A history filled with challenges
Founded in Mirandola, Italy in 1850, Dondi has become a leading company in the sectors it works in and a global reference point for farming enterprises. Starting with wooden ploughs, in the course of 170 years it has considerably extended its range of products both in farming and road maintenance.
They began producing iron ploughs at the end of World War I, and the company started up with 12 employees at the end of World War II. The economical boom in the 50s, together with the mechanisation of farming, gave the company a great boost, providing about 30 employees with jobs.
Halfway through the 50s, production diversified and included heavy towed ploughs with single, double and triple ploughshares on wheels for deep ploughing.
Further important stages in Dondi’s history include the definition of a complete range of tillers, which opened the way to the production of several hundreds of machines in the 60s and 70s, reaching a few thousand in the 80s.
Around 1965, the company by now employing 58 workers, decided to test the foreign market, especially Spain, Yugoslavia and Greece. At the same time, the technical staff, directed by Giuliano Dondi, designed and perfected in following years a new farming appliance, the Rotary ditcher, which in about 20 years monopolised the national and foreign market. Dondi exported it, bearing the trademark “Dondiditcher”, to over 50 countries on every continent.
On December 5th, 1978 the company was transformed into a company limited by shares. Between theend of the 70s and the early 80s, the company manufactured thousands of machines, equally distributed between ploughs, tillers and ditchers and, thanks to the commercial direction of Giorgio Dondi, opening new markets, including the United States, and considerably increased export. With the introduction of high-tech multiple ploughshare tools on the national market, produced in France, Austria, Germany and in the Scandinavian countries, the plough witnessed a permanent decline as a product, while the Ditcher remained the flagship product on foreign markets.
In 1991the company transferred from Mirandola to Bastia Umbra and flanked the production of Ditchers with a range of products foropen field ploughing, aiming at the Italian and European market with resistant, reliable and efficient equipment.
From that date on, they also grew in the sector of roadside working machinery designing articulated arms combined with the ditchers and other actuated tools for the maintenance of mounds and drains and to cut grass along roads. In the first decade of the years 2000, Dondi also designed the GRM60-Spider: an innovative and technological guardrail mower for maintenance of road greenery on the US market, which was also successful in Europe , further enhancing Dondi’s patent portfolio.
In 2019, the company also introduced a new line of equipment for tilling vineyards and orchards with a range capable of efficiently mechanising work both between rows and under foliage.
Dondi, a glimpse to tomorrow
Faced with the enormous issue of eco-sustainability, Dondi is constantly dedicated to searching for solutions for farming and urban maintenance which can meet this great challenge. The technological solutions, skills and know-how acquired to develop, produce and market products have considerably improved the work of farmers worldwide and enhanced the use of the limited resources of the earth.
Therefore, in line with its origins, the path covered and the direction taken, Dondi will continue to work – as it has been doing for 170 years – to provide the best quality and products, more adequate services, at the same time guaranteeing respect for the environment. Through innovation, research and communication with its customers, the manufacturing company remains faithful to its motto “Together for the Earth”.
