"I think the underlying fundamentals are very strong for ag tires," Ken Allen, vice president of Firestone Agricultural Tire Division, says in the December 2008 issue of Modern Tire Dealer, available now. "The farm debt-to-equity ratio is very favorable -- the best it's been in decades."
On the original equipment side, "farm equipment manufacturers are not seeing any kind of advanced decline or canceling of orders into 2009 at this point."
In an exclusive interview published in MTD's Commercial Tire Dealer section, Allen covers a wide variety of topics pertaining to the farm tire segment, including:
* Firestone Ag's production. "We've added some production in large capacity radial tires this year."
* The impact of the global economic meltdown on the farm tire business. "We have not seen a significant change in our supply profile or our demand profile."
* Market predictions for 2009. "With respect to what affects us the most in production agriculture -- corn and soybeans -- we have growing demand from a global standpoint."
For more, see the December issue of MTD.
