Made In America

Made In America. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Lately it seems we have been rediscovering that we really don’t need to go off shore to get products made or assembled. There seems to be a resurgence in products made in the U.S. Kubota’s Paul Williams, talks about their move to their Georgia factory.

WILLIAMS: Made in the USA or assembled in the USA, however they want to label it but about 50% of what Kubota factory sells now in the United States is assembled in the United States. Our zero turn mowers we just introduced, all of our zero turn commercial mowers, our utility vehicles, our RTV little trucks, our BX subcompact tractors all those are built in Georgia at KMA.

Williams says they are putting the finishing touches on a major expansion.

WILLIAMS: We are now completing assembly or building of a 475-thousand square foot facility to assemble tractors starting January 2013. The L3200 and L3800 compacts, our standard models will be assembled there. That’s just going to be a positive growth for Kubota and jobs in Georgia. So we’re looking at about 200 jobs come January.

Kubota is known here in the northwest for small tractors in orchards and vineyards.

WILLIAMS: Low profile and orchard tractors and vineyard tractors are huge. We introduced our new Grand X tractors a year ago introducing a new grand cab. The cans are 10 inches wider, there’s over 7 inches more headroom. New transmissions, new hydraulic systems and these tractors basically make a - kind of a new entry.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.