As a branch of the global machinery industry, the agricultural (farm) machinery design and manufacturing or agricultural engineering industry has become one of the most important industries to be supported and focussed on in the era of hunger threats foreseen in the World’s future. In order to produce sufficient volumes of food from current limited agricultural land, well-designed machinery and high technology-supported mechanisation of the agricultural production processes is a vital necessity. However, although novel improvements are observed in this area, they are very limited. There is a lack of implementation of advanced engineering design and manufacturing technologies in this industry, therefore agricultural engineering could be considered a potential engineering research area with this in mind. This study aims to highlight the potential, gaps, sector specific challenges and limitations of the agricultural engineering research area at a macro level. Under consideration of the sector-specific indicators, the study revealed a major result: there is an insufficient level of sector-specific research on implementation strategies for up-to-date design and manufacturing technologies.