For over 20 years, Equalizer have produced world class seeding machines, specialising in larger broadacre equipment. Waringa proudly distributes Equalizer’s seeder range across Australia (excl. WA).
Equalizer had a humble start on a farm close to the West Coast in the Western Cape of South Africa. Gideon Schreuder was one of three brothers on the family farm, and he identified areas of their farming business that needed some upgraded equipment to be more productive and efficient.
In 1998, Gideon manufactured the first piece of equipment on the farm, a grain cleaner to remove the unwanted material from the wheat they grew to ensure they could deliver clean grain. The Equalizer Sqreen was the first product to carry the Equalizer name.
A couple of years later, Gideon and the family saw the need to improve their seeding process. Having seen what Australian farmers were doing with air seeders and how successful they were in establishing crops with a single pass in the paddock, Gideon set out to build his own tine seeder for the farm. In 2000, the first Equalizer seeder placed seed in the ground on the family farm. This was also the year the Equalizer company was officially founded.
In 2001, following the success of the first seeder, 4 more seeders were ordered by neighbouring farms. The company soon after moved out of the farm workshop to Brackenfell in Cape Town where Equalizer continued to improve the tine seeders and grew to become No.1 in South Africa. The company continued to improve and adapt the tine seeder for the field conditions in South Africa.
With South African farming being mostly row crops like corn, soybean and sunflower Equalizer started developing a row crop planter in 2008. Using the knowledge gathered by building Min-Till tine seeders for the small grain market, Equalizer developed a single pass planter that did the cultivation, fertiliser and seed placement all in one pass. This was common practice for small grains, but a newer concept for the row crop farmers.
The Equalizer row crop planters became the market leader in planter sales in South Africa in 2014, just 6 years after the very first concepts were tested.
In 2013 an opportunity arose to send some equipment to Australia for the first time. Again, there was a lot to learn and adapt to and was the beginning of a new chapter for Equalizer. This was somewhat of a magical moment, where Equalizer could go to the country where the first idea and knowledge came from and show what we could do.
Equalizer now have in excess of 60 dealers across Africa, Australia, Canada and Eastern Europe. The Equalizer production facility is still based in Brackenfell Cape Town, and currently occupies over 1 hectare.
Equalizer’s entire build process from raw steel through to their final product, takes place on a single state-of-the-art production line. Their team includes 160 personnel with the facility producing on average one machine per day.
Equalizer is a fast growing, young company, and we strive to keep learning and improving our products. We are purely focused on seeding and planting and aiming to be the best at these practices.
“Offsets or speed tillers can take three to four passes and still not get the clay incorporated properly. The Gregoire Besson does it in one go and leaves a firmer seedbed.”
– Ben Harriss, Harriss Contracting
Check out our 15-second TV ad, airing on 7 Wagga and 7mate Wagga until Sep 22.
“There are no waves in the cut, the operation is very smooth, and we can go at fast speeds due to the good cutting speed – around 2km/h faster.”
– Benji Schulze, Deberi Contract Harvesting
