HORSCH from Germany celebrates its 40th anniversary. Since its foundation in 1984, the company has developed into a major global manufacturer of agricultural machinery and solutions for tillage, seeding and crop care.
In 1984, the HORSCH company was founded in Sitzenhof near Schwandorf, Germany where the company’s headquarters are still based. Michael Horsch’s first developments however, date back even further. Based on his vision of farming without a plough and the requirement for the appropriate machines, he developed the Seed-Exactor, a machine for direct seeding under straw. This innovation paved the way for the foundation of the HORSCH Maschinen GmbH.
An important milestone in the history of the still young company was the fall the Berlin Wall in 1989/90 and as a result access to countries in Eastern Europe. This allowed approaching large farms with demand for HORSCH technology. In the 2000s, HORSCH started with site-specific tillage and with the Terrano, the Tiger and the Pronto launched three important product lines in tillage and seeding which are still continuously developed further.
The foundation of the HORSCH LEEB Application Systems GmbH in 2011 completed the product range with crop care technology. The first joint projects of the companies HORSCH and Leeb, however, date back to the late 1990s when the first prototype of a self-propelled sprayer was developed.
With the pneumatic fertiliser spreader Leeb Xeric, HORSCH entered the sector into fertilization technology.
Expansion and internationalization
In the past years, HORSCH expanded and diversified its product range in order to provide solutions for the varied requirements of farming all over the world. The company focused on internationalization and the development of new markets. The result was a worldwide growth in all sectors. In addition to the development and construction of a site in Brazil with an own production line, significant investments were also made at sites in Europe. In the past five years, the number of employees doubled to almost 3,300 all over the world.
In view of increasing weather extremes and climate change, precision turned out to be one of the future topics. HORSCH has been focusing on this aspect for many years and in the future, this will be optimized continuously across all sectors. Digitalization will play an even more important role in this context. From a global point of view, autonomous vehicles will become increasingly important.
