THE WA farm machinery sales market can best be described as steady - with a lot of interest in the quality used market.

While new tractor sales are making headlines in the Eastern States, that's not quite the case in WA according to Farm Machinery & Industry Association of WA (FMIA) executive officer John Henchy.

Mr Henchy said sales of new tractors had increased by 23 per cent in the Eastern States in 2020, on the back of a good season after the drought.

He said on the other hand WA was "the same as in 2019".

"That's not a negative thing," Mr Henchy said.

"The overall WA market is buoyant - the season turned out well and the industry moved a lot of used machinery (in 2020).

"Moving second-hand machinery is very important to the market and people have been looking for good value deals."

Mr Henchy said six months ago FMIA put together a figure for WA Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan to show what the industry was worth to the State economy.

The figures taken from 2019 revealed that new equipment sales of complete units, of tractors with more than 40 horse power, combines, sprayers and seeders etc, equalled roughly $620 million in WA.

Used equipment was much less, but still valued at $144m.

Mr Henchy said the total turnover for the State, including machinery parts and service was about $1 billion.

While there were only about 4000 broadacre farmers in WA, they were the major contributors to the value of the industry.

Last year clearing sales attracted near-new prices for headers and other big ticket items.

As the clearing sales season ramps up across WA, it will be interesting to see if that continues through 2021.

Mr Henchy said things looked positive for the industry this year - especially with the introduction of new technology "almost on a daily basis" that could help farmers with the issues of labour shortages.

"I can see the emergence of automation into the future, especially in the horticultural sector," he said.

"Growers can't afford to rely on casual labour."

Mr Henchy said the recent COVID-19 restrictions to overseas workers, which meant a lack of farm workers in the country, had left producers having to leave crops and produce unpicked or harvested.

He was hopeful that technology would be developed to fill that gap and assist the industry to be more sustainable and profitable.