, Manaigre says, is not an option; taxpayers have expectations, especially in wintertime when roads need to be cleared of snow quickly.

Kris Bezditny of AgWest says he knew reliability and service made Fendt right for RM Taché, and the brand brings the same benefits to farmers. “The Fendt does come with a standard 3-year warranty, along with the maintenance package. So fixed costs are set for three years."

Story by Jamie Cole