A Look at the Ag Tire Market

Jamey Smart, vice president, North America, Firestone Ag, discusses ag tire trends in this MTD exclusive. The market in 2025, he explains, "has been a tale of two channels."

MTD: What is your assessment of the U.S. farm tire market as the year winds down?

Smart: 2025, for Firestone Ag, has really been a tale of two channels. As we look at the original equipment (OE) channel, demand is soft. There’s certainly lower new equipment sales as farmers are kind of wrestling with commodity price pressure, with rising input costs and certainly (with) higher financing costs. When we look at industry data, all those reports are showing that U.S. tractor and combine retail sales were down year-over-year through much of this year. When you dig a little bit deeper into that, you’ll see particularly the high-horsepower classes are way off from where they were last year.

If you look at the opposite side of that, the replacement market has been much more resilient for us. Producers are deferring their ... purchases and so they're running existing machines even longer and they’re prioritizing uptime. The equipment has to work when it's time for harvest. So we’re seeing a real steady pull-through for premium products. And we're also seeing stable demand in segments that are really tied to roading: dairy and some of those other areas, where transport is really a factor.

MTD: What are some of the headwinds that ag tire  manufacturers, distributors and dealers are contending with at the moment?

Smart: One, demand normalization is what we’re looking for. Right now, we’re seeing a lot of ebbs and flows. And I think there’s inventory overhang at a lot of the OEMs. After the pandemic boom, a lot of the equipment pipelines have really cooled down. Dealers have worked down their aged inventories and cash flow is tightening. It’s really hard for us to predict and plan, as it is for other tire manufacturers. Certainly, I think financing costs, as I mentioned before ... interest rates are still high, so it’s amplifying the total cost of ownership for farmers and really slowing down capital investments. The last thing probably is this trade policy volatility. We're all facing it as manufacturers. And the OEMs are certainly seeing that. But it’s also impacting producers. They're seeing their costs rise and much more complicated sourcing. I just think there's a lot of uncertainty and that's creating a lot of the headwinds we're facing as an industry.  

Policy shifts obviously matter. And I think the recent U.S. actions have increased tariff exposure on certain imports this year. Firestone Ag’s mitigation strategy is to create a multi- region supply strategy, but we always want to focus in on local-for-local. And Firesone Ag has maintained that commitment, with our primary manufacturing plant in Des Moines, Iowa. We want to build U.S. tires for the U.S. market to be able to maintain the service levels that our dealers and our producers have come to know. That’s the biggest thing we're doing.

MTD: Is Firestone Ag planning to introduce any new products or services in 2026?

Smart: I can’t really pre-announce specifics, but our customers can expect continued expansion of the Firestone Ag tire line-up, along with a focus on new Bridgestone-branded tires we launched in 2024. Our priorities for 2026 really include more IF (increased flexion) and VF (very-high flexion) options – doubling down on the tires that have the highest technology (and) run the longest. We’re looking at wider tread solutions. As equipment continues to get bigger, we want to be able to provide the same traction we always have. We want to protect the soil. We want to make sure the tires wear really well on the road. So we’re going to continue to build on the platform that already has these benefits. 

We’re really focused on dealer-led uptime services. How do we make sure that the fitments are optimized on the equipment that's being used? How do we make sure tire pressures are being run where they're supposed to? We’re helping a lot of our dealers with seasonal check-in programs that allows them an additional revenue stream. We want to stay anchored with the technical guidance and data tools. We have a new data book out that we just launched this year for all of our customers. We want to continue to be focused on being a one source supplier for our customers. And  the last and probably one of the most exciting things we're doing in 2026 is (we) launched a new warranty application. It just recently went live, ahead of schedule... and it’s available right now. It's free on both Apple and Android platforms. And as we ramp up the promotion of it late this year and into 2026, we really encourage our (customers) to download it.

MTD: What are some of the opportunities Firestone Ag currently sees in the marketplace?

Smart: I think as 2025 winds down, OE is understandably softer, but the replacement channel remains durable as producers extend machine life. We're navigating the tariff and cost volatility with a diversified supply base and a longstanding commitment to all of our customers with local-for-local tires produced in the U.S. And we're going to continue to invest in that.