Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers has announced some temporary changes to its spring farm business due to COVID-19.

Jordan Clark, sales director for Western Canada, says all spring farm auctions by his company will be conducted online only. He says there will be no on-site bidding for at least three months.

“Typically we were joined with online and on-site, but we are very closely following the massive gathering restrictions that are in place from province to province,” explains Clark.

“As they’ve changed, we’ve had to change and make a decision that we will have no on-site bidding at any of our farm or consignment sales in March, April and May.”

Clark says sales will be affected, however it’s not a change that will necessarily catch people off guard.

He mentions that they have been implementing their online process for over 15 years on auction sales. Over 73 per cent of everything they sell is online or the runner up is online.

“A lot of people are quite accustomed to the online bidding method. We’re instructing all bidders to go to our website if they haven’t yet and register with an online account so they can access one of our sales.”

Clark says the first spring sale will be Tuesday in Regina, a consignment sale. Farm auction sales begin April 1 in Saskatchewan, with a total of 58 this spring.