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AGRI MECHAGRI MECH
VOL I | ISSUE 5 | SEPT 2015RNI No. HARENG00941RNI No. HARENG00941
Agricultural mechanization in Peru
By Shimon Horovitz / Agronomist
The rice you trust
By A S Subbarao
Robot farming system in Japan
By Noboru Noguchi - Hokkaido Univ,
(YOUR FARM TECHNOLOGY NAVIGATOR)
05
S K Ali
Managing Editor
skali85@gmail.com
Raji Naqvi
Adver sement Manager
rajinaqvi@gmail.com
Dhruv Vishvas
Subscrip on Manager
rkmedcom@gmail.com
Naveen Rana
Graphic Designer
naveengraphics50@gmail.com
Raza Jarrar
Webmaster
info@netnovaz.com
Our Team
Editorial policy is independent, Views expressed by authors
arenotnecessarilythoseheldbytheeditors.
Registered as Monthly Magazine by Registrar of
NewspapersforIndia.Vide RNI no. HARENG00941
Licensed to post at Karnal HPO under postal regn. No. PKL-
91/2007-2009
Editorial and adver sements may not be reproduced
without the wri en consent of the publishers. Whilst every
care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the contents of AGRI
MECH. The publishers do not accept any responsibility or
liabilityforthematerialherein.
Publica on of news, views and informa on is in the interest
of posi ve development of Global Farm Mechaniza on. It
doesnotimplypublisher’sendorsement.
Unpublished material of industrial interest, not submi ed
elsewhereisinvited.
The submi ed material will be published a er going
through the relevancy of the magazine subject and may be
returnedincaseofnotfoundappropriate.
Publisher, Printer: S K Ali on behalf of RK Media and
Communica ons,Delhi
Printed at: Crea ve Design & Print, H.No 14, 1st Floor,
SunlightColony-I,NewDelhi-110014
Publishedat:1723,Sector–9,UrbanEstate,
Karnal–132001(Haryana)
Editor in Chief: S K Ali
Welcome to September edi on of AGRIMECH, the monthly magazine dedicated to farmforward-looking
equipment from tractors to harvesters, handlers to implements. If it's found on the farm you'll find it in the
pages of AGRIMECH. Agriculture machinery is the o en-overlooked economic engine that drives much of
ourstate'sandourregion'seconomy,chuggingalonglikeatrustyoldtractor,bringinginthecashandspinning
offthejobsthatarethefounda onofourprosperity.
When one word will do, we use two, and it's not to fill space. Only with in-depth and comprehensive features
can we give every machine the a en on, and every reader the detail deserved. That's the only way to inform
and engage operators and owners of modern machinery. A er all, we're as commi ed to making sure you've
got the right equipment as you are. But don't just take our word for it – every test, report and guide will be
packed with expert user reviews and opinions from professional operators who spend their working lives at
thewheeloftheverylatestagriculturalmachines.
An agriculture technology magazine mainly involves genera ng knowledge, its transfer and u liza on by the
farmers. For rapid agriculture development, there is a need for constant flow of technological informa on
from research system to extension system and there upon to the farmers for adop on. So, in the process of
transfer of technology, effec ve communica on has a significant role for agricultural development. Today
there is a greater need for communica on of informa on as the present day, “Knowledge explosion” in the
world has necessitated a “communica on explosion” in its wake, because “never in the annals of human
history was there a need for so many people to know so much and so quickly as it is today”. At the same me,
the key role of communica on in any form is to plant new ideas in the minds of human beings. Because, of all
the influences to which man is subjected to, the influence of ideas is probably the most important one.
Preparing and distribu on of the message to the millions of farmers and machinery manufacturers in the
ways that it is received, understood, accepted and applied is therefore, the greatest opportunity and
paramount challenge to all extension workers. Hence, the responsibility reposed on extension workers is
considerable, as they have to act as teachers to farmers in dissemina on of innova ons or new ideas by using
variouschannelsofcommunica onforadop on.
With the best ar cles and photographers AGRIMECH produces a approach to farm publishing; it will becrisp
the perfect accomplice for all your machinery needs. If you're into farm mechaniza on business, you should
definitelybedisplayedinto AGRIMECH.
ContentsContents
06
11
16
17
18
25
27
31
34
Agricultural Productivity in Transition
Economies
Agricultural technology to feed the
world
The Future of Agriculture:
Smart Farming
Agriculture: The Hi: Tech way to farm
Low input production systems: innovation
in mechanization for food security
Crop Scouting: Precision Technology
Uses in Crop Scouting
Agricultural mechanization:
Development of civilization
Agricultural mechaniza on in Peru
36
19 Vision for Tomorrow Requires Solutions
Today 48
Farm of the future
21 50Farm Equipment Safety: Recognizing and
Understanding the Hazards
The Rice You Trust
TAFE Launches ‘Be a FarmDost’ initiative to
recognize farmers
AGCO & Precision Planting agree to bring
Precision Planting Technology to White Planters
Editorial Committee
Dr Gyanendra Singh
M.Tech , Ph.D
Member Task Force Committee (Agriculture),
Government of Madhya Pradesh
Member Academic Council, JNKVV, Jabalpur
Dr Shimon Horovitz Roberto
B.Sc. Agronomy
Consultant - Open fields and greenhouses
Jerusalem, Israel
Dr. Joginder Singh Malik
Professor of Extension Education
CCS Haryana Agricultural University
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana) INDIA
Dr. Ghanshyam T. Patle
Assistant Professor
College of Agricultural Engineering
& Post Harvest Technology
Central Agricultural University, Imphal
Manipur (INDIA)
Dr. Said Elshahat Abdallah
Associate Professor
Agricultural Process Engineering
Department of Agricultural Engineering,
Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh Univ.
Kafr Elsheikh 33516, Egypt
DOUGLAS AYIREBIDE ALEKIBA
Production Supervisor
Mim Cashew and Agricultural Products Ltd.,
Mim – Brong Ahafo,
Ghana
Yash Agrawal
Business Development Associate
BIS Research
A. S. SUBBARAO
Sr.Manager - Agronomy
SBU - South
Agronomy Department
NETAFIM, India
countries.
ChangesinAgriculturalOutput
In the first years of transi on, gross
agricultural output decreased in all
countries by at least 20%. The
transi on from a centrally planned
economy to a market orientated
economy coincided in all countries
w i t h s u bs i d y c u t s a n d p r i c e
liberaliza on, which in general caused
input prices to increase and output
p r i c e s t o
d e c r e a s e .
P u r c h a s e d
inputs were
n o l o n g e r
affordable at
t h e n e w
rela ve prices
a n d t h e
decrease in
i n p u t u s e
c a u s e d a
decrease in
agricultural
output.
In the Bal c
states and the European C I S
agriculturaloutputdecreasedtoabout
50% to 60% of the pre-reform output.
In Central Europe and Central Asia,
output declined by 25% to 30%.
Output stabilized and started to
recover in the mid of 1990s in Central
Contact :
DHARMESH ENTERPRISES PVT. LTD.
B28/B, GR. FLR., GHATKOPAR INDL. ESTATE
L.B.S. MARG, GHATKOPAR (WEST)
MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA 400086
Mobile : 09323039797
Email : heatgun@vsnl.com
06
Europe and later
i n t h e o t h e r
r e g i o n s .
C u r r e n t l y
a g r i c u l t u r a l
output is close to
the pre-reform
output level in
mostcountries.
ChangesinAgriculturalProduc vity
Despite a decrease in agricultural
output in total, output per worker in
Central Europe strongly increased
during the past two decades. This
increase was driven by the drama c
decrease in agricultural employment
in the first years of transi on from
centrally planned to more market-
oriented economies. As output
stabilized at the end of the 1990s and
agricultural employment con nued to
decline, the increase in A L P
con nued.PictureIn the Balkan
countries the agricultural sector acted
as a social buffer and absorbed rural
labor in the first years of transi on.
ALP decreased ini ally as much labor
was absorbed in agriculture. In the late
1990s labor began to flow out from
agriculture and this ou low of labor, in
c o m b i n a o n w i t h i n c r e a s e d
investments in the farming and agri-
food industry, resulted in a gradual but
consistentimprovementin ALP.
Agricultural output and produc vity
have changed drama cally in Central
and Eastern European countries
(CEECs) and the Former Soviet Union
(FSU) since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
exactly 20 years ago. Ini ally, market
reforms caused a strong decline in
agricultural output. The extent to which
this output decline was associated with
changes in produc vity depended on
the speed with which labor could exit
agriculture and agricultural factor and
outputmarketscoulddevelop.These,in
turn, depended on the ini al condi ons
and implemented reform policies. As
the ini al condi ons and reform
policies were very different across
countries in the region, produc vity
evolved very differently across
Agricultural Productivity in
Transition Economies
Johan F.M. Swinnen
Farther East, ALP strongly decreased in
the first decade of transi on. On
average, ALP decreased by 33% in the
European CIS and 30% in Central Asia in
the first five years of transi on. The
strong decline in ALP was the result of
two effects. First, agricultural output
declined strongly in both regions and
second, the ou low of agricultural
labor was limited, and in some regions
agricultural employment even
increased. From the mid of 1990s,
however, the decline in ALP started to
slow down and since the beginning of
the2000s ALP hasrecoveredslowly.
Everywhereintheregionaverageyields
fell during the first years of transi on
and recovered later. However, the
depth and length of the fall differed
strongly among countries. Average
yields recovered considerably from the
mid of 1990s onwards in countries such
as Hungary, na ons with rela vely
more large-scale farming and
investments in the food industry. In
contrast, produc vity recovered more
slowly in countries such as Romania,
which has a large number of small-scale
family farms with difficult access to
inputs. Yields declined the most in the
European CIS and Central Asia where
yields started to increase only from the
beginning of the 2000s. Importantly,
the recovery of yields in the
European CIS and
Central
Asiawassoslowthattheyonlyrecently
reachedtheirpre-reformlevels.
Of course, par al produc vity
measures might exhibit very different
pa erns than would be found using
measures of total factor produc vity
(TFP), the most comprehensive
m e a s u r e o f p r o d u c v i t y .
Unfortunately, only a few studies have
measured total
f a c t o r
p r o d u c v i t y
( T F P ) , a n d
consequently
o n l y l i m i t e d
comparisons can
b e m a d e
b e t w e e n
countries and
over me, the
a v a i l a b l e
evidence on TFP
i s r o u g h l y
consistent with
the evidence
from the par al
p r o d u c v i t y
indicators.
In Central Europe, TFP grew slightly in
the first years of transi on —0.4%
annually between 1989 and 1992 and
significantly a erwards: by 2.2%
annually between 1992 and 1995 and
by 4.4% annually between 1995 and
1998. Studies find a slowdown of TFP
growth in the period 1998-2001,
probably due to substan al
i n v e s t m e n t s i n
agri
cultural machinery and capital inputs in
thisperiod.
In the Balkan countries, the TFP
evolu on fluctuates much more. TFP
decreased strongly, by 4.1% per year,
from 1989 to 1992. Later there was a
stronger recovery when TFP increased
by 7.5% per year in the period 1992-
1995, but it fell again in the late 1990s
with bad macro-economic policies
resul ng in TFP declines of 1.3%
annually from 1995 to 1998. A er 1998
when a series of important reforms
were implemented in the region, there
was a strong recovery in produc vity:
from 1998 to 2001, TFP grew on
averageby2.3%peryear.
CausesofProduc vityChanges
The produc vity changes—and the
varia ons in them—were caused by a
combina on of factors. In this sec on
we review a few of the main
drivers.PictureFirst, ini al condi ons
affected produc vity in two important
ways. On the one hand, they directly
influenced the impact of reforms; on
the other hand, through ins tu onal
and poli cal constraints, they also
indirectly influenced the choice of the
reform policies. For example, the
collec viza on of agriculture and the
introduc on of central planning
occurredinthe1920sinthe FSU,but
07
emergence and dynamics of the new
private farms, but also the preferences
for land reforms: in CEECs households
wanted their land back, while in a large
part of the FSU households had never
owned land since feudalism had
directlyprecededcollec vistfarming.
Another condi on that played an
important role was that in Central
Europe and the Bal c States, countries
were generally richer and agriculture
was less important in the overall
economy, compared to countries in
Transcaucasia and Central Asia, which
were much poorer with rela vely more
important agricultural sectors. The
general economic situa on in a country
influenced the extent to which other
sectorscouldabsorbsurpluslaborfrom
agriculture and the development of the
social safety net system. Finally, the
ou low of surplus agricultural labor
was much stronger in Central Europe
than in other countries in the 1990s, in
part because the social safety net
system was much only a er World War
II in CEECs. Consequently, rural
households in Central Europe had
much more experience with private
farming than their counterparts in
most of the FSU. This difference
affected not only thebe er developed
in Central Europe and the
agricultural sector was
r e l a v e l y
small.
Priceliberaliza onandthesubsequent
decline in terms of trade strongly
affected agricultural produc vity. The
decrease in output prices and the
increase in input prices caused a
decline in the terms of trade.Ini al
condi ons, in par cular resource
endowments and use of technology,
also affected the rela ve efficiency of
farm organiza ons and thus incen ves
f o r f a r
m r e s t r u c t u r i n g . R e s o u r c e
endowments affect the costs and
benefits of shi ing from corporate
farms to family farms. If labor/land
ra os are high, as in countries with
labor-intensive technologies, such as
in Transcaucasia and the Balkans, the
benefits from be er labor governance
by shi ing to family farms from
corporate farms are larger, while the
losses in scale economies of shi ing to
smaller farms are lower. These
p r o d u c v i t y
i n c
en ves resulted in a strong shi to
smallscalefarming.Incontrast,inmore
capital- and land-intensive agricultural
systems, such as in the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, the benefits from shi ing
to family farms were lower so that
large-scale corporate farming
remained more important. In these
situa ons, produc vity gains came
mostly from laying off corporate farm
workers.
Second, reform choices and their
implementa on also ma ered
importantly— and they differed by
c o u n t r y. F o r e x a m p l e , p r i c e
liberaliza on and the subsequent
decline in terms of trade strongly
affected agricultural produc vity. The
decrease in output prices and the
increase in input prices caused a
decline in the terms of trade. This
contributed to a fall in input use at the
start of the reforms, which caused a
decreaseintheproduc vityoflandand
labor. The implementa on of these
reforms differed substan ally between
regions. Governments in Central
E u ro p e a n d t h e B a l c state s
drama cally reduced agricultural
subsidies in the first years of transi on,
whereas in some European CIS and
countries in Central Asia, reforms were
moregraduallyimplemented.
PictureA very important element of the
reform packages was land reform.
There were three types of land reform:
res tu on of land to the former
owners; the physical distribu on of
land to agricultural workers; and the
distribu on of cer ficates to
agriculturalworkers.Thetwofirsttypes
of land reform, res tu on and the
physical distribu on of land, ended up
with rela vely strong and well-defined
property rights. While it was expected
that res tu on of land would lead to a
decrease in produc vity because of the
fragmenta on of land ownership, in
many countries res tu on contributed
to a greater consolida on of land use
because many of the former owners
were not interested in farming
themselves
08
Price liberalization and
the subsequent
decline in terms of
trade strongly affected
agricultural
productivity. The
decrease in output
prices and the
increase in input
prices caused a
decline in the terms of
trade.
and rented the land to the priva zed
coopera veandcorporatefarms.
In the regions that implemented land
reforms by distribu ng cer ficates,
property rights were less-clearly
defined and, at least in the first decade
of the reforms, output and produc vity
were nega vely affected as a result.
Restric ons were placed on selling and
purchasing of land cer ficates, which
significantly slowed down structural
changes and thus produc vity growth.
Second, owners had li le incen ve to
p u t i n e ff o r t a n d u n d e r t a ke
investments because property rights
on specific plots were not clearly
defined. At the end of the 1990s the
situa on started to improve when land
policies were further liberalized, and
limited land transac ons became
possible.
F i n a l l y ,
priva za on of
farms and agri-
food companies
l e d t o
c o n t r a c n g
problems and
disrup ons all
along the agri-
f o o d c h a i n .
Investments by
p r i v a t e
processors and
the reintroduc on of ver cally
coordinated supply chains have been
important in overcoming these hold-up
problems and improving output,
produc vity and quality of agricultural
products. Foreign direct investment
(FDI) in the agri-food sector played an
important role in these developments
through spillover effects on farmers
and local food companies. They have
c o n t r i b u t e d d r a m a c a l l y t o
produc vity and quality improvements
andtechnologytransfers.
FDI rose strongly in
Centra
l Europe and the Bal c states. In the
Balkan states, the inflow of FDI lagged
behind. However, a er substan al
reforms were introduced at the end of
the 1990s, FDI started to increase
there as well. In the European CIS,
Transcaucasia and Central Asia, FDI
inflow has been very low, and
increasedonlyinmorerecentyears.
Pa ernsofProduc vityChange
Ini alcondi ons,reformpolicies
and investments had a large
i m p a c t o n a g r i c u l t u r a l
p r o d u c v i t y c h a n g e s
throughout the region, but
effects varied tremendously
among countries and over me.
We dis nguish four pa erns.
The first group of countries is the
most economically advanced
countries in Central Europe and
the Bal cs, such as
H u n ga r y, t h e C ze c h
Republic, Slovakia and
E s t o n i a w h i c h
implemented radical
reforms. These countries
were characterized by
rela vely high incomes, a
c a p i t a l - i n t e n s i v e
agricultural sector and a
big-bang approach to
reforms and priva za on,
including res tu on of
land to former owners. The loss
from foregone economies of
scale was limited because the
res tu on of agricultural land to
p r e v i o u s o w n e r s l e d t o
consolida on of land in large
farming enterprises. In addi on,
a massive ou low of agricultural labor
occurred early in transi on, facilitated
by a well-developed social safety net
system and radical reforms which
stabilized the macroeconomic
environment. This ou low of labor
caused substan al gains in labor
produc vity early on in transi on.
Later, produc vity gains were
r e i n f o r c e d b y
spilloversfromthelargeinflowof FDI in
the agri-food sector. Investments,
through ver cally integrated supply
chains, improved farmers' access to
credit, technology, inputs and output
markets.
Another pa ern was followed by the
poorer CEECs, including Romania,
Bulgaria, Lithuania and Poland. These
countries were diverse in their ini al
farm structure. Before transi on,
Poland already had mainly small, family
farms, whereas in Lithuania, Romania
and Bulgaria the agricultural sector was
concentrated in large corporate farms.
However, in all of the countries, labor
ou low from agriculture was limited in
the first years of transi on. In these
countries, agriculture served as a social
b u ffe r i n m e s w h e n o ve ra l l
unemployment was high and social
benefitswerelow.
09
The restitution of
land to former
owners constrained
access to land for
young farmers, since
that land was given
to older people who
started farming to
complement their
small pensions.
The res tu on of land to former owners
constrained access to land for young
farmers, since that land was given to
older people who started farming to
complement their small pensions.
Because the agricultural sector in these
countries was rela vely capital-
intensive, the break-up of the corporate
farms into small, family farms caused
significant losses in economies of scale
and yielded only limited gains from the
shedding of labor. Ini ally, both output
and produc vity declined. In countries
such as Poland and Lithuania, output
and produc vity started to recover in
the mid-1990s s mulated by FDI. In
Romania and Bulgaria output and
produc vity recovered only slowly, and
at the end of the 1990s they decreased
again as a result of the financial crisis.
From the beginning of the 2000s the
ou low of inefficient labor and the
inflow of FDI started a sustained
recovery.
Third,agroupofpoorTranscaucasiaand
Central Asian countries, such as
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic
and Tajikistan, followed yet another
p a e r n . T h e s e c o u n t r i e s a r e
characterized by their poverty and the
absence of a good social safety net
system, their labor intensive
agricultural systems and
their slower
progress in overall reforms. In these
countries, agriculture also provided a
buffer role and a labor sink. Reforms
caused a strong shi from large scale
t o w a r d s i n d i v i d u a l
farming—especially when land
distribu on in kind to households was
introduced a er the failure of the
share distribu on system became
evident. The reforms also caused a
substan al inflow of labor into
agriculture, and growth in the
importance of more labor-intensive
sectors, such as hor culture and
livestock. This caused a decrease in
labor produc vity while land
produc vity grew. Although there has
been substan al growth in yields,
labor produc vity is s ll now
substan ally below pre-reform levels
in.
A fourth pa ern is followed by a group
of middle income FSU countries,
including Kazakhstan, Russia and
Ukraine. In these countries, there was
almost no ou low of agricultural labor
and, since output fell substan ally in
the 1990s, agricultural labor
produc vity declined strongly.
Reforms were implemented only
slowly and so budgets con nued,
which favored the large-scale farms
and constrained restructuring, with
limited efficiency gains. Only a er the
Russian crisis in 1998 did the
macroeconomic situa on
improve
with enhanced compe veness of the
domes c agricultural sector through
exchange rate devalua ons and the
inflow of revenues from increasing oil
and mineral prices. This affected in
par cular Russia and Kazakhstan.
Ukraine implemented a series of
important reforms in the late 1990s.
Since then, agricultural produc vity
has increased in these countries as
liquidity in the economy and
investments in agriculture
i n c r e a s e d . S u r p l u s
employment started to
decline gradually. An
important factor in the
growth of produc vity in the
2 0 0 0 s w a s i n c r e a s e d
investments in the food
industry which benefited
agriculture through ver cal
integra on. It has taken
more than 15 years in the
European CIS for labor and
land produc vity to recover
totheirpre-reformlevels.
ProspectsfortheFuture
While the recent past has seen posi ve
developments, the future remains
uncertain. As documented above,
produc vity has increased significantly
throughout the region in the decade
since the Russian crisis in 1998.
However, the global financial crisis has
hit the CEECs and FSU par cularly
hard. Due to a combina on of factors,
some of the countries covered here
have experienced declines in output
and produc vity among the worst in
the world. Governments throughout
the region have tried to offset
reduc ons in private finance and
investment by the expansion of public
supporttoagriculture.
It is unclear at this point to what extent
these more recent setbacks or the
offse ng policy s mulus will have a
las ng effect on the produc vity
developments in the sector, or whether
they will only cause a temporary
interrup on in a long run path of
produc vitygrowthinagriculture.
10
Picture of Anne HarrisFood shortages
tendtobeaproblemforthedeveloping
world. Images of famine in Africa or
floods in Asia have tugged at the
heartstrings and loosened the purse
strings of the affluent and influen al
with a growing popula on demanding
more food, and an agricultural
community constrained by lack of land
and water while ba ling demands for
greater sustainability, the challenge of
feeding the world is falling at the feet of
engineers.But that scenario is changing
almost as fast as the global economic
landscape. It is no longer a regional
problem but a very real threat facing
the whole of humanity. To feed the
growing global popula on we will need
to produce 60 per cent more food by
the middle of this century. That is a
challenge that cannot be taken too
lightly given the increased compe on
for ever scarcer land and water. To
compound ma ers, agriculture
i s u n d e r g r e a t
pressur
popula on is growing, adding 35 per
cent more mouths by the middle of the
century. At the same me the average
person is ge ng richer," he says. Richer
people eat more food and more
resource-intensive food: beef, for
example, converts plant nutrients to
muscle at about a quarter the
efficiencythatchickensdo.
"Richer people ea ng both more and
more luxurious food is en rely human
and has been a hallmark of our
behavior throughout history, but it
contributes to a projected demand
growth of about 60 per cent by mid-
century if current trends con nue,"
Bentonadds.
Demandsonnature
The World Wildlife Fund's 2012 'Living
Planet' report suggests that "if
everyone lived like an average resident
of the USA, a total of four Earths would
be required to generate humanity's
annualdemandonnature".
11
etoincreaseitssustainability.
The solu ons are, as always,
complicated, mired in economic,
poli cal and social wrangling. But one
thing is apparent: technology has a key
role to play. Engineering is o en
overlooked as part of the solu on, but
the roles it can play are profound – on
the farm and throughout the supply
chain.
The UK has recognized the danger and
is mobilizing its poli cal will allied with
i t s re s e a rc h a n d te c h n o l o g y
ins tu ons. Global Food Security is a
m u l -
a g e n c y
p r o g r a m
b r i n g i n g
together the
r e s e a r c h
interests of
the research
c o u n c i l s ,
e xe c u v e
a g e n c i e s
a n d
government
department
s. To drive
the program forward it appointed a
global food security champion two
years ago. Professor Tim Benton, from
the University of Leeds, is an
interdisciplinary scien st focusing on
the rela onship between food
produc onandtheenvironment.
" T h e h u m a n
Agricultural technology to feed the world
Anne Harris
With a growing population
demanding more food, and an
agricultural community
constrained by lack of land and
water while battling demands
for greater sustainability, the
challenge of feeding the world
is falling at the feet of
engineers.
“if everyone lived like an average
resident of the USA, a total of four
Earths would be required to generate
humanity's annual demand on
nature".Growing more is not as
straigh orward as it has perhaps been
in recent decades. Benton points out
that there is no more land available,
perhaps even less. Then there is
increasing compe on for water; by
2050 over 50 per cent of the world's
popula on may exist in areas where
demand has outstripped supply.
"Agricultural produc on currently uses
about 70 per cent of the world's
available fresh water, and clearly
societal and economic use of water (by
industry) also exerts a growing demand
on a finite supply," he adds. "Thus, any
increase in produc on to meet an
increase in demand cannot rely on a
propor onal increase in water use in
manyareasoftheworld.
“Agricultural produc on currently uses
about 70 per cent of the world's
available fresh water, and clearly
societal and economic use of water (by
industry) also exerts a growing demand
on a finite supply”.Finally, much of the
global produc on growth in recent
decades has been underpinned by the
use of a broad range of agro-
chemicals, including
synthe c
fer lizers and pes cides. "These can
have nega ve environmental impacts
and in some areas there is a
considerable need to reduce their use
for that reason," Benton con nues.
"Synthe c nitrogen fer lizer also
requires significant energy to
manufacture, contribu ng to
agriculture's large greenhouse gas
footprint [of 20-30 per cent of global
emissions]; and again, there is a need
to minimize greenhouse gases to
prevent extra climate change – which,
itself, is likely to act as an increasing
constraintonproduc ongrowth.”
The recent history of agriculture has
been that it has not properly valued
the natural capital that underpins a
range of important local and planetary
func ons, and, indeed, subsidizes
agricultural produc on: soil
biodiversity helps with soil fer lity and
carbon storage, vegeta on and soils
filter and clean water providing access
to fresh water; insects pollinate crops,
increasing yields, and others may be
thenaturalenemiesof pests and so
on. "In addi on to
the constraints on
produc on growth
due to climate, water,
land and resource
a v a i l a b i l i t y ,
agriculture needs to
b e c o m e m o r e
e nv i ro n m e n ta l l y
friendly to ensure its
own sustainability,"
Benton con nues.
"This is the no on of
' s u s t a i n a b l e
intensifica on' which
is about growing
yields on the exis ng area of
agricultural land whilst reducing
environmentalimpacts.”
Theroleofengineering
Engineering is important in all aspects
of the supply chain: produc on,
transport, logis cs, processing,
manufacture, storage, packaging,
retail, consump on and waste
disposal. "There is scope to use exis ng
technologies, based on previous
innova on,togreateffectbyincreasing
theirdeployment,suchas RFID boluses
that can monitor stomach pH and
temperature in ca le to op mize
welfareandproduc on,"Bentonsays.
"There is, of course, a huge opportunity
to transfer technology and innova on
from other sectors into the food supply
chain, such as robo cs, or remote
sensing, into agriculture. And there is a
considerable role for both sustaining
and disrup ve innova on to shape the
food supply chain, parts of which are
under-considered from an engineering
perspec ve. This is especially true in
agriculture, seen as a 'low-tech'
industry without sufficient 'pull' to
warrant strong interest from the
broaderengineeringcommunity.
"Partofthislackofa en onwasdueto
the percep on that the green
revolu on in the 1960s and 1970s had
solved the problem, which has been
overturnedsincethefoodpricespikein
12
"if everyone lived like an
average resident of the USA,
a total of four Earths would
be required to generate
humanity's annual demand
on nature".
13
2007/08 and some of the global
ramifica ons of this," Benton adds.
"Globally, the need for investment in
engineering applica ons to agriculture
and food has increasingly been
recognized.”
Thecompletecycle
"Ask the man in the street about
agricultural engineering and they
immediately think of tractors and
p l o u g h s a n d m ay b e co m b i n e
harvesters,"
"In fact engineering and technology
appliestothewholespectrumfromthe
soil and the water, which is the whole
basis of crop produc on right through
to maintaining the quality of the
products and mee ng the needs of the
supermarkets”."Ask the man in the
street about agricultural engineering
and they immediately think of tractors
and ploughs and maybe combine
harvesters," Peter Redman of
professional body the Ins tu on of
Agricultural Engineers explains. "In fact
engineering and technology applies to
the whole spectrum from the soil and
the water, which is the whole basis of
crop produc on right through to
maintaining the quality of the products
and mee ng the needs of the
supermarkets.
"It deals with everything
from growing,
h a r
ves ng, maintaining, storage,
protec on from disease – they all have
engineering inputs. Almost without
excep on the development of new
science in agriculture will need
engineering to deliver it. What are
bringing it all into focus is the
recogni on of global food shortages,
changes in diet, limita on of land, and
the scarcity of water."PictureThe UK's
response has included the recent
publica on of the agri-tech strategy
recognizing the importance of
agriculture and food as an industrial
sector and s mula ng its growth. This
is coupled to recogni on also within
the higher-educa on community and
the funders of research that this area
needs more support than in recent
decades. "That the IET is also
recognizing the importance of the
area, and s mula ng interest from the
community is really very welcome –
given the huge societal challenge
created byfood insecurity we need the
brightest and most innova ve minds
to engage with this area,"
B e n t o n
concludes.
The first role for agricultural
engineering was the replacement of
labor. It replaced the drudgery or made
tasks possible that weren't before.
"This is a weather-dependent industry
and some mes we get a very small
window of opportunity so you have to
have the capacity to deal with that
opening," Redman con nues. "Having
established the replacement of labor it
now became a ma er of adding
precision and intelligence to the
processes while also managing this
withlessenvironmentaldamage.
"The other area where engineering has
played a key role is the reduc on of
waste and pollu on. It has been a
gradual process; precision agriculture
hasnothappenedovernight.”
Lackinginresearch
The fear is that the UK has neglected its
agricultural engineering research for so
long that it now has to catch up. In days
gone by Silsoe Research Ins tute,
formerly the Na onal Ins tute of
Agricultural Engineering was a world-
renowned organiza on providing
innova on, research and technology
aroundtheglobe.
"They don't have an undergraduate
teaching ability, so that feedstock of
c a p a c i t y h a s b e e n s e r i o u s l y
undermined," Redman says. "What is
needed now is firstly the recogni on of
that deficiency and secondly the
invita ontothemarketplacetoplaya
14
“Agricultural production
currently uses about 70 per
cent of the world's available
fresh water, and clearly
societal and economic use
of water (by industry) also
exerts a growing demand on
a finite supply”.
part in revitalizing that. I personally am
not in favor of crea ng another piece of
infrastructure that is specific to
agricultural engineering – it is
important that engineers work
alongsideother technologists."
This gap in exper se and engineers
suggests that the market has failed in
itsrole,butRedmanexplainsitissimply
a ma er of different priori es. "The
market does its job," Redman argues.
"It does it progressively. There are
pieces of innova on that have
been delivered such
a s t h e
h i g h - s p e e d
t r a c t o r a n d
robo cmilker.
"If there's an
immediate and
commercial need
for a product the
m a r k e t i s
prepared to take
the risk. Where
the market isn't
prepared to take
the risk is in some
of these 'blue-sky'
innova ons; that
are where there
needs to be some
i n p u t f r o m
government and
t h e y h a v e
responded with the agri-tech strategy
ini a ve.
"The theory is that there will be
funding for catapults and issue-based
ini a ves. The one thing that funding
packages requires is that government
funding is matched pound for pound
byindustry”.
Sensingtheway
" T h e r e a r e m a n y w a y s t h a t
engineering is helping agriculture but
there is much more that we can do if
we add intelligence such as sensors,"
Redman says. "The capability of
sensing is driving lots of the
innova on,
but sensing
i n t h e
biological
processes,
b e c a u s e
agriculture
takes place
out in the
fi e l d .
Precision
a n d
sensing are
vital, but
only if
that is coupled with an understanding
of what you need to sense and why. It's
not just a ma er of informa on but
energy informa on."PictureOne area
that is garnering a good deal of interest
is computer vision and machine
guidance for weed control. "There is a
problem with the use of pes cides
par cularly if the crop is going to be
consumed directly, such as in salad,"
Redman explains. "What we need to do
is control the weeds using the
minimum amount of chemicals. So first
we need to be able to differen ate
between the plant and the weed. If we
can do that we can direct a mechanism
to take out the weed or spray it with a
nyamountofchemical."
With the plants iden fied the next task
is delivering just the op mum amount
of chemical. "We are concerned with
aerodynamics, the behavior of crops,
the crea on of small amounts of
material delivered precisely. The other
part of that is again sensing whether
the crop is exposed to disease or pest
a ack."
There is also research required in soil
and water management. It is important
to avoid compac ng soil as that
prevents oxygen ge ng in and water
flowing through it. 'Controlled-traffic
farming' is being developed, using a set
wheel-base and GPS tracking to keep
the traffic in one lane and cause less
damagetothefieldasawhole.This
15
"Ask the man in the street about
agricultural engineering and
they immediately think of
tractors and ploughs and
maybe combine harvesters,"
"In fact engineering and
technology applies to the whole
spectrum from the soil and the
water, which is the whole basis
of crop production right through
to maintaining the quality of the
products and meeting the
needs of the supermarkets”.
method also looks at reducing the soil
load from machines by increasing their
surface area. This can be done either by
using a track instead of wheels or by
making sure that re pressures and
loading are appropriate without losing
trac on.
When it comes to water, quan ty is the
key. "You need to have water available
to the crop when it is growing,"
Redman says. "That means that you
need water storage. You need to know
when the crop is going to make use of
that water so it is a ques on of
understanding the soil condi on and
how much the crop needs. Then you
need to apply just the right amount of
water without any waste – precision
irriga on. A lot of these technologies
have been developed for more arid
areas of the world that can be brought
backtomoretemperateregions.”
As for the future Redman believes that
changes will be incremental. "I think
the farm of the future will have some
robo c devices; it will be collec ng
dataacrossthewholesystemincluding
the marketplace. It will include
informa onaboutthestatusofthesoil
in rela on to weather and disease
forecas ng. All of these data streams
will be combined to enable the farm
land to be managed more strategically
and how to manage it at a day to day
basis.”
The quest to secure the food supply will
be an ongoing process. In previous
decades we have been somewhat
complacent, assuming that access to
food is only a real issue for the poorest
in the developing world. However, as
we are increasingly recognizing, the
me for complacency is over and this is
agrowingissueforeverysociety.
16
The Future of Agriculture: Smart Farming
Federico Guerrini
The agricultural sector is going to face enormous challenges in order to feed the
9.6 billion people that the FAO predicts are going to inhabit the planet by 2050: food
production must increase by 70% by 2050, and this has to be achieved in spite of
the limited availability of arable lands, the increasing need for fresh water
(agriculture consumes 70 per cent of the world's fresh water supply) and other less
predictable factors, such as the impact of climate change, which, according a
recent report by the UN could lead, among other things, to changes to seasonal
events in the life cycle of plant and animals.
One way to address these issues and increase the quality and quantity of
agricultural production is using sensing technology to make farms more
“intelligent” and more connected thorugh the so-called “precision agriculture” also
known as 'smart farming'.
It's something that's already happening, as corporations and farm offices collect vast amounts of information from
crop yields, soil-mapping, fertilizer applications, weather data, machinery, and animal health. In a subset of smart
farming, Precision Livestock Farming (PLF), sensors are used for monitoring and early detection of reproduction
events and health disorders in animals.
Typical monitored data are the body temperature, the animal activity, tissues resistivity, pulse and the GPS
position. SMS alerts can be sent to the breeder based on predefined events, say, if a cow is ready for reproduction.
The European Union has sponsored several projects on the topic during the Seventh Framework Program and,
now, during Horizon 2020. The currently running EU-PLF project for instance, is designed to look at the feasibility
of bringing proven and cost-effective Precision Livestock Farming tools from the lab to the farm.
Several private companies are also starting to be active in this field, such as Anemon (Switzerland), eCow (UK),
Connected Cow (Medria Technologies and Deutsche Telekom. Smart fishing is at initial stage with some projects in
Europe, South Korea, NorthAmerica and Japan.
“Precision agriculture is not new. The agricultural vehicle manufacturers (John Deere, CNH Global, Class and
others) have been involved in this segment for some time. Initially, it was about position technologies
(GNSS) mainly, but it is becoming more complex moving towards the idea of a connected
harvester,” Beeachm Research's principal analyst, Saverio Romeo tells me.”
farming opera ons from their
onboard computers; they hardly even
have to steer,” explains Professor
Stefan Bö nger from the Ins tute of
Agricultural Engineering at the
University of Hohenheim. Liberated
from monotonous work in shi s
las ng 12-14 hours, farmers can now
concentrate on op mizing the
workflow. Just like modern cars, the
onboard computers in farmers'
tractors display important informa on
on speed, fuel consump on and the
status of the sowing opera on.
Onboard computers can also control
agricultural implements a ached to
the tractor, such as plows or planters.
Previously,
each piece
o f
machinery
had its own
s e t o f
controls.
Not so long
ago, farmers
would have
to drive over
t h e
m e a d o w,
stop each
me the baler finished pressing or
rolling a bale, and unload it by hand
before driving on again. Modern
balers, on the other hand, can
calculate the speed of both tractor and
17
baler, bring them both to a halt at the
right moment and dump the bales on
their own – the whole process is
automated. “The growing use of hi-
tech farm machinery is enabling
farmers to work more efficiently and
more economically,” says Hermann
Beck, head of ZF's Off-Highway
Systemsbusinessunit.
Smartall-in-onesystem
One important prerequisite for
agricultural innova on is the seamless
interconnec on of the individual
applica ons to form a single smart,
streamlined, all-in-one system.
Modern agricultural machines have
two different interfaces for enabling
the individual subsystems to talk to
each other. The first interface, known
as the CAN bus system, is primarily
used to control internal systems such
asengineandtransmission.
By contrast, the second system
(ISOBUS)workscloselywithfarmers,
The big tractor stops on the edge of the
plowed field while the farmer types
final instruc ons into the onboard
computer. It's a perfect day for plan ng
the spring wheat – as the farm's
opera ng system had already
calculated, based on meteorological
d a ta , s o i l s a m p l e s a n d g ra i n
characteris cs. At last, with a couple of
clicks, the farmer enters the speed
se ng and launches the sowing
program. For the next few hours, he'll
leave most of the work to the tractor's
onboard systems. Using laser scanners
and GPS, the tractor will find its way
around the field almost unassisted. The
farmer can concentrate en rely on the
sowing process, without having to
worryaboutclutchorgearshi s.
PictureWhat once sounded futuris c is
rapidly becoming rou ne. “Modern
farmers sit in the cockpits of their farm
machines and monitor the
p r o g r e s s o f
Agriculture: The Hi-Tech way to farm
A growing world population, the
impact of climate change and
dwindling resources are among
the major challenges now
facing the agricultural industry.
Along with the development of
new crop types, state-of-the-art
agricultural machinery offers
the best hope for the future.
the groundwater. Now researchers at the
University of Bremen have come up with a
possible solu on. The soil in the field is
analyzed using a small chemical
laboratory.
ZF technologyinagriculture
ZF engineers built the company's first
tractor transmission back in 1937; today,
almost all of the major manufacturers of
agricultural machinery rely on ZF's
con nuously variable transmissions
(CVTs). Over the decades, these systems
have made huge strides in terms of
sophis ca on and performance.
18
Nowadays, farm machines producing up to
650 horsepower run smoothly on ZF's
heavy-duty CVTs. Just like driver-assist
systems, modern powertrain technologies
take the strain out of farmers' daily work –
and because they maintain a
perfect balance between engine
speed and gearing, they also
reduce fuel consump on. In
mes of scarce resources and
high oil prices, that's an
important cost considera on for
farmers.
C u n g c o s t s , r e d u c i n g
workloads and protec ng the
environment are by no means
the only reasons why the use of
hi-tech systems in farms is
exploding. “Already, farmers in
Germany and France are harves ng four or
five mes as much wheat from their fields
as farmers in the U.S. or Russia,” says
Bö nger. “Using modern systems, we're
further increasing produc vity and crop
yields,” he adds. This high efficiency is
immensely important in interna onal
compe on – not least because farmers in
Russia and the U.S. have on average 3 to 4
mesandmuchacreageavailabletothem.
enabling them to control, for example,
plowingorsowingimplementsdirectlyfrom
their onboard computers. But smart
communica on between systems extends
far beyond the farm vehicle itself. Currently,
farmers have high hopes for
developmentworkinprogresson
so-called “slave systems”,
whereby the main farm machine
acts as the lead vehicle,
interac ng with a flock of smaller,
(semi-) autonomous, unmanned
vehicles.
A n o t h e r m a j o r t h e m e
preoccupying agricultural
visionaries is “precision farming”.
Typically, this vision of the future
involves agricultural machines
that not only know precisely
where they are in the field, but also how
much seed and fer lizer they need to
distribute in each part of the field. Gauging
exactly how much fer lizer to apply has
always been one of farming's most
problema c challenges. Fer lizer in the soil
is mobile: it's difficult to tell whether crops
are receiving enough nitrates, or whether
the nitrogen is making its way straight into
Low input production systems: innovation in mechanization for food security
Gajendra Singh - Doon University, India
With growing population food security remains a major challenge in many countries
in Asia. As poverty is quite prevalent more than half the malnourished and under
nourished people live in Asia. The share of agricultural labor is decreasing and
urbanization is increasing. The share of agricultural sector in GDP is decreasing
faster than decrease in agricultural labor force. In most countries power availability
per hectare is increasing rapidly and this varies from region to region in the same
country. The level of mechanization varies from crop to crop within same country.
The labor productivity has increased with increased level of mechanization.
Main challenges for mechanization include:
1) Small land holdings (average size is only about 1 ha) and majority of the farmers
have low investment capacity.
2) The use of sub-standard manufacturing technology producing poor quality
products performing poor quality work, giving poor fuel economy and resulting in
injuries and fatal accidents.
Present low level of mechanization in many countries provides opportunities for growth by improved efficiency of
utilization of machines available with farmers through custom hiring to neighbor farmers and or through larger
operational holdings. There should be greater regional cooperation in information sharing, collaborative R&D,
harmonization of standards, capacity building and trade and investment facilitation. There is a need for
favorable government policies and manufacturing processes need improvements to produce
quality machines with improved safety standards.
There is need to develop and / or adopt low energy consumption
machines and practices like no-till drills / planters
and conservation agriculture.
Two weeks ago, I joined my dad, Frank,
on a trip to Lancaster County, Pa., where
he received a soil health award from a
farm associa on and spoke at its annual
field days event. We added a day to our
trip to see three farm equipment
dealers in the highly compe ve, and
concentrated,area.
It was an interes ng trip in numerous
ways, including the diverse equipment
and number of short lines carried
uniqueterritoryassignmentsandvaried
customer base (Amish farmers next to
sophis cated corn growers and animal
producers). But it was the drive out to
see long me contributor Dave Dum and
Don Hoover at Binkley & Hurst (B&H)
that proved the most
thought-provoking for
t h e fl i g h t
home.PictureWhen we
arrived at the Li tz, Pa.
store (B&H has 6 ag
loca ons), Dum met us
in the parking lot and
said Hoover wanted to
meet with us before we
touredtheshop.
Usually, these site visits
consist of us asking a
few ques ons to get a
feel for the market
before a tour. But at this mee ng, the
tables were turned and we were
being interviewed on an
i n d u s t r y
And even
w h e n
remaining
farm kids do
c o m e o f
workforce
age, many
have seen
enough of
t h e i r
p a r e n t s '
tailings to
d e s i r e a
different lifestyle; more in line with their
millennial peers. Those workforce
preferences (B&H even had an applicant
ask for the en re summer off) are going
to be harder for a
dealershiptosa sfy.
Outdated views of the
i n d u s t r y a n d i t s
a d v a n c e m e n t a n d
e a r n i n g p o w e r
c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e
problem, including
u nfo re s e e n s p o t s .
H o o v e r r e c e n t l y
discovered a community
college's report of
industry posi ons was
ci ng income for a farm
equipment tech that
was decades old — about 50% of what
today's techs are earning. “No wonder
some haven't been looking at careers in
farm equipment,” he says, no ng the
myriad industries, including large
companies, compe ng for the very
sametalent.Cau onarynote:
wide topic that this group of managers
had been rolling up its sleeves on. And
we spent 90 minutes or so on it.
HoovercalledhisExecu veLeadership
Team together to meet with us along
with a few others, including nephew
Kur s Eby (a college junior and B&H
intern represen ng the student's
viewpoint), to talk to us about future
talent — a topic that can be easily
d i s m i s s e d w h e n l a y o ff s a t
manufacturers and, to a lesser extent,
dealers, con nue to make headlines.
Hoover and his team are concerned
about where tomorrow's talent (in all
job func ons) will be drawn from.
They wanted to know how much of a
concern it is for dealers in other states
and also what progressive dealers (like
our Dealership of the Year Alumni) are
doingtocontendwithit.
PictureFewer independent farms
today mean fewer farm kids in
the talent pool.
19
Dr Mike Lessiter
Vision for Tomorrow Requires Solutions Today
Check and correct the numbers used by
instructors in your area. With several
a c q u i s i o n s s i n c e t h e n e w
management group took over in 2006,
Hoover says the company survived on
hard-working and capable techs who
farm themselves, and who appreciate
the scheduling flexibility and freedom
B&H affords them to look a er their
own farms. But, he knows this model
isn't a long-term solu on for the next-
level support that'll be required. “The
technology will move faster than a
dealershipwillbeabletokeepup.”
Asked about the age breakdown on his
payroll and when the situa on is going
to hit “code-red,” Hoover answered in
the past tense. “It was about 2012,” he
says. “A lot of people have about 10
yearsle .”
With a talent vacuum just years away,
perhaps our recrui ng pitches should
talk about the amount of gray hair in
the industry. While it'll be hard to
compete with big business on wages,
r e r e m e n t s w i l l b r i n g q u i c k
advancement opportunity to those
willingtograbit.
In our previous careers, Execu ve
Editor Dave Kanicki and I
served at separate
m e s
create and protect prac cal, job-ready
curriculums. And while scholarships
certainly don't ensure career choices, a
significant number of today's
contributors had earned scholarships
and learned about the industry through
theorganiza on.
Is it me for our industry to organize
around this issue and get serious —
with an industry wide effort — about
securing the nex t genera on
workforce? Let's get some dialog going
on what our industry can and ought to
do today, to be prepared for the needs
of tomorrow.Companies with vision
end up crea ng their own problems to
solve, and B&H is “on it.” Not only are
they brainstorming out-of-the-box
ideas, but also how to collaborate with
the very dealers they compete with for
both sales and talent. The three
compe ng dealer groups in the area
met on the issue, and agree a unified
effort has merit. “We've got to find a
be er path,” says Hoover. “It's a crisis
anditisn'tgoingtogetanybe er.”
Is it me for our industry to organize
around this issue and get serious —
with an industry wide effort — about
securing the nex t genera on
workforce? Let's get some dialog going
on what our industry can and ought to
do today, to be prepared for the needs
oftomorrow.
on a board of trustees of the Foundry
Educa onal Founda on (FEF), an
organiza on created to address the
same issues we're talking about here
and to proac vely work to get a shot
at a rac ng talent to a compara vely
smaller industry segment compe ng
with higher profiles and sexier
industries.
The FEF began with a small campaign
of pledges from companies in 1947 to
a ract technical manpower to the
foundry industry, and grew into a fully
s u p p o r te d , N o r t h A m e r i c a n
associa on (in an industry with fewer
enterprises than the dealer industry).
Not only does it present scholarships
to students at 19 colleges and
universi es at a unique na onal event
each year that exposes the top
industry execu ves to students and
faculty, but it also provides support
for the instructors that
h e l p s
20
Is it time for our industry to
organize around this issue and
get serious — with an industry
wide effort — about securing
the next generation workforce?
Let's get some dialog going on
what our industry can and
ought to do today, to be
prepared for the needs of
tomorrow.
Machinery such as tractors and power
tools, pose the greatest injury risk on
the farm. Na on-wide in 1990 there
were 1,300 deaths and 120,000
disabling injuries in the profession of
agriculture. Of these deaths and
injuries, 46% of the injuries and 64% of
the deaths were tractor and machinery
related (1,3,6). It is important to be
safety conscious when dealing with any
job that requires the use of machinery.
Sta s cs show that the majority of
machinery related accidents occur as
the result of human negligence. Errors
include taking shortcuts to save me,
failure to read the operators manual,
ignoring a warning, improper or lack of
instruc on and failure to follow safety
rules.
The most commonly u lized pieces of
equipment around the farm are
tractors, trucks, wagons, mowers,
spreaders, grinders, blowers, augers,
post hole diggers, shredders, balers,
rakes, combines, and all-terrain
vehicles (ATVs). No ma er how
different they are in structure, they all,
if used improperly or carelessly, can be
fatal. 50% of total farm fatali es involve
and 14% are machinery related. A
b r e a k d o w n o f t h e
m a c h i n e r y
related fatali es are as followed; 34%
corn pickers, 11% silage handling, 11%
hay baling, 11% manure handling, and
33% other miscellaneous farm
machinery.
Safety sta s cs show that the majority
of farm-related injuries occur between
10 a.m. and noon, with the period
between 3 and 5 p.m. second highest4.
It has been established that these me
periods are when fa gue is most likely
to occur, and
concentra on is
not as sharp. It is
a good prac ce
to take periodic
breaks to lessen
f a g u e .
Climbing down
off the tractor
a n d w a l k i n g
around for a
c o u p l e o f
minutes will
h e l p r e l i e v e
s t r e s s a n d
boredom.
Children have the highest rate of
machinery-related injuries and
fatali es. Workers over the age of 65
do not have an excessive number of
injuries, but the likelihood of an injury
being fatal is the greatest. Between
1985 and 1989, 50% of total
f a r m
fatali es involved children under the
age of 14 and workers over the age of
65. In over of the age of 65 groups, two-
thirds of the fatali es were tractor
related. The majority of child deaths
resulted being extra passengers on
machinery and being run-over. The
most common injuries in children
involving equipment include: corn or
grain augers, tractors, ATVs, power
take-offs, belt or chain a achments,
hay balers, and pitch-forks. Because of
the seriousness of machinery-related
accidents, many injuries result in
permanent disabili es; such as the loss
of an arm, leg, fingers, toes, or a
decreased range of mo on. More than
three-quarters require surgery or
an bio c treatment for bacterial
infec onorboth.
21
Farm Equipment Safety:
Recognizing and Understanding the Hazards
Machinery and Equipment Storage
Buildings
There are numerous precau ons that
should be observed when storing
machinery on the farm. Precau ons
include:
 Buildings where machinery and
power tools are stored should be
located far enough away from
structures that house livestock and
hayincaseoffire.
 Fuel storage tanks
should preferably be
l o c a t e d b e l o w
g r o u n d , a n d a
minimum of 40 feet
from the nearest
s t r u c t u r e . F u e l
cannot be stored in
the same structure
as machinery or
power tools. Tanks
should be properly
vented. If above
ground, the area
around the tank
should be free of
li er, weeds and any
fuelspillsthatcouldaidinstar ngor
accelera ng the spread of a fire.
Fuel tanks should be adequately
protected from being struck by
machinery. An approved 10 B:C fire
ex nguisher should be located near
allfuelpumpsandtanks.
 ∙ Electrical lines
c o m i n g
into the building
should be high
e n o u g h t o
f a c i l i t a t e
e q u i p m e n t
p a s s i n g
underneath.
 Electrical systems
in machine sheds
s h o u l d b e
sufficient for the
power tools and
equipment that will require the use
ofelectriccurrent.
 Electric outlets should be of the
three-pronggroundedtype.
 Machinery storage buildings should
notbeusedtostoredebris.
 Doors on machine sheds should be
wideenough for machinery to safely
pass through without being caught.
Doors also need to pull or slide open
and close freely in case of an
emergency.
 Exitsshouldbeclearlymarked.
 Doors should be lockable to keep
outchildrenandunwantedvisitors.
 Floor surfaces should be level and
smooth, free of bumps and
protrudingrocks.
 Equipment should be parked so
there is enough space for a
person to
walkcompletelyaroundit.
 Buildings should have adequate
ven la on for the star ng or
running of an engine within the
structure. (Note - engines should
not be le running inside a building
for a prolonged period of me
unless exhaust is properly being
ventedexternally).
 All tools and accessory equipment
should be kept picked up and stored
in their proper place, e.g., air hoses,
oilcans,spare res,jacks.
 Keys should always be removed
from all equipment or machinery to
prevent children or unauthorized
peoplefromstar ngthem.
 Do not allow non-employees inside
the machine shed. Children should
never be allowed to play around or
inside the machine shed or on farm
machineryitself.
It is important to be
able to recognize
poten al hazardous
areas on machinery.
These areas include:
pinch points, shear
p o i n t s , c u n g
points, crush points,
wrap pints, and
springs.
 Pinch Point is an
area where two
rota ng surfaces
meet such as
fe e d ro l l e rs ,
gears or a belt
running around a pulley. Extremi es
can be caught in pinch points
directly, or be drawn in by loose
fi ng clothing that has become
entangledintherota ngparts.
 Shear Point is an area where the
edges of two surfaces come
together in a manner so as to cut a
so er material placed between the
surfaces. Shear points are found on
shrubbery shears or grain augers.
The resul ng injury is usually
amputa on.
23
 Cu ng Point is found on machinery
designed to cut such as mowers and
harvesters. The blades move with a
rapid mo on o en unseen by the
eye. Injuries are of the same nature
asthosecausedbyashearpoint.
 Crush Point occurs when two
objects are joined; either with both
ends moving towards each other or
with one being sta onary. Fingers
and hands are o en injured by
crushing between a draw bar and
wagon hitch. Numerous fatali es
occur when people helping the
o p e r a t o r o r t h e o p e r a t o r
him/herself is crushed between
pieces of equipment or equipment
and a solid object such as a wall or
tree.
 Springs are found on numerous
pieces of farm machinery. When a
spring is compressed, 'energy' is
'stored'withinthespring.Whenthe
spring is expanded, the energy is
released. The larger the spring the
greater the amount of energy
produced. When springs break they
explode with great force and can
inflict serious damage. It is
important to inspect springs
regularlyforcracksandwear.
 Wrap Point is any moving point on a
piece of equipment where clothing
or long hair may become entangled
suchasaPowerTakeOff(PTO)sha .
A wrap point grabs the vic m and
actually wraps him/her around the
moving part or it can also draw the
vic m into the machine. Tangled
clothing can wrap ght enough to
crush, amputate or suffocate the
vic m. All wrap points on machinery
shouldbeshieldedifpossible.
24
Sustainable Development
The world is in transition to one in which there will be more people, greater consumption of materials and resources,
more global interdependence, and a need to reduce poverty without destroying the environment. Over the past two
decades, “sustainability” has become a principal concept in integrating technological, economic, social, and
political issues to address environmental protection and economic development. The future depends on
harnessing the power of modern technologies, consistent with the interests of the poor and hungry and with respect
for the environment. Agriculture, as a source for food, natural raw materials for bio industries, and energy, will
increasingly be a major driver of this transition. “Definitions” abound for sustainable development. I prefer to think of
it as a “process” of redirection, reorientation, and reallocation—an evolving process rather than a static definition. I
see sustainable development as a fundamental redesign of technological, economic, and sociological processes
to address change. To get beyond the various images of sustainable development, there is a need to develop a
“science” of sustainability and systems of implementation. This leads me to suggest that the process of transition to
a sustainable world will include:
Streamlining processes and reusing materials with a goal of zero waste.
Embracing new technologies of information science, biotechnology (genomics and integrative molecular biology),
and advanced materials to reduce environmental problems while increasing economic productivity.
Utilizing renewable resources for energy to reduce or eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.
Developing sustainable communities based on the efficient use of space, increased conservation of materials and
energy resources, and reduced transportation.
Improving community livability and developing more efficient administrative and planning processes to
demonstrate ecological living that is economically and socially desirable.
Developing sustainable agriculture as a principal component of sustainable communities where use of fossil fuels,
insecticides, herbicides and inorganic fertilizer is minimized or eliminated.
Focusing on newer and innovative sustainable enterprises such as bio-based industrial products.
The challenge is to rethink how the material needs of society can be met by using agriculturally based systems.
This rethinking involves an integration of science and engineering with an emphasis on ecological processes and
socioeconomic phenomena. Technologies such as biotechnologies, information systems, and control and
management systems will play a key role in inventing new processes and ensuring their effective
and efficient execution (at the highest possible quality and lowest cost).
Norman R. Scott
Department of Agricultural and
Biological Engineering
Cornell University
orherplants.
Crop and field scou ng are crucial for
each stage of the crop lifespan. Pre-
seeding field scou ng can show a
farmer weed popula ons, including
what weeds are growing and what
growth stage the weeds are in. When
it's me to seed, field scou ng can
show the farmer informa on to lead
them to choose what seed depth or
seed rate they should plant at, as well
as early indicators of seed treatments
or selec on. A er the seeding is
completed, frequent scou ng will help
to show farmers damaged seeds, early
signs of pests, and many other factors.
When crops begin to germinate and
become established and rooted,
con nued scou ng can help
Crop Scouting:
Precision Technology Uses in
Crop Scouting
25
to prevent weed damage, pest
damage, and post-spray pes cide or
fer lizer performance. It is important
to keep scou ng on regular intervals
through the plant's life, as this scou ng
could reveal pest issues, soil moisture
issues, and a variety of other risk that
could be fought against. Crop Scou ng
tells farmers a huge amount about
their plants, and can help them to
improve yield, and maximize
cropefficiency.
As precision agriculture
technologies have advanced,
farmers have been helped
greatly when it comes to crop
scou ng. For example,
instead of field notebooks,
there are several different
m o b i l e a p p s t h a t a r e
compa ble with different
types of mobile devices,
including tablet computers
and smartphones that help
farmers keep accurate logs of
their fields, while also giving
themtheopportunitytocross
compare these notes with previous
years or different areas of the fields.
Also with the advancement of Global
Posi oning Systems (GPS) and
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs),
farmers don't even need to walk
through their fields. These new
technologies can help to show farmers
informa on that humans cannot see
with the naked eye, as well as
accuratelypin-pointwheretarget
Crop scou ng, also known as field
scou ng, is the very basic ac on of
traveling through a crop field while
making frequent stops for observa ons.
Crop scou ng is done so that a farmer
can see how different areas of his or her
field are growing. If there are problems
during the growing season, the farmer
can work to mi gate them so those
problems do not affect yield at harvest
me. Should problems go
unno ced or uncared for
during the growing season,
they can poten ally limit the
total yield, thus reducing the
revenue from the sale of the
crop or other inten ons for
the crop, such as livestock
feed.
There are many different
methods of crop scou ng.
While the tradi onal methods
can include walking through
the field and observing plants
manually, par cular pieces of
equipment are s ll used,
including field notes so the farmer can
keep account of plants and areas that
need more a en on, a pocket knife and
bags for sample taking, and finally a
hand magnifica on lens so the farmer
can get a close look and be er
idea of the health
of his
Crop Scouting:
Precision Technology Uses in Crop Scouting
areasaretoprovideassistance.
GPS UseinCropScou ng
Global posi oning systems are an
extremely useful tool when it comes to
the advancement of crop scou ng in
precision agriculture. Crop scou ng has
always relied on farmers remembering
where they have scouted and taking
note of that, although with the use
of GPS, farmers now have an
accurate recording of up to one
foot of where they have been. With
this precise loca on data they can
make notes and have specific
loca ons of where pests, poor soil
temperature or moisture are
located. With the preciseness of
global posi oning systems farmers
can also accurately mi gate threats
thattheyfindintheirfields.
GPS has now been incorporated
into many different pieces of
technology which help farmers to
scout their fields much more
efficiently and accurately. An
example of these technologies
includes different apps that are
available for tablets or smartphones.
These apps help farmers to not only
mark their exact loca on in a field, but
also make field notes, compare notes
from previous years and more. These
apps can help to show a farmer
whereexactlyonan
aerial
photo of their farm
target areas of issue
are, as well as helping
farmerstomakefuture
decisions based on
past crop issues they
havehad.
UAV inCropScou ng
UAV's are one piece of
technology that have
been developed and
p e r f e c t e d f o r
agricultural purposes
in the past 10 years.
UAV'salsoknown
as unmanned aerial vehicles, are
constantly being perfected and
developed to be more efficient, easy to
use, and effec ve. Two main models of
UAV's used in agriculture are the fixed
wing pla orm, which is very similar to a
plane, although it is scaled down and
controlled with a remote control or
GPS. The second model is the mul -
copter - this model is similar to a
helicopter although it generally has
more propellers - some mul -copters
have anywhere between 4 – 8
propellers. The more propellers that
are added to a mul -copter typically
provide more stability and power to the
machine, this makes it easier to fly and
maneuver in different weather
condi ons. Typically
m u l -
copters are preferred on smaller farms
where landing space is limited, while
planes are usually be er suited for
extremelylargefarms.
UAV's have assisted the agricultural
sector by combining their technology
with that of infrared cameras. These
two pieces of technology combined
mean that a farmer can get a bird's eye
view of his or her farm and see their
crops from a whole new perspec ve.
UAV's are also capable to use these
infrared cameras to render a variety of
different informa on, including: what
species are in their fields (weed and
crop scou ng), moisture levels of the
soil or plants, plant development
stages, plant health, and much more.
These UAV's give farmers a more
holis c view of what is happening in
their fields and with the use of these
UAV's, farmers are able to be er
understand their crops not just on a
field by field basis, but on a plant by
plant basis. This is because some UAV's
are carry cameras capable of showing
onepixelasonefootofland,thismeans
that the farmer can see each foot of
land on their field and understand a
wide range of informa on about that
par cular piece of field. UAV's are
helping farmers to undertake more
accurate farming prac ces and with
thisprecisioncomesbe eryield.
26
technological innova on so it may be
considered the mother of all future
innova ons.
A second major step took place in
M i d d l e A g e w i t h s i g n i fi c a n t
improvements in the agricultural
techniques and technologies. The
development of handcra s and
processing of iron improved the
produc on of agricultural implements
such plough and hand tools as well as
animal trac on techniques with horse
shoesandharnesses.
Then with the advent of the Age of
Enlightenment in 1700 which extends
the applica on of the analy cal
Agricultural mechanization:
Development of civilization
27
method and mark the beginning of
m o d e r n s c i e n c e , a g r i c u l t u re
undergoes a major transforma on of
both the farming system and the
technical means that from “tools”
evolve into “machines” in the modern
sense.
Thus began the drama c development
of mechaniza on of the last three
centuries that led to increase by more
than a thousand mes the produc vity
of human labor thus reducing
employees in agriculture to 12% of
a c v e p o p u l a o n i n m o r e
industrializedcountries.
Nowadays agricultural mechaniza on
is facing two major challenges: from
one side to produce food supplies for a
growing popula on that is expected to
rise to 10 billion in a few decades and
on the other hand protect and
preservetheenvironment.
An addi onal global strategic role of
mechaniza on is its key role in the
improvement of economic condi ons
of the less developed countries: a low
level in agricultural engineering in
generallyassociatetoahighlevelof
The long journey of human civiliza on
began 10.000 years ago when humans,
un l then hunter-gatherers, thanks to
theadventofagriculturehadaccesstoa
food surplus that led to the forma on of
permanenthumanse lements.
From then un l three centuries ago the
development of human society was
based on technical development of
tools and facili es dedicated to primary
economic sector and therefore it can be
said that the “agricultural engineering”
- in its earliest and simplest
forms-wasthefirst
o f
“The development of
handcrafts and processing
of iron improved the
production of agricultural
implements such plough
and hand tools as well as
animal traction techniques
with horse shoes and
harnesses”.
Look under the bonnet of a Kubota and you will find something very special.
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p o v e r t y w h i l e a g r i c u l t u r a l
mechaniza on can reduce the number
of people working in
agriculture and increase the
GDP ofthecountry.
T h e e x c e p o n a l
development of agricultural
machinery industry of the
last decades is based on a
growing globaliza on and
on a worldwide networking
and coopera on in order to
reduce the produc on costs
andtoincreasethequality.
Driving forces of modern
farm machinery are automa on and
electronics with enormous progress in
diffusion of IT technologies that have
led to tremendous improvement in
both efficiency and produc vity of
machinery and environmental
protec on during opera ons as has
o en been discussed in the Club of
Bologna.
The contribu on of
mechaniza on to the
goal of feeding the
planet in the near future
must also focused on the
development of simple
and cheap machines for
developing countries in
o r d e r t o i m p r o v e
e ffi c i e n c y o f t h e
agricultural systems,
reduce malnutri on and
improve the economic
condi onsofthosecountries.
Robot farming system in Japan
Noboru Noguchi - Hokkaido University, Japan
Agriculture in developed countries after the Industrial Revolution has tended to
favor increases in energy input through the use of larger tractors and increased
chemical and fertilizer application. Although this agricultural technology has
negative societal and environmental implications, it has supported food for
rapidly increasing human population. In western countries, “sustainable
agriculture” was developed to reduce the environmental impact of production
agriculture. At the same time, the global agricultural workforce continues to
shrink; each worker is responsible for greater areas of land. Simply continuing the
current trend toward larger and heavier equipment is not the solution. A new
mode of thought, a new agricultural technology is required for the future.
Intelligent robotic tractors are one potential solution.
In Japan, the number of farmers is decreasing and aside from the fact the problem in aging farmers. In the
near future, Japan farmers will decrease rapidly that will result to shortage in food production. That is why
researchers in Japan are doing a research about robot farming system which is one of the possible
solutions to solve the food shortage production.
This presentation will give the application of robot vehicles in agriculture using new technologies. The
robot framing system will fully automate the farming from planting to harvesting until to the end user of the
products. A robot tractor and a planting robot will be used to plant and seed the crops using navigation
sensors. It includes a robot management system, a real-time monitoring system, a navigation system,
and a safety system. In the robot farming system, the robot vehicles receive a command from the control
center and send information data through a wireless LAN or packet communication. The robot vehicles
such as a robot tractor and a robot combine harvester can perform its designated tasks and can work
simultaneously with each other. The operator at the control center can analyze the data sent by the robot
vehicles in a real-time basis and can immediately send the necessary information to the farmers,
retailers, and producer's cooperation, etc. Also, the operator can see the real-time status of the
robot vehicles using a GIS while their performing its task.
29
31
Agricultural mechanization
in Peru
By Shimon Horovitz / Agronomist
An experience to make your soil preparation in a short and in an efficient way:
I am an Israeli Agronomist and spent a
year in Peru and wish to elaborate here
theideaIimplementedthere.
It is an idea I know from Israel but I did
try to show it in in Peru in 2006 and
2007 where I was a consultant to a
company selling seeds of Israeli Co on
to farmers and later helping them with
loansandadvice.
Smallholders:
The farmers in Peru are small holder
farmers. They have a 2 ha Farm usually.
Imetfewfarmerswith10or20hafarm,
Very Few farms had 50 ha and more
than that. I saw 3 farms of 500 ha in the
northofPeru.
Soil:
Soil is a saline soil as it is a desert area,
pHisusuallyabove7.8.
Water:
The irriga on is mainly by flood, the
watercomesfromareservoir,whenthe
lever of the reservoir is down then
water for the fields are stopped un l
lever of the reservoir is back to a
minimum. That is leaving the farmers
some meswithoutwaterfor30days.
Lackofmachinery:
The small farmer can hire machinery
from a government office at
the edge of the
town
they live nearby. The machinery is
simple containing some disc plows disc
harrowsandsoillevelers.
History:
Part of the problem of the machinery
started a er in 1968, when Peru took
(na onalized) the big farms from the
owners and gave 2 ha to every man in
Peru.
Costsofthemachinery:
When I asked about their ability to Use
a Sub-soiler or a
rooter they said “it
is too costly ”!
Later they told me
the cost is high for
one me and they
usually do it 2
mes, (once across
theother)
T h e m t h e y
men onthereisan
extra obstacle
here; as the soil is
so it consumes
more water then
what they can afford, as the water is
countedperseason.
Background:
I arrived to the idea that if I wish to help
them I need to have a “sub-soiler that
can ridge at the same me, in this way
you make the ridges exactly on
top of the path
that the sub
soilerdid.
This way you
have the soil
so exactly
u n d e r t h e
place of the
plants in the
future. You do
not need to sub soil all the field, (and
notunderthetractor’swheelplace).
You want the soil to be so and easy to
enter by the roots only where they are,
whichisunderthetopoftheridge.
Imadesomemoreresearchspeakingto
fa r m e rs a n d A g r o n o m i s t s t o
understandbe er:
As farmers tend to save on soil
prepara on,mostofthefarmersdonot
prepare the soil in the best way, most of
them irrigate before the soil
prepara on as the soil is hard and very
drya ertheformercrop,thesoil
Picture show two implements in Peru first on the left is the leveler and in the back the
Disc Harrow. A tractor can pull these two at one go to the field on roads.
prepara onrou necontain:
It is a known rou ne to do: irrigate before
allac vi es.
a) Plough
b) DiscHarrow
c) Leveling
As a “three passes basic rou ne”. But I
guess some of the farmers do only part of
thislist:
a) Partofthemwilluseaplough.
b) They all use a “Disc Harrow” in
theirfields.
c) Some or most of them will use a
soil leveler, as most of them use flood
irriga onanditisrecommended.
Farmers of Co on today were rice growers
yesterday.
Irriga ng the field is in a method which is
known for rice, in flooding method. With
high borders so water will remain inside
theirrigatedfield.
They do their prac ce in a short me as not
to lose too much of the humidity for the
seeds to germinate, subsequence - they
willmakeaditchinthesoilsotheseedswill
findsomehumidity.
In the south of Peru I saw this done by
planter: some mes the ditch is made by
animal.
ThefieldsIsaw(mostofthem)werenot
planted nice and the crop was not
evenly germinated, such a field can’t be
sustainable. The poor performance is
part of lack of knowhow and bad
prac ces.
Ifyouusebe erprac cesyoucanreach
abe erstart:
In contrast here is a field I managed the
soil prepara on; you may see that the
croplooksgoodandhomorganic.
Here we made ridges and irrigated
them and later we disked harrowed the
field one me and use planter that placed
the seeds on the flat soil but exactly where
the center of the ridge used to be so the
soilisveryhumid.
Explana on:
The ridge gets
drybutthecenteroftheridge,furtherinto
itiss llhumid,sotheideaoftheridgeisto
help us keep part of the ridge wet for
longer me and s ll be higher and further
fromthe“hard-pan”.
The base of my idea is “Make ridges
beforeirriga on”.
The second commandment I say is use
“fixed tracks”. Meaning try keep the crop
on the same track all the years. Keep the
place that the tractor compacted to be
again the path where the tractor will go
again. The place where the tractor
compacted once is not fer le as the other
areawhereitwasnotcompacted. Thesoil
that was alive one year will remain
alive next year. The soil
unde
r the tractor’s wheel is
“dead”(kindof).
As an example of the
idea – in the picture we
s e e t w o t ra c t o r s
working one behind
the other, the first one
is carrying a sub-
spoiler and the second
is carrying a ridger, but
this is with 2 tractors,
while my idea was to
put 2 implements
t o g e t h e r o n o n e
tractorononeframe.
 
To use the idea to the
maximum I made an
implement:
T h e i m p l e m e n t I
promoted in Peru is coming to do the job in
one path, use sub soiler and use ridges and
use“fixedtracks”.
HereinthepictureistheimplementImade
and promoted between the farmers I met.
Thenextpictureshowanimplementwhich
was “downsized” so a smaller tractor can
dothejob.
The tractor is making ridges in a field
one next to the other. Only a er
comple onIwillirrigatethisfield.
I add a drawing here to show the idea
oncemore:
The bed should be a bit higher from the
rest of the area, so water can go to the
lowareaandleavetheplanttoaerateits
roots and get more air. You can leave
the bed in the same place next your or
next season, this is the main idea of
“fixed-tracks”.
I am adding here few more diagrams in
ordertomakemyselfcleareroftheidea:
The way I show is to plant on the ridge and
not in the furrow. When soil had become
dry and no rain will come then we cut and
throw the dry soil from the top to the
furrow, then we see the center humid soil
of the center of the ridge and plant there. (
it may become a flat field now but the
seedsareplacedinahumidzone.)
33
Irrigation was with flood methods that make the crop suffer some days from over
watering and sometime too long intervals. The picture shows a field being irrigated by
flood irrigation.
Part of the people make a furrow like seen in the picture with a mule or a horse and
later put the seeds by people into the furrow where it is a bit more humid.
You can see the borders of the fields is a
ridge of soil to border the water not to
go to another field in the flood
irriga on.
The seeds are placed low and too close
tothe“hardpan”. Thismeanstheroots
will not develop nicely as they can’t
grow deep as the hard pan will not let
rootsgodeep. Whenrootsareshallow
the ability of the co on plants (or
others) will suffer when water is too
much as water are put a lot as there is
no assurance when the farmer will get
his next irriga on. As some me the
interval between 2 irriga ons may
reach to 25 of more days which is a bit
too much so the plants will shade the
flowers and buds, and the yield will be
low.
Downsizing:
The implement we made started the
job with a 240 hp tractor but soon later
the tractor had to go to
otherjobs.
In order to adopt the
implement to a smaller
tractor, we down sized
the nes so a 115 hp
tractor will be able to
dothejob.
There was a me we
used the idea on 2
tractors going exactly one a er the
other,
The first tractor went ahead with a sub-
soiler and the second one came right
behide in its footprint and made the
ridges. 
34
Here in the picture is the implement I made and
promoted between the farmers I met.
The next picture show an implement which was
“downsized” so a smaller tractor can do the job.
Looking from the back at the “subsoiller – ridger “ implement Looking from the other side at the smaller “subsoiller–ridger implement”
Farm of the future
Giuseppe Gavioli – CNH
The evolution of the farms in the next 30 years will be impressive. There are
several external drivers that will have a very strong influence on the farm of the
future such as: the increase of food demand for growing world population and for
growing individual food consumption, the need to increase productivity and
efficiency of production on current crop land and to cultivate new land, the
availability of new technologies for farm tools, the pervasive presence of
information and data. The farming activities will also have to be increasingly
sustainable for the environment.
Farmers will interact more and more with global crop and food markets, which
will increasingly drive farm medium to long term strategy, while they will be
strengthening links and connections with local farm communities and groups,
leveraging on local and regional networks for energy production and sharing,
logistic optimization, information and services.
Farm of the future
Giuseppe Gavioli – CNH
The evolution of the farms in the next 30 years will be impressive. There are
several external drivers that will have a very strong influence on the farm of the
future such as: the increase of food demand for growing world population and for
growing individual food consumption, the need to increase productivity and
efficiency of production on current crop land and to cultivate new land, the
availability of new technologies for farm tools, the pervasive presence of
information and data. The farming activities will also have to be increasingly
sustainable for the environment.
Farmers will interact more and more with global crop and food markets, which
will increasingly drive farm medium to long term strategy, while they will be
strengthening links and connections with local farm communities and groups,
leveraging on local and regional networks for energy production and sharing,
logistic optimization, information and services.
Qk;ns %
 xksfcUn jksVksosVj vU; d`f"k ;a=ksa dh rqyuk
esa ,d ;k nks gh tqrkbZ esa t+ehu dks cksus ds
fy, rS;kj dj nsrk gSAftlls yxHkx 40ø Mhty dh cpr
vkSj 60ø le; dh cpr gksrh gSA
 ikjEifjd rjhdksa ls [ksr dks cqvkbZ ds fy, rS;kj
djus esa yxHkx 10 ls 15 fnu dk le; yxrk gS ijUrq
xksfcUn jksVksosVj ls [ksr cqvkbZ ds fy, rqjUr
rS;kj gks tkrk gSA
 xksfcUn jksVksosVj feV~Vh dks cqvkbZ ds fy,
rqjUr rS;kj dj nsrk gS] ftlls fiNyh Qly dh feV~Vh
dh ueh csdkj ugha tkrh] bl izdkj ty izcU/ku esa
enn Hkh djrk gSA
 vU; d`f"k ;a=ksa dh rqyuk esa cjlkr gksus ds
ckn rqjUr blls tqrkbZ fd;k tk ldrk gSA xhyh
feV~Vh esa tqrkbZ bldk vkn'kZ mi;ksx gS] lkFk
The content of this catalogue is only giving information to the end user without engagement from our side.
The Company can modify the specifications of the total machine & its components without notice.
Tractor Power
Overall Width
Tillage Width
Gear Box Speed
Side Transmission
P.T.O. Speed (RPM)
Rotor Speed (RPM)
No. of Blades
Gear Box
Overload Protection
30 to 35 H.P.
150 cm
120 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
36
Shear Bolt
35 to 45 H.P.
180 cm
150 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
42
Shear Bolt
45 to 55 H.P.
205 cm
175 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
48
Shear Bolt
55 to 70 H.P.
230 cm
200 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
54
Shear Bolt
70 to 75 H.P.
255 cm
225 cm
Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
60
Shear Bolt
GI - 120 GI - 150 GI - 175 GI - 200 GI - 225
rduhdh fo'ks"krk,a %
xUuk dikl dsyk dkuZ LVkDl lw[kh&xhyh t+ehu
vf/kd` r foØsrk %
Rotor Speed (RPM) for Multi Speed Gearbox
160
16 17 18 19 2015 20 19 18 17 16 15 13 22
180 200 225 252 282 232
Tractor PTO 540 (RPM) 1000 (RPM)
vf/kd` r foØsrk %
GOBIND
n’kgjk ckx+] gSnjx<+ jksM
ackjkc dh ¼;w0ih0½
( A Unit of Gobind Alloys Limited )
An ISO 9001:2008 Company
gobindindustries.co.ininfo@gobindindustries.co.in
+91-7705900901, 903, 904, 906, 923
9415049542, 941504862, 9415049543
Gobind Industries
( A Unit of Gobind Alloys Limited )
An ISO 9001 : 2008 Company
Dasharabagh, Haidergarh Road, Barabanki (U.P.)
Sugarcane Cotton Banana Corn Stalks Wet & Dry Field
ADVANTAGE:
 Gobind Rotavator is better than other agricultural equipments to prepare the soil in just
one or two times of cultivation, and also it save the 40% diesel and 60% time.
 Traditional method takes minimum 10-15 days to prepare seed bed where as by
Gobind Rotavator soil is immediately available for sowing.
 Gobind Rotavator can immediately prepare the soil moisture of previous crop does not
go waste, thus helps water management.
 Cultivation of soil can be done immediately after the rain because it is the ideal use for
Rotavator, it also push the tractor forward in soil.
 Gobind Rotavator is beneficial for the land of reaped sugarcane, bananas, jute, dried
grass and other corps.
SALIENTFEATURES:
 Gear Box: Heavy duty export quality gear box, and it have longer service life.
 Box Frame: It have heavy duty square pipe and made up from heavy plates.
 Trailing Board: It have automatic spring which helps in to have a quality cultivation of
soil, and its pressure balance the wet soil .
 P.T.O. Shaft:- Water proof cross with protection guard.
 It have double spring multi lip oil seal.
 Tiller Blades : Blades made up from advanced imported parts which easily cultivate the
soil without heavy load and also helps in smooth running.
 Side Transmission: Side gears made out of best quality steel & properly heat treated
technology which gives the regular functioning with longer life.
gobindindustries.co.ininfo@gobindindustries.co.in
For Dealership and Distributorship Enquiry :
Lalit Sachedva
+91 9643040547
sachdeva.lalit2015@gmail.com
The content of this catalogue is only giving information to the end user without engagement from our side.
The Company can modify the specifications of the total machine & its components without notice.
Tractor Power
Overall Width
Tillage Width
Gear Box Speed
Side Transmission
P.T.O. Speed (RPM)
Rotor Speed (RPM)
No. of Blades
Gear Box
Overload Protection
30 to 35 H.P.
150 cm
120 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
36
Shear Bolt
35 to 45 H.P.
180 cm
150 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
42
Shear Bolt
45 to 55 H.P.
205 cm
175 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
48
Shear Bolt
55 to 70 H.P.
230 cm
200 cm
Single/Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
54
Shear Bolt
70 to 75 H.P.
255 cm
225 cm
Multi
Gear
540/1000
220
60
Shear Bolt
GI - 120 GI - 150 GI - 175 GI - 200 GI - 225
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Rotor Speed (RPM) for Multi Speed Gearbox
160
16 17 18 19 2015 20 19 18 17 16 15 13 22
180 200 225 252 282 232
Tractor PTO 540 (RPM) 1000 (RPM)
GOBIND
varjk"Vªh; ekudksa ds vuqlkj fufeZr
jksVksosVj
gj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viukgj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viukgj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viuk
de
[kir
vf/kd tqrkbZ Approved by Government of India
Mcy fLizxa
vf/kd bVkfy;uvf/kd bVkfy;u
CysM ds lkFkCysM ds lkFk
vf/kd bVkfy;u
CysM ds lkFk
Approved by Government of India


"A Dream of Every Farmer""A Dream of Every Farmer""A Dream of Every Farmer"

LOW
CONSUMPTION
MORE PLOWING
jksVksosVj
OIL FILLED
GEAR
DRIVE
!
WARNING
Check oil level before
using machine tighten
all bolts everyday
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
MUMBAI: Mahindra & Mahindra
(M&M) on Thursday signed a
definitive agreement to acquire
33 per cent in Mitsubishi
Agricultural Machinery Co (MAM)
for $25 million or Rs 160 crore.
The world's largest tractor
maker by volumes will gain a
significant voting stake
in the subsidiary of
M i t s u b i s h i H e a v y
Industries through
fresh issue of common
shares and Class A
(nonvoting) shares of
M i t s u b i s h i A g r i
Machinery. The deal is
t o b e c l o s e d b y
October 1, with funds infused by
Mahindra going into expanding
the capital base of the Japanese
company.
The acquisition will help the
Mahindras work closely to devise
an appropriate product portfolio
strategy for the overseas
markets. Apart from penetrating
deeper into the US market, this
tie-up will help M&M reach out
more effectively to markets of
China, South East Asia and
eastern Europe.
It will also provide a platform for
both to leverage technology and
product development
synergies. Both
part
ners will work towards common
s o u r c i n g t o b r i n g d o w n
expenditure.
The Mahindras have an old
association with Mitsubishi
Agricultural Machinery. The
latter has been supplying
tractors to M&M's US subsidiary,
in addition to sharing technical
license for walk-behind rice
trans-planters and a tractor.
" F r o m a b u y e r - s e l l e r
relationship, we now have a
deeper bond with MAM. It will
help in leveraging our future in
markets like the US," Pawan
Goenka, executive director of
M&M, told ET.
M i t s u b i s h i A g r i c u l t u r a l
Machinery had revenues of $408
million in 2014-15 and with
M&M's equity infusion; it will
mostly be debt free. MAM makes
losses at the net level, but a
higher capacity utilization of
the plant will help the company
m a k e i t p r o fi t a b l e . T h e
Japanese firm has a roster base
of 1,700 employees.
Goenka said the company needs
to get a better balance in terms
of its volumes spread, with 90
per cent of its business coming
from India. Acquisition of stake
will help it increase its presence
in overseas markets.
Goenka also pointed out that
despite being the
largest selling tractor
company in the world;
M&M was at number 5
in terms of revenues. A
p u s h o n f a r m
machinery business
globally is the key to
climb up the revenue
ladder.
"Tractors only make up for one
third of global farm machinery
business while implements and
machineries like rice-planters
make for a big business. In case
of Mahindra, almost 95 per cent
of business comes from selling
tractors. With this tie-up with
Mitsubishi, we would like correct
that position by focusing more on
farm mechanization," he said.
Mahindra is also likely to launch
a lighter tractor in India with the
help of Mitsubishi next year,
which will help the company
cater to a 20,000 units per
annum market for orchards.
47
M&M to acquire 33% stake in Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery
Company for Rs 159.24 crore
NEWS
COIMBATORE: To give school
students a true experience of
what an average farmer has to go
through daily, Tractor and Farm
Equipment Ltd today launched
its 'Be a FarmDost' initiative
here, providing them with kits
containing seeds and other
material like an institutional
manual.
The initiative was aimed to
celebrate the farmer and bring
back the farming community
into the social consciousness and
to encourage students to
understand the importance of
farmers, Sunitha Subramanyam,
Senior Deputy General Manager,
Corporate Communications, said
at the launch at National Model
Higher School, here.
Through this initiative, the
company wanted to reach
20,000 school children in
Coimbatore by distributing
FarmDost kits, which contain
seeds, a packet of cocopeat, a
friendship agreement, a
f a r m d o s t s t i c k e r, a n
institutional manual, besides
letters to them and their
parents, requesting child's
involvement in this, she said.
Once students participate by
cultivating seeds from the
kit,they are expected to click
pictures of the farming process
regularly and post it on FarmDost
website, Sunitha said.
The pictures will later be
promoted as Be a #FarmDost
Page-Facebook. Com/foremost
and the top three students from
each city will be awarded Best
#FarmDost student award, she
said.
After covering the initiative in
Coimbatore, Madurai and Trichu,
it would be held in Chennai
schools, somewhere in mid of
August and awarding ceremony
will be held during September.
Another award 'Thank You
Farmers Student' award will
encourage students to meet,
interact and thank farmers in an
innovative way, Sunitha said.
32
Tractor and Farm Equipment Ltd launches 'Be a FarmDost' initiative to
recognize farmers
NEWS
Agrimech September 2015
Agrimech September 2015
Agrimech September 2015
Agrimech September 2015

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Agrimech September 2015

  • 1. AGRI MECHAGRI MECH VOL I | ISSUE 5 | SEPT 2015RNI No. HARENG00941RNI No. HARENG00941 Agricultural mechanization in Peru By Shimon Horovitz / Agronomist The rice you trust By A S Subbarao Robot farming system in Japan By Noboru Noguchi - Hokkaido Univ, (YOUR FARM TECHNOLOGY NAVIGATOR)
  • 2. 05
  • 3. S K Ali Managing Editor skali85@gmail.com Raji Naqvi Adver sement Manager rajinaqvi@gmail.com Dhruv Vishvas Subscrip on Manager rkmedcom@gmail.com Naveen Rana Graphic Designer naveengraphics50@gmail.com Raza Jarrar Webmaster info@netnovaz.com Our Team Editorial policy is independent, Views expressed by authors arenotnecessarilythoseheldbytheeditors. Registered as Monthly Magazine by Registrar of NewspapersforIndia.Vide RNI no. HARENG00941 Licensed to post at Karnal HPO under postal regn. No. PKL- 91/2007-2009 Editorial and adver sements may not be reproduced without the wri en consent of the publishers. Whilst every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the contents of AGRI MECH. The publishers do not accept any responsibility or liabilityforthematerialherein. Publica on of news, views and informa on is in the interest of posi ve development of Global Farm Mechaniza on. It doesnotimplypublisher’sendorsement. Unpublished material of industrial interest, not submi ed elsewhereisinvited. The submi ed material will be published a er going through the relevancy of the magazine subject and may be returnedincaseofnotfoundappropriate. Publisher, Printer: S K Ali on behalf of RK Media and Communica ons,Delhi Printed at: Crea ve Design & Print, H.No 14, 1st Floor, SunlightColony-I,NewDelhi-110014 Publishedat:1723,Sector–9,UrbanEstate, Karnal–132001(Haryana) Editor in Chief: S K Ali Welcome to September edi on of AGRIMECH, the monthly magazine dedicated to farmforward-looking equipment from tractors to harvesters, handlers to implements. If it's found on the farm you'll find it in the pages of AGRIMECH. Agriculture machinery is the o en-overlooked economic engine that drives much of ourstate'sandourregion'seconomy,chuggingalonglikeatrustyoldtractor,bringinginthecashandspinning offthejobsthatarethefounda onofourprosperity. When one word will do, we use two, and it's not to fill space. Only with in-depth and comprehensive features can we give every machine the a en on, and every reader the detail deserved. That's the only way to inform and engage operators and owners of modern machinery. A er all, we're as commi ed to making sure you've got the right equipment as you are. But don't just take our word for it – every test, report and guide will be packed with expert user reviews and opinions from professional operators who spend their working lives at thewheeloftheverylatestagriculturalmachines. An agriculture technology magazine mainly involves genera ng knowledge, its transfer and u liza on by the farmers. For rapid agriculture development, there is a need for constant flow of technological informa on from research system to extension system and there upon to the farmers for adop on. So, in the process of transfer of technology, effec ve communica on has a significant role for agricultural development. Today there is a greater need for communica on of informa on as the present day, “Knowledge explosion” in the world has necessitated a “communica on explosion” in its wake, because “never in the annals of human history was there a need for so many people to know so much and so quickly as it is today”. At the same me, the key role of communica on in any form is to plant new ideas in the minds of human beings. Because, of all the influences to which man is subjected to, the influence of ideas is probably the most important one. Preparing and distribu on of the message to the millions of farmers and machinery manufacturers in the ways that it is received, understood, accepted and applied is therefore, the greatest opportunity and paramount challenge to all extension workers. Hence, the responsibility reposed on extension workers is considerable, as they have to act as teachers to farmers in dissemina on of innova ons or new ideas by using variouschannelsofcommunica onforadop on. With the best ar cles and photographers AGRIMECH produces a approach to farm publishing; it will becrisp the perfect accomplice for all your machinery needs. If you're into farm mechaniza on business, you should definitelybedisplayedinto AGRIMECH.
  • 4. ContentsContents 06 11 16 17 18 25 27 31 34 Agricultural Productivity in Transition Economies Agricultural technology to feed the world The Future of Agriculture: Smart Farming Agriculture: The Hi: Tech way to farm Low input production systems: innovation in mechanization for food security Crop Scouting: Precision Technology Uses in Crop Scouting Agricultural mechanization: Development of civilization Agricultural mechaniza on in Peru 36 19 Vision for Tomorrow Requires Solutions Today 48 Farm of the future 21 50Farm Equipment Safety: Recognizing and Understanding the Hazards The Rice You Trust TAFE Launches ‘Be a FarmDost’ initiative to recognize farmers AGCO & Precision Planting agree to bring Precision Planting Technology to White Planters
  • 5. Editorial Committee Dr Gyanendra Singh M.Tech , Ph.D Member Task Force Committee (Agriculture), Government of Madhya Pradesh Member Academic Council, JNKVV, Jabalpur Dr Shimon Horovitz Roberto B.Sc. Agronomy Consultant - Open fields and greenhouses Jerusalem, Israel Dr. Joginder Singh Malik Professor of Extension Education CCS Haryana Agricultural University Hisar-125 004 (Haryana) INDIA Dr. Ghanshyam T. Patle Assistant Professor College of Agricultural Engineering & Post Harvest Technology Central Agricultural University, Imphal Manipur (INDIA) Dr. Said Elshahat Abdallah Associate Professor Agricultural Process Engineering Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh Univ. Kafr Elsheikh 33516, Egypt DOUGLAS AYIREBIDE ALEKIBA Production Supervisor Mim Cashew and Agricultural Products Ltd., Mim – Brong Ahafo, Ghana Yash Agrawal Business Development Associate BIS Research A. S. SUBBARAO Sr.Manager - Agronomy SBU - South Agronomy Department NETAFIM, India
  • 6. countries. ChangesinAgriculturalOutput In the first years of transi on, gross agricultural output decreased in all countries by at least 20%. The transi on from a centrally planned economy to a market orientated economy coincided in all countries w i t h s u bs i d y c u t s a n d p r i c e liberaliza on, which in general caused input prices to increase and output p r i c e s t o d e c r e a s e . P u r c h a s e d inputs were n o l o n g e r affordable at t h e n e w rela ve prices a n d t h e decrease in i n p u t u s e c a u s e d a decrease in agricultural output. In the Bal c states and the European C I S agriculturaloutputdecreasedtoabout 50% to 60% of the pre-reform output. In Central Europe and Central Asia, output declined by 25% to 30%. Output stabilized and started to recover in the mid of 1990s in Central Contact : DHARMESH ENTERPRISES PVT. LTD. B28/B, GR. FLR., GHATKOPAR INDL. ESTATE L.B.S. MARG, GHATKOPAR (WEST) MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA 400086 Mobile : 09323039797 Email : heatgun@vsnl.com 06 Europe and later i n t h e o t h e r r e g i o n s . C u r r e n t l y a g r i c u l t u r a l output is close to the pre-reform output level in mostcountries. ChangesinAgriculturalProduc vity Despite a decrease in agricultural output in total, output per worker in Central Europe strongly increased during the past two decades. This increase was driven by the drama c decrease in agricultural employment in the first years of transi on from centrally planned to more market- oriented economies. As output stabilized at the end of the 1990s and agricultural employment con nued to decline, the increase in A L P con nued.PictureIn the Balkan countries the agricultural sector acted as a social buffer and absorbed rural labor in the first years of transi on. ALP decreased ini ally as much labor was absorbed in agriculture. In the late 1990s labor began to flow out from agriculture and this ou low of labor, in c o m b i n a o n w i t h i n c r e a s e d investments in the farming and agri- food industry, resulted in a gradual but consistentimprovementin ALP. Agricultural output and produc vity have changed drama cally in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) since the fall of the Berlin Wall, exactly 20 years ago. Ini ally, market reforms caused a strong decline in agricultural output. The extent to which this output decline was associated with changes in produc vity depended on the speed with which labor could exit agriculture and agricultural factor and outputmarketscoulddevelop.These,in turn, depended on the ini al condi ons and implemented reform policies. As the ini al condi ons and reform policies were very different across countries in the region, produc vity evolved very differently across Agricultural Productivity in Transition Economies Johan F.M. Swinnen
  • 7. Farther East, ALP strongly decreased in the first decade of transi on. On average, ALP decreased by 33% in the European CIS and 30% in Central Asia in the first five years of transi on. The strong decline in ALP was the result of two effects. First, agricultural output declined strongly in both regions and second, the ou low of agricultural labor was limited, and in some regions agricultural employment even increased. From the mid of 1990s, however, the decline in ALP started to slow down and since the beginning of the2000s ALP hasrecoveredslowly. Everywhereintheregionaverageyields fell during the first years of transi on and recovered later. However, the depth and length of the fall differed strongly among countries. Average yields recovered considerably from the mid of 1990s onwards in countries such as Hungary, na ons with rela vely more large-scale farming and investments in the food industry. In contrast, produc vity recovered more slowly in countries such as Romania, which has a large number of small-scale family farms with difficult access to inputs. Yields declined the most in the European CIS and Central Asia where yields started to increase only from the beginning of the 2000s. Importantly, the recovery of yields in the European CIS and Central Asiawassoslowthattheyonlyrecently reachedtheirpre-reformlevels. Of course, par al produc vity measures might exhibit very different pa erns than would be found using measures of total factor produc vity (TFP), the most comprehensive m e a s u r e o f p r o d u c v i t y . Unfortunately, only a few studies have measured total f a c t o r p r o d u c v i t y ( T F P ) , a n d consequently o n l y l i m i t e d comparisons can b e m a d e b e t w e e n countries and over me, the a v a i l a b l e evidence on TFP i s r o u g h l y consistent with the evidence from the par al p r o d u c v i t y indicators. In Central Europe, TFP grew slightly in the first years of transi on —0.4% annually between 1989 and 1992 and significantly a erwards: by 2.2% annually between 1992 and 1995 and by 4.4% annually between 1995 and 1998. Studies find a slowdown of TFP growth in the period 1998-2001, probably due to substan al i n v e s t m e n t s i n agri cultural machinery and capital inputs in thisperiod. In the Balkan countries, the TFP evolu on fluctuates much more. TFP decreased strongly, by 4.1% per year, from 1989 to 1992. Later there was a stronger recovery when TFP increased by 7.5% per year in the period 1992- 1995, but it fell again in the late 1990s with bad macro-economic policies resul ng in TFP declines of 1.3% annually from 1995 to 1998. A er 1998 when a series of important reforms were implemented in the region, there was a strong recovery in produc vity: from 1998 to 2001, TFP grew on averageby2.3%peryear. CausesofProduc vityChanges The produc vity changes—and the varia ons in them—were caused by a combina on of factors. In this sec on we review a few of the main drivers.PictureFirst, ini al condi ons affected produc vity in two important ways. On the one hand, they directly influenced the impact of reforms; on the other hand, through ins tu onal and poli cal constraints, they also indirectly influenced the choice of the reform policies. For example, the collec viza on of agriculture and the introduc on of central planning occurredinthe1920sinthe FSU,but 07
  • 8. emergence and dynamics of the new private farms, but also the preferences for land reforms: in CEECs households wanted their land back, while in a large part of the FSU households had never owned land since feudalism had directlyprecededcollec vistfarming. Another condi on that played an important role was that in Central Europe and the Bal c States, countries were generally richer and agriculture was less important in the overall economy, compared to countries in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, which were much poorer with rela vely more important agricultural sectors. The general economic situa on in a country influenced the extent to which other sectorscouldabsorbsurpluslaborfrom agriculture and the development of the social safety net system. Finally, the ou low of surplus agricultural labor was much stronger in Central Europe than in other countries in the 1990s, in part because the social safety net system was much only a er World War II in CEECs. Consequently, rural households in Central Europe had much more experience with private farming than their counterparts in most of the FSU. This difference affected not only thebe er developed in Central Europe and the agricultural sector was r e l a v e l y small. Priceliberaliza onandthesubsequent decline in terms of trade strongly affected agricultural produc vity. The decrease in output prices and the increase in input prices caused a decline in the terms of trade.Ini al condi ons, in par cular resource endowments and use of technology, also affected the rela ve efficiency of farm organiza ons and thus incen ves f o r f a r m r e s t r u c t u r i n g . R e s o u r c e endowments affect the costs and benefits of shi ing from corporate farms to family farms. If labor/land ra os are high, as in countries with labor-intensive technologies, such as in Transcaucasia and the Balkans, the benefits from be er labor governance by shi ing to family farms from corporate farms are larger, while the losses in scale economies of shi ing to smaller farms are lower. These p r o d u c v i t y i n c en ves resulted in a strong shi to smallscalefarming.Incontrast,inmore capital- and land-intensive agricultural systems, such as in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the benefits from shi ing to family farms were lower so that large-scale corporate farming remained more important. In these situa ons, produc vity gains came mostly from laying off corporate farm workers. Second, reform choices and their implementa on also ma ered importantly— and they differed by c o u n t r y. F o r e x a m p l e , p r i c e liberaliza on and the subsequent decline in terms of trade strongly affected agricultural produc vity. The decrease in output prices and the increase in input prices caused a decline in the terms of trade. This contributed to a fall in input use at the start of the reforms, which caused a decreaseintheproduc vityoflandand labor. The implementa on of these reforms differed substan ally between regions. Governments in Central E u ro p e a n d t h e B a l c state s drama cally reduced agricultural subsidies in the first years of transi on, whereas in some European CIS and countries in Central Asia, reforms were moregraduallyimplemented. PictureA very important element of the reform packages was land reform. There were three types of land reform: res tu on of land to the former owners; the physical distribu on of land to agricultural workers; and the distribu on of cer ficates to agriculturalworkers.Thetwofirsttypes of land reform, res tu on and the physical distribu on of land, ended up with rela vely strong and well-defined property rights. While it was expected that res tu on of land would lead to a decrease in produc vity because of the fragmenta on of land ownership, in many countries res tu on contributed to a greater consolida on of land use because many of the former owners were not interested in farming themselves 08 Price liberalization and the subsequent decline in terms of trade strongly affected agricultural productivity. The decrease in output prices and the increase in input prices caused a decline in the terms of trade.
  • 9. and rented the land to the priva zed coopera veandcorporatefarms. In the regions that implemented land reforms by distribu ng cer ficates, property rights were less-clearly defined and, at least in the first decade of the reforms, output and produc vity were nega vely affected as a result. Restric ons were placed on selling and purchasing of land cer ficates, which significantly slowed down structural changes and thus produc vity growth. Second, owners had li le incen ve to p u t i n e ff o r t a n d u n d e r t a ke investments because property rights on specific plots were not clearly defined. At the end of the 1990s the situa on started to improve when land policies were further liberalized, and limited land transac ons became possible. F i n a l l y , priva za on of farms and agri- food companies l e d t o c o n t r a c n g problems and disrup ons all along the agri- f o o d c h a i n . Investments by p r i v a t e processors and the reintroduc on of ver cally coordinated supply chains have been important in overcoming these hold-up problems and improving output, produc vity and quality of agricultural products. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the agri-food sector played an important role in these developments through spillover effects on farmers and local food companies. They have c o n t r i b u t e d d r a m a c a l l y t o produc vity and quality improvements andtechnologytransfers. FDI rose strongly in Centra l Europe and the Bal c states. In the Balkan states, the inflow of FDI lagged behind. However, a er substan al reforms were introduced at the end of the 1990s, FDI started to increase there as well. In the European CIS, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, FDI inflow has been very low, and increasedonlyinmorerecentyears. Pa ernsofProduc vityChange Ini alcondi ons,reformpolicies and investments had a large i m p a c t o n a g r i c u l t u r a l p r o d u c v i t y c h a n g e s throughout the region, but effects varied tremendously among countries and over me. We dis nguish four pa erns. The first group of countries is the most economically advanced countries in Central Europe and the Bal cs, such as H u n ga r y, t h e C ze c h Republic, Slovakia and E s t o n i a w h i c h implemented radical reforms. These countries were characterized by rela vely high incomes, a c a p i t a l - i n t e n s i v e agricultural sector and a big-bang approach to reforms and priva za on, including res tu on of land to former owners. The loss from foregone economies of scale was limited because the res tu on of agricultural land to p r e v i o u s o w n e r s l e d t o consolida on of land in large farming enterprises. In addi on, a massive ou low of agricultural labor occurred early in transi on, facilitated by a well-developed social safety net system and radical reforms which stabilized the macroeconomic environment. This ou low of labor caused substan al gains in labor produc vity early on in transi on. Later, produc vity gains were r e i n f o r c e d b y spilloversfromthelargeinflowof FDI in the agri-food sector. Investments, through ver cally integrated supply chains, improved farmers' access to credit, technology, inputs and output markets. Another pa ern was followed by the poorer CEECs, including Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Poland. These countries were diverse in their ini al farm structure. Before transi on, Poland already had mainly small, family farms, whereas in Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria the agricultural sector was concentrated in large corporate farms. However, in all of the countries, labor ou low from agriculture was limited in the first years of transi on. In these countries, agriculture served as a social b u ffe r i n m e s w h e n o ve ra l l unemployment was high and social benefitswerelow. 09 The restitution of land to former owners constrained access to land for young farmers, since that land was given to older people who started farming to complement their small pensions.
  • 10. The res tu on of land to former owners constrained access to land for young farmers, since that land was given to older people who started farming to complement their small pensions. Because the agricultural sector in these countries was rela vely capital- intensive, the break-up of the corporate farms into small, family farms caused significant losses in economies of scale and yielded only limited gains from the shedding of labor. Ini ally, both output and produc vity declined. In countries such as Poland and Lithuania, output and produc vity started to recover in the mid-1990s s mulated by FDI. In Romania and Bulgaria output and produc vity recovered only slowly, and at the end of the 1990s they decreased again as a result of the financial crisis. From the beginning of the 2000s the ou low of inefficient labor and the inflow of FDI started a sustained recovery. Third,agroupofpoorTranscaucasiaand Central Asian countries, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, followed yet another p a e r n . T h e s e c o u n t r i e s a r e characterized by their poverty and the absence of a good social safety net system, their labor intensive agricultural systems and their slower progress in overall reforms. In these countries, agriculture also provided a buffer role and a labor sink. Reforms caused a strong shi from large scale t o w a r d s i n d i v i d u a l farming—especially when land distribu on in kind to households was introduced a er the failure of the share distribu on system became evident. The reforms also caused a substan al inflow of labor into agriculture, and growth in the importance of more labor-intensive sectors, such as hor culture and livestock. This caused a decrease in labor produc vity while land produc vity grew. Although there has been substan al growth in yields, labor produc vity is s ll now substan ally below pre-reform levels in. A fourth pa ern is followed by a group of middle income FSU countries, including Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. In these countries, there was almost no ou low of agricultural labor and, since output fell substan ally in the 1990s, agricultural labor produc vity declined strongly. Reforms were implemented only slowly and so budgets con nued, which favored the large-scale farms and constrained restructuring, with limited efficiency gains. Only a er the Russian crisis in 1998 did the macroeconomic situa on improve with enhanced compe veness of the domes c agricultural sector through exchange rate devalua ons and the inflow of revenues from increasing oil and mineral prices. This affected in par cular Russia and Kazakhstan. Ukraine implemented a series of important reforms in the late 1990s. Since then, agricultural produc vity has increased in these countries as liquidity in the economy and investments in agriculture i n c r e a s e d . S u r p l u s employment started to decline gradually. An important factor in the growth of produc vity in the 2 0 0 0 s w a s i n c r e a s e d investments in the food industry which benefited agriculture through ver cal integra on. It has taken more than 15 years in the European CIS for labor and land produc vity to recover totheirpre-reformlevels. ProspectsfortheFuture While the recent past has seen posi ve developments, the future remains uncertain. As documented above, produc vity has increased significantly throughout the region in the decade since the Russian crisis in 1998. However, the global financial crisis has hit the CEECs and FSU par cularly hard. Due to a combina on of factors, some of the countries covered here have experienced declines in output and produc vity among the worst in the world. Governments throughout the region have tried to offset reduc ons in private finance and investment by the expansion of public supporttoagriculture. It is unclear at this point to what extent these more recent setbacks or the offse ng policy s mulus will have a las ng effect on the produc vity developments in the sector, or whether they will only cause a temporary interrup on in a long run path of produc vitygrowthinagriculture. 10
  • 11. Picture of Anne HarrisFood shortages tendtobeaproblemforthedeveloping world. Images of famine in Africa or floods in Asia have tugged at the heartstrings and loosened the purse strings of the affluent and influen al with a growing popula on demanding more food, and an agricultural community constrained by lack of land and water while ba ling demands for greater sustainability, the challenge of feeding the world is falling at the feet of engineers.But that scenario is changing almost as fast as the global economic landscape. It is no longer a regional problem but a very real threat facing the whole of humanity. To feed the growing global popula on we will need to produce 60 per cent more food by the middle of this century. That is a challenge that cannot be taken too lightly given the increased compe on for ever scarcer land and water. To compound ma ers, agriculture i s u n d e r g r e a t pressur popula on is growing, adding 35 per cent more mouths by the middle of the century. At the same me the average person is ge ng richer," he says. Richer people eat more food and more resource-intensive food: beef, for example, converts plant nutrients to muscle at about a quarter the efficiencythatchickensdo. "Richer people ea ng both more and more luxurious food is en rely human and has been a hallmark of our behavior throughout history, but it contributes to a projected demand growth of about 60 per cent by mid- century if current trends con nue," Bentonadds. Demandsonnature The World Wildlife Fund's 2012 'Living Planet' report suggests that "if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to generate humanity's annualdemandonnature". 11 etoincreaseitssustainability. The solu ons are, as always, complicated, mired in economic, poli cal and social wrangling. But one thing is apparent: technology has a key role to play. Engineering is o en overlooked as part of the solu on, but the roles it can play are profound – on the farm and throughout the supply chain. The UK has recognized the danger and is mobilizing its poli cal will allied with i t s re s e a rc h a n d te c h n o l o g y ins tu ons. Global Food Security is a m u l - a g e n c y p r o g r a m b r i n g i n g together the r e s e a r c h interests of the research c o u n c i l s , e xe c u v e a g e n c i e s a n d government department s. To drive the program forward it appointed a global food security champion two years ago. Professor Tim Benton, from the University of Leeds, is an interdisciplinary scien st focusing on the rela onship between food produc onandtheenvironment. " T h e h u m a n Agricultural technology to feed the world Anne Harris With a growing population demanding more food, and an agricultural community constrained by lack of land and water while battling demands for greater sustainability, the challenge of feeding the world is falling at the feet of engineers.
  • 12. “if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to generate humanity's annual demand on nature".Growing more is not as straigh orward as it has perhaps been in recent decades. Benton points out that there is no more land available, perhaps even less. Then there is increasing compe on for water; by 2050 over 50 per cent of the world's popula on may exist in areas where demand has outstripped supply. "Agricultural produc on currently uses about 70 per cent of the world's available fresh water, and clearly societal and economic use of water (by industry) also exerts a growing demand on a finite supply," he adds. "Thus, any increase in produc on to meet an increase in demand cannot rely on a propor onal increase in water use in manyareasoftheworld. “Agricultural produc on currently uses about 70 per cent of the world's available fresh water, and clearly societal and economic use of water (by industry) also exerts a growing demand on a finite supply”.Finally, much of the global produc on growth in recent decades has been underpinned by the use of a broad range of agro- chemicals, including synthe c fer lizers and pes cides. "These can have nega ve environmental impacts and in some areas there is a considerable need to reduce their use for that reason," Benton con nues. "Synthe c nitrogen fer lizer also requires significant energy to manufacture, contribu ng to agriculture's large greenhouse gas footprint [of 20-30 per cent of global emissions]; and again, there is a need to minimize greenhouse gases to prevent extra climate change – which, itself, is likely to act as an increasing constraintonproduc ongrowth.” The recent history of agriculture has been that it has not properly valued the natural capital that underpins a range of important local and planetary func ons, and, indeed, subsidizes agricultural produc on: soil biodiversity helps with soil fer lity and carbon storage, vegeta on and soils filter and clean water providing access to fresh water; insects pollinate crops, increasing yields, and others may be thenaturalenemiesof pests and so on. "In addi on to the constraints on produc on growth due to climate, water, land and resource a v a i l a b i l i t y , agriculture needs to b e c o m e m o r e e nv i ro n m e n ta l l y friendly to ensure its own sustainability," Benton con nues. "This is the no on of ' s u s t a i n a b l e intensifica on' which is about growing yields on the exis ng area of agricultural land whilst reducing environmentalimpacts.” Theroleofengineering Engineering is important in all aspects of the supply chain: produc on, transport, logis cs, processing, manufacture, storage, packaging, retail, consump on and waste disposal. "There is scope to use exis ng technologies, based on previous innova on,togreateffectbyincreasing theirdeployment,suchas RFID boluses that can monitor stomach pH and temperature in ca le to op mize welfareandproduc on,"Bentonsays. "There is, of course, a huge opportunity to transfer technology and innova on from other sectors into the food supply chain, such as robo cs, or remote sensing, into agriculture. And there is a considerable role for both sustaining and disrup ve innova on to shape the food supply chain, parts of which are under-considered from an engineering perspec ve. This is especially true in agriculture, seen as a 'low-tech' industry without sufficient 'pull' to warrant strong interest from the broaderengineeringcommunity. "Partofthislackofa en onwasdueto the percep on that the green revolu on in the 1960s and 1970s had solved the problem, which has been overturnedsincethefoodpricespikein 12 "if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to generate humanity's annual demand on nature".
  • 13. 13
  • 14. 2007/08 and some of the global ramifica ons of this," Benton adds. "Globally, the need for investment in engineering applica ons to agriculture and food has increasingly been recognized.” Thecompletecycle "Ask the man in the street about agricultural engineering and they immediately think of tractors and p l o u g h s a n d m ay b e co m b i n e harvesters," "In fact engineering and technology appliestothewholespectrumfromthe soil and the water, which is the whole basis of crop produc on right through to maintaining the quality of the products and mee ng the needs of the supermarkets”."Ask the man in the street about agricultural engineering and they immediately think of tractors and ploughs and maybe combine harvesters," Peter Redman of professional body the Ins tu on of Agricultural Engineers explains. "In fact engineering and technology applies to the whole spectrum from the soil and the water, which is the whole basis of crop produc on right through to maintaining the quality of the products and mee ng the needs of the supermarkets. "It deals with everything from growing, h a r ves ng, maintaining, storage, protec on from disease – they all have engineering inputs. Almost without excep on the development of new science in agriculture will need engineering to deliver it. What are bringing it all into focus is the recogni on of global food shortages, changes in diet, limita on of land, and the scarcity of water."PictureThe UK's response has included the recent publica on of the agri-tech strategy recognizing the importance of agriculture and food as an industrial sector and s mula ng its growth. This is coupled to recogni on also within the higher-educa on community and the funders of research that this area needs more support than in recent decades. "That the IET is also recognizing the importance of the area, and s mula ng interest from the community is really very welcome – given the huge societal challenge created byfood insecurity we need the brightest and most innova ve minds to engage with this area," B e n t o n concludes. The first role for agricultural engineering was the replacement of labor. It replaced the drudgery or made tasks possible that weren't before. "This is a weather-dependent industry and some mes we get a very small window of opportunity so you have to have the capacity to deal with that opening," Redman con nues. "Having established the replacement of labor it now became a ma er of adding precision and intelligence to the processes while also managing this withlessenvironmentaldamage. "The other area where engineering has played a key role is the reduc on of waste and pollu on. It has been a gradual process; precision agriculture hasnothappenedovernight.” Lackinginresearch The fear is that the UK has neglected its agricultural engineering research for so long that it now has to catch up. In days gone by Silsoe Research Ins tute, formerly the Na onal Ins tute of Agricultural Engineering was a world- renowned organiza on providing innova on, research and technology aroundtheglobe. "They don't have an undergraduate teaching ability, so that feedstock of c a p a c i t y h a s b e e n s e r i o u s l y undermined," Redman says. "What is needed now is firstly the recogni on of that deficiency and secondly the invita ontothemarketplacetoplaya 14 “Agricultural production currently uses about 70 per cent of the world's available fresh water, and clearly societal and economic use of water (by industry) also exerts a growing demand on a finite supply”.
  • 15. part in revitalizing that. I personally am not in favor of crea ng another piece of infrastructure that is specific to agricultural engineering – it is important that engineers work alongsideother technologists." This gap in exper se and engineers suggests that the market has failed in itsrole,butRedmanexplainsitissimply a ma er of different priori es. "The market does its job," Redman argues. "It does it progressively. There are pieces of innova on that have been delivered such a s t h e h i g h - s p e e d t r a c t o r a n d robo cmilker. "If there's an immediate and commercial need for a product the m a r k e t i s prepared to take the risk. Where the market isn't prepared to take the risk is in some of these 'blue-sky' innova ons; that are where there needs to be some i n p u t f r o m government and t h e y h a v e responded with the agri-tech strategy ini a ve. "The theory is that there will be funding for catapults and issue-based ini a ves. The one thing that funding packages requires is that government funding is matched pound for pound byindustry”. Sensingtheway " T h e r e a r e m a n y w a y s t h a t engineering is helping agriculture but there is much more that we can do if we add intelligence such as sensors," Redman says. "The capability of sensing is driving lots of the innova on, but sensing i n t h e biological processes, b e c a u s e agriculture takes place out in the fi e l d . Precision a n d sensing are vital, but only if that is coupled with an understanding of what you need to sense and why. It's not just a ma er of informa on but energy informa on."PictureOne area that is garnering a good deal of interest is computer vision and machine guidance for weed control. "There is a problem with the use of pes cides par cularly if the crop is going to be consumed directly, such as in salad," Redman explains. "What we need to do is control the weeds using the minimum amount of chemicals. So first we need to be able to differen ate between the plant and the weed. If we can do that we can direct a mechanism to take out the weed or spray it with a nyamountofchemical." With the plants iden fied the next task is delivering just the op mum amount of chemical. "We are concerned with aerodynamics, the behavior of crops, the crea on of small amounts of material delivered precisely. The other part of that is again sensing whether the crop is exposed to disease or pest a ack." There is also research required in soil and water management. It is important to avoid compac ng soil as that prevents oxygen ge ng in and water flowing through it. 'Controlled-traffic farming' is being developed, using a set wheel-base and GPS tracking to keep the traffic in one lane and cause less damagetothefieldasawhole.This 15 "Ask the man in the street about agricultural engineering and they immediately think of tractors and ploughs and maybe combine harvesters," "In fact engineering and technology applies to the whole spectrum from the soil and the water, which is the whole basis of crop production right through to maintaining the quality of the products and meeting the needs of the supermarkets”.
  • 16. method also looks at reducing the soil load from machines by increasing their surface area. This can be done either by using a track instead of wheels or by making sure that re pressures and loading are appropriate without losing trac on. When it comes to water, quan ty is the key. "You need to have water available to the crop when it is growing," Redman says. "That means that you need water storage. You need to know when the crop is going to make use of that water so it is a ques on of understanding the soil condi on and how much the crop needs. Then you need to apply just the right amount of water without any waste – precision irriga on. A lot of these technologies have been developed for more arid areas of the world that can be brought backtomoretemperateregions.” As for the future Redman believes that changes will be incremental. "I think the farm of the future will have some robo c devices; it will be collec ng dataacrossthewholesystemincluding the marketplace. It will include informa onaboutthestatusofthesoil in rela on to weather and disease forecas ng. All of these data streams will be combined to enable the farm land to be managed more strategically and how to manage it at a day to day basis.” The quest to secure the food supply will be an ongoing process. In previous decades we have been somewhat complacent, assuming that access to food is only a real issue for the poorest in the developing world. However, as we are increasingly recognizing, the me for complacency is over and this is agrowingissueforeverysociety. 16 The Future of Agriculture: Smart Farming Federico Guerrini The agricultural sector is going to face enormous challenges in order to feed the 9.6 billion people that the FAO predicts are going to inhabit the planet by 2050: food production must increase by 70% by 2050, and this has to be achieved in spite of the limited availability of arable lands, the increasing need for fresh water (agriculture consumes 70 per cent of the world's fresh water supply) and other less predictable factors, such as the impact of climate change, which, according a recent report by the UN could lead, among other things, to changes to seasonal events in the life cycle of plant and animals. One way to address these issues and increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production is using sensing technology to make farms more “intelligent” and more connected thorugh the so-called “precision agriculture” also known as 'smart farming'. It's something that's already happening, as corporations and farm offices collect vast amounts of information from crop yields, soil-mapping, fertilizer applications, weather data, machinery, and animal health. In a subset of smart farming, Precision Livestock Farming (PLF), sensors are used for monitoring and early detection of reproduction events and health disorders in animals. Typical monitored data are the body temperature, the animal activity, tissues resistivity, pulse and the GPS position. SMS alerts can be sent to the breeder based on predefined events, say, if a cow is ready for reproduction. The European Union has sponsored several projects on the topic during the Seventh Framework Program and, now, during Horizon 2020. The currently running EU-PLF project for instance, is designed to look at the feasibility of bringing proven and cost-effective Precision Livestock Farming tools from the lab to the farm. Several private companies are also starting to be active in this field, such as Anemon (Switzerland), eCow (UK), Connected Cow (Medria Technologies and Deutsche Telekom. Smart fishing is at initial stage with some projects in Europe, South Korea, NorthAmerica and Japan. “Precision agriculture is not new. The agricultural vehicle manufacturers (John Deere, CNH Global, Class and others) have been involved in this segment for some time. Initially, it was about position technologies (GNSS) mainly, but it is becoming more complex moving towards the idea of a connected harvester,” Beeachm Research's principal analyst, Saverio Romeo tells me.”
  • 17. farming opera ons from their onboard computers; they hardly even have to steer,” explains Professor Stefan Bö nger from the Ins tute of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Hohenheim. Liberated from monotonous work in shi s las ng 12-14 hours, farmers can now concentrate on op mizing the workflow. Just like modern cars, the onboard computers in farmers' tractors display important informa on on speed, fuel consump on and the status of the sowing opera on. Onboard computers can also control agricultural implements a ached to the tractor, such as plows or planters. Previously, each piece o f machinery had its own s e t o f controls. Not so long ago, farmers would have to drive over t h e m e a d o w, stop each me the baler finished pressing or rolling a bale, and unload it by hand before driving on again. Modern balers, on the other hand, can calculate the speed of both tractor and 17 baler, bring them both to a halt at the right moment and dump the bales on their own – the whole process is automated. “The growing use of hi- tech farm machinery is enabling farmers to work more efficiently and more economically,” says Hermann Beck, head of ZF's Off-Highway Systemsbusinessunit. Smartall-in-onesystem One important prerequisite for agricultural innova on is the seamless interconnec on of the individual applica ons to form a single smart, streamlined, all-in-one system. Modern agricultural machines have two different interfaces for enabling the individual subsystems to talk to each other. The first interface, known as the CAN bus system, is primarily used to control internal systems such asengineandtransmission. By contrast, the second system (ISOBUS)workscloselywithfarmers, The big tractor stops on the edge of the plowed field while the farmer types final instruc ons into the onboard computer. It's a perfect day for plan ng the spring wheat – as the farm's opera ng system had already calculated, based on meteorological d a ta , s o i l s a m p l e s a n d g ra i n characteris cs. At last, with a couple of clicks, the farmer enters the speed se ng and launches the sowing program. For the next few hours, he'll leave most of the work to the tractor's onboard systems. Using laser scanners and GPS, the tractor will find its way around the field almost unassisted. The farmer can concentrate en rely on the sowing process, without having to worryaboutclutchorgearshi s. PictureWhat once sounded futuris c is rapidly becoming rou ne. “Modern farmers sit in the cockpits of their farm machines and monitor the p r o g r e s s o f Agriculture: The Hi-Tech way to farm A growing world population, the impact of climate change and dwindling resources are among the major challenges now facing the agricultural industry. Along with the development of new crop types, state-of-the-art agricultural machinery offers the best hope for the future.
  • 18. the groundwater. Now researchers at the University of Bremen have come up with a possible solu on. The soil in the field is analyzed using a small chemical laboratory. ZF technologyinagriculture ZF engineers built the company's first tractor transmission back in 1937; today, almost all of the major manufacturers of agricultural machinery rely on ZF's con nuously variable transmissions (CVTs). Over the decades, these systems have made huge strides in terms of sophis ca on and performance. 18 Nowadays, farm machines producing up to 650 horsepower run smoothly on ZF's heavy-duty CVTs. Just like driver-assist systems, modern powertrain technologies take the strain out of farmers' daily work – and because they maintain a perfect balance between engine speed and gearing, they also reduce fuel consump on. In mes of scarce resources and high oil prices, that's an important cost considera on for farmers. C u n g c o s t s , r e d u c i n g workloads and protec ng the environment are by no means the only reasons why the use of hi-tech systems in farms is exploding. “Already, farmers in Germany and France are harves ng four or five mes as much wheat from their fields as farmers in the U.S. or Russia,” says Bö nger. “Using modern systems, we're further increasing produc vity and crop yields,” he adds. This high efficiency is immensely important in interna onal compe on – not least because farmers in Russia and the U.S. have on average 3 to 4 mesandmuchacreageavailabletothem. enabling them to control, for example, plowingorsowingimplementsdirectlyfrom their onboard computers. But smart communica on between systems extends far beyond the farm vehicle itself. Currently, farmers have high hopes for developmentworkinprogresson so-called “slave systems”, whereby the main farm machine acts as the lead vehicle, interac ng with a flock of smaller, (semi-) autonomous, unmanned vehicles. A n o t h e r m a j o r t h e m e preoccupying agricultural visionaries is “precision farming”. Typically, this vision of the future involves agricultural machines that not only know precisely where they are in the field, but also how much seed and fer lizer they need to distribute in each part of the field. Gauging exactly how much fer lizer to apply has always been one of farming's most problema c challenges. Fer lizer in the soil is mobile: it's difficult to tell whether crops are receiving enough nitrates, or whether the nitrogen is making its way straight into Low input production systems: innovation in mechanization for food security Gajendra Singh - Doon University, India With growing population food security remains a major challenge in many countries in Asia. As poverty is quite prevalent more than half the malnourished and under nourished people live in Asia. The share of agricultural labor is decreasing and urbanization is increasing. The share of agricultural sector in GDP is decreasing faster than decrease in agricultural labor force. In most countries power availability per hectare is increasing rapidly and this varies from region to region in the same country. The level of mechanization varies from crop to crop within same country. The labor productivity has increased with increased level of mechanization. Main challenges for mechanization include: 1) Small land holdings (average size is only about 1 ha) and majority of the farmers have low investment capacity. 2) The use of sub-standard manufacturing technology producing poor quality products performing poor quality work, giving poor fuel economy and resulting in injuries and fatal accidents. Present low level of mechanization in many countries provides opportunities for growth by improved efficiency of utilization of machines available with farmers through custom hiring to neighbor farmers and or through larger operational holdings. There should be greater regional cooperation in information sharing, collaborative R&D, harmonization of standards, capacity building and trade and investment facilitation. There is a need for favorable government policies and manufacturing processes need improvements to produce quality machines with improved safety standards. There is need to develop and / or adopt low energy consumption machines and practices like no-till drills / planters and conservation agriculture.
  • 19. Two weeks ago, I joined my dad, Frank, on a trip to Lancaster County, Pa., where he received a soil health award from a farm associa on and spoke at its annual field days event. We added a day to our trip to see three farm equipment dealers in the highly compe ve, and concentrated,area. It was an interes ng trip in numerous ways, including the diverse equipment and number of short lines carried uniqueterritoryassignmentsandvaried customer base (Amish farmers next to sophis cated corn growers and animal producers). But it was the drive out to see long me contributor Dave Dum and Don Hoover at Binkley & Hurst (B&H) that proved the most thought-provoking for t h e fl i g h t home.PictureWhen we arrived at the Li tz, Pa. store (B&H has 6 ag loca ons), Dum met us in the parking lot and said Hoover wanted to meet with us before we touredtheshop. Usually, these site visits consist of us asking a few ques ons to get a feel for the market before a tour. But at this mee ng, the tables were turned and we were being interviewed on an i n d u s t r y And even w h e n remaining farm kids do c o m e o f workforce age, many have seen enough of t h e i r p a r e n t s ' tailings to d e s i r e a different lifestyle; more in line with their millennial peers. Those workforce preferences (B&H even had an applicant ask for the en re summer off) are going to be harder for a dealershiptosa sfy. Outdated views of the i n d u s t r y a n d i t s a d v a n c e m e n t a n d e a r n i n g p o w e r c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e problem, including u nfo re s e e n s p o t s . H o o v e r r e c e n t l y discovered a community college's report of industry posi ons was ci ng income for a farm equipment tech that was decades old — about 50% of what today's techs are earning. “No wonder some haven't been looking at careers in farm equipment,” he says, no ng the myriad industries, including large companies, compe ng for the very sametalent.Cau onarynote: wide topic that this group of managers had been rolling up its sleeves on. And we spent 90 minutes or so on it. HoovercalledhisExecu veLeadership Team together to meet with us along with a few others, including nephew Kur s Eby (a college junior and B&H intern represen ng the student's viewpoint), to talk to us about future talent — a topic that can be easily d i s m i s s e d w h e n l a y o ff s a t manufacturers and, to a lesser extent, dealers, con nue to make headlines. Hoover and his team are concerned about where tomorrow's talent (in all job func ons) will be drawn from. They wanted to know how much of a concern it is for dealers in other states and also what progressive dealers (like our Dealership of the Year Alumni) are doingtocontendwithit. PictureFewer independent farms today mean fewer farm kids in the talent pool. 19 Dr Mike Lessiter Vision for Tomorrow Requires Solutions Today
  • 20. Check and correct the numbers used by instructors in your area. With several a c q u i s i o n s s i n c e t h e n e w management group took over in 2006, Hoover says the company survived on hard-working and capable techs who farm themselves, and who appreciate the scheduling flexibility and freedom B&H affords them to look a er their own farms. But, he knows this model isn't a long-term solu on for the next- level support that'll be required. “The technology will move faster than a dealershipwillbeabletokeepup.” Asked about the age breakdown on his payroll and when the situa on is going to hit “code-red,” Hoover answered in the past tense. “It was about 2012,” he says. “A lot of people have about 10 yearsle .” With a talent vacuum just years away, perhaps our recrui ng pitches should talk about the amount of gray hair in the industry. While it'll be hard to compete with big business on wages, r e r e m e n t s w i l l b r i n g q u i c k advancement opportunity to those willingtograbit. In our previous careers, Execu ve Editor Dave Kanicki and I served at separate m e s create and protect prac cal, job-ready curriculums. And while scholarships certainly don't ensure career choices, a significant number of today's contributors had earned scholarships and learned about the industry through theorganiza on. Is it me for our industry to organize around this issue and get serious — with an industry wide effort — about securing the nex t genera on workforce? Let's get some dialog going on what our industry can and ought to do today, to be prepared for the needs of tomorrow.Companies with vision end up crea ng their own problems to solve, and B&H is “on it.” Not only are they brainstorming out-of-the-box ideas, but also how to collaborate with the very dealers they compete with for both sales and talent. The three compe ng dealer groups in the area met on the issue, and agree a unified effort has merit. “We've got to find a be er path,” says Hoover. “It's a crisis anditisn'tgoingtogetanybe er.” Is it me for our industry to organize around this issue and get serious — with an industry wide effort — about securing the nex t genera on workforce? Let's get some dialog going on what our industry can and ought to do today, to be prepared for the needs oftomorrow. on a board of trustees of the Foundry Educa onal Founda on (FEF), an organiza on created to address the same issues we're talking about here and to proac vely work to get a shot at a rac ng talent to a compara vely smaller industry segment compe ng with higher profiles and sexier industries. The FEF began with a small campaign of pledges from companies in 1947 to a ract technical manpower to the foundry industry, and grew into a fully s u p p o r te d , N o r t h A m e r i c a n associa on (in an industry with fewer enterprises than the dealer industry). Not only does it present scholarships to students at 19 colleges and universi es at a unique na onal event each year that exposes the top industry execu ves to students and faculty, but it also provides support for the instructors that h e l p s 20 Is it time for our industry to organize around this issue and get serious — with an industry wide effort — about securing the next generation workforce? Let's get some dialog going on what our industry can and ought to do today, to be prepared for the needs of tomorrow.
  • 21. Machinery such as tractors and power tools, pose the greatest injury risk on the farm. Na on-wide in 1990 there were 1,300 deaths and 120,000 disabling injuries in the profession of agriculture. Of these deaths and injuries, 46% of the injuries and 64% of the deaths were tractor and machinery related (1,3,6). It is important to be safety conscious when dealing with any job that requires the use of machinery. Sta s cs show that the majority of machinery related accidents occur as the result of human negligence. Errors include taking shortcuts to save me, failure to read the operators manual, ignoring a warning, improper or lack of instruc on and failure to follow safety rules. The most commonly u lized pieces of equipment around the farm are tractors, trucks, wagons, mowers, spreaders, grinders, blowers, augers, post hole diggers, shredders, balers, rakes, combines, and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). No ma er how different they are in structure, they all, if used improperly or carelessly, can be fatal. 50% of total farm fatali es involve and 14% are machinery related. A b r e a k d o w n o f t h e m a c h i n e r y related fatali es are as followed; 34% corn pickers, 11% silage handling, 11% hay baling, 11% manure handling, and 33% other miscellaneous farm machinery. Safety sta s cs show that the majority of farm-related injuries occur between 10 a.m. and noon, with the period between 3 and 5 p.m. second highest4. It has been established that these me periods are when fa gue is most likely to occur, and concentra on is not as sharp. It is a good prac ce to take periodic breaks to lessen f a g u e . Climbing down off the tractor a n d w a l k i n g around for a c o u p l e o f minutes will h e l p r e l i e v e s t r e s s a n d boredom. Children have the highest rate of machinery-related injuries and fatali es. Workers over the age of 65 do not have an excessive number of injuries, but the likelihood of an injury being fatal is the greatest. Between 1985 and 1989, 50% of total f a r m fatali es involved children under the age of 14 and workers over the age of 65. In over of the age of 65 groups, two- thirds of the fatali es were tractor related. The majority of child deaths resulted being extra passengers on machinery and being run-over. The most common injuries in children involving equipment include: corn or grain augers, tractors, ATVs, power take-offs, belt or chain a achments, hay balers, and pitch-forks. Because of the seriousness of machinery-related accidents, many injuries result in permanent disabili es; such as the loss of an arm, leg, fingers, toes, or a decreased range of mo on. More than three-quarters require surgery or an bio c treatment for bacterial infec onorboth. 21 Farm Equipment Safety: Recognizing and Understanding the Hazards
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  • 23. Machinery and Equipment Storage Buildings There are numerous precau ons that should be observed when storing machinery on the farm. Precau ons include:  Buildings where machinery and power tools are stored should be located far enough away from structures that house livestock and hayincaseoffire.  Fuel storage tanks should preferably be l o c a t e d b e l o w g r o u n d , a n d a minimum of 40 feet from the nearest s t r u c t u r e . F u e l cannot be stored in the same structure as machinery or power tools. Tanks should be properly vented. If above ground, the area around the tank should be free of li er, weeds and any fuelspillsthatcouldaidinstar ngor accelera ng the spread of a fire. Fuel tanks should be adequately protected from being struck by machinery. An approved 10 B:C fire ex nguisher should be located near allfuelpumpsandtanks.  ∙ Electrical lines c o m i n g into the building should be high e n o u g h t o f a c i l i t a t e e q u i p m e n t p a s s i n g underneath.  Electrical systems in machine sheds s h o u l d b e sufficient for the power tools and equipment that will require the use ofelectriccurrent.  Electric outlets should be of the three-pronggroundedtype.  Machinery storage buildings should notbeusedtostoredebris.  Doors on machine sheds should be wideenough for machinery to safely pass through without being caught. Doors also need to pull or slide open and close freely in case of an emergency.  Exitsshouldbeclearlymarked.  Doors should be lockable to keep outchildrenandunwantedvisitors.  Floor surfaces should be level and smooth, free of bumps and protrudingrocks.  Equipment should be parked so there is enough space for a person to walkcompletelyaroundit.  Buildings should have adequate ven la on for the star ng or running of an engine within the structure. (Note - engines should not be le running inside a building for a prolonged period of me unless exhaust is properly being ventedexternally).  All tools and accessory equipment should be kept picked up and stored in their proper place, e.g., air hoses, oilcans,spare res,jacks.  Keys should always be removed from all equipment or machinery to prevent children or unauthorized peoplefromstar ngthem.  Do not allow non-employees inside the machine shed. Children should never be allowed to play around or inside the machine shed or on farm machineryitself. It is important to be able to recognize poten al hazardous areas on machinery. These areas include: pinch points, shear p o i n t s , c u n g points, crush points, wrap pints, and springs.  Pinch Point is an area where two rota ng surfaces meet such as fe e d ro l l e rs , gears or a belt running around a pulley. Extremi es can be caught in pinch points directly, or be drawn in by loose fi ng clothing that has become entangledintherota ngparts.  Shear Point is an area where the edges of two surfaces come together in a manner so as to cut a so er material placed between the surfaces. Shear points are found on shrubbery shears or grain augers. The resul ng injury is usually amputa on. 23
  • 24.  Cu ng Point is found on machinery designed to cut such as mowers and harvesters. The blades move with a rapid mo on o en unseen by the eye. Injuries are of the same nature asthosecausedbyashearpoint.  Crush Point occurs when two objects are joined; either with both ends moving towards each other or with one being sta onary. Fingers and hands are o en injured by crushing between a draw bar and wagon hitch. Numerous fatali es occur when people helping the o p e r a t o r o r t h e o p e r a t o r him/herself is crushed between pieces of equipment or equipment and a solid object such as a wall or tree.  Springs are found on numerous pieces of farm machinery. When a spring is compressed, 'energy' is 'stored'withinthespring.Whenthe spring is expanded, the energy is released. The larger the spring the greater the amount of energy produced. When springs break they explode with great force and can inflict serious damage. It is important to inspect springs regularlyforcracksandwear.  Wrap Point is any moving point on a piece of equipment where clothing or long hair may become entangled suchasaPowerTakeOff(PTO)sha . A wrap point grabs the vic m and actually wraps him/her around the moving part or it can also draw the vic m into the machine. Tangled clothing can wrap ght enough to crush, amputate or suffocate the vic m. All wrap points on machinery shouldbeshieldedifpossible. 24 Sustainable Development The world is in transition to one in which there will be more people, greater consumption of materials and resources, more global interdependence, and a need to reduce poverty without destroying the environment. Over the past two decades, “sustainability” has become a principal concept in integrating technological, economic, social, and political issues to address environmental protection and economic development. The future depends on harnessing the power of modern technologies, consistent with the interests of the poor and hungry and with respect for the environment. Agriculture, as a source for food, natural raw materials for bio industries, and energy, will increasingly be a major driver of this transition. “Definitions” abound for sustainable development. I prefer to think of it as a “process” of redirection, reorientation, and reallocation—an evolving process rather than a static definition. I see sustainable development as a fundamental redesign of technological, economic, and sociological processes to address change. To get beyond the various images of sustainable development, there is a need to develop a “science” of sustainability and systems of implementation. This leads me to suggest that the process of transition to a sustainable world will include: Streamlining processes and reusing materials with a goal of zero waste. Embracing new technologies of information science, biotechnology (genomics and integrative molecular biology), and advanced materials to reduce environmental problems while increasing economic productivity. Utilizing renewable resources for energy to reduce or eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. Developing sustainable communities based on the efficient use of space, increased conservation of materials and energy resources, and reduced transportation. Improving community livability and developing more efficient administrative and planning processes to demonstrate ecological living that is economically and socially desirable. Developing sustainable agriculture as a principal component of sustainable communities where use of fossil fuels, insecticides, herbicides and inorganic fertilizer is minimized or eliminated. Focusing on newer and innovative sustainable enterprises such as bio-based industrial products. The challenge is to rethink how the material needs of society can be met by using agriculturally based systems. This rethinking involves an integration of science and engineering with an emphasis on ecological processes and socioeconomic phenomena. Technologies such as biotechnologies, information systems, and control and management systems will play a key role in inventing new processes and ensuring their effective and efficient execution (at the highest possible quality and lowest cost). Norman R. Scott Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering Cornell University
  • 25. orherplants. Crop and field scou ng are crucial for each stage of the crop lifespan. Pre- seeding field scou ng can show a farmer weed popula ons, including what weeds are growing and what growth stage the weeds are in. When it's me to seed, field scou ng can show the farmer informa on to lead them to choose what seed depth or seed rate they should plant at, as well as early indicators of seed treatments or selec on. A er the seeding is completed, frequent scou ng will help to show farmers damaged seeds, early signs of pests, and many other factors. When crops begin to germinate and become established and rooted, con nued scou ng can help Crop Scouting: Precision Technology Uses in Crop Scouting 25 to prevent weed damage, pest damage, and post-spray pes cide or fer lizer performance. It is important to keep scou ng on regular intervals through the plant's life, as this scou ng could reveal pest issues, soil moisture issues, and a variety of other risk that could be fought against. Crop Scou ng tells farmers a huge amount about their plants, and can help them to improve yield, and maximize cropefficiency. As precision agriculture technologies have advanced, farmers have been helped greatly when it comes to crop scou ng. For example, instead of field notebooks, there are several different m o b i l e a p p s t h a t a r e compa ble with different types of mobile devices, including tablet computers and smartphones that help farmers keep accurate logs of their fields, while also giving themtheopportunitytocross compare these notes with previous years or different areas of the fields. Also with the advancement of Global Posi oning Systems (GPS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), farmers don't even need to walk through their fields. These new technologies can help to show farmers informa on that humans cannot see with the naked eye, as well as accuratelypin-pointwheretarget Crop scou ng, also known as field scou ng, is the very basic ac on of traveling through a crop field while making frequent stops for observa ons. Crop scou ng is done so that a farmer can see how different areas of his or her field are growing. If there are problems during the growing season, the farmer can work to mi gate them so those problems do not affect yield at harvest me. Should problems go unno ced or uncared for during the growing season, they can poten ally limit the total yield, thus reducing the revenue from the sale of the crop or other inten ons for the crop, such as livestock feed. There are many different methods of crop scou ng. While the tradi onal methods can include walking through the field and observing plants manually, par cular pieces of equipment are s ll used, including field notes so the farmer can keep account of plants and areas that need more a en on, a pocket knife and bags for sample taking, and finally a hand magnifica on lens so the farmer can get a close look and be er idea of the health of his Crop Scouting: Precision Technology Uses in Crop Scouting
  • 26. areasaretoprovideassistance. GPS UseinCropScou ng Global posi oning systems are an extremely useful tool when it comes to the advancement of crop scou ng in precision agriculture. Crop scou ng has always relied on farmers remembering where they have scouted and taking note of that, although with the use of GPS, farmers now have an accurate recording of up to one foot of where they have been. With this precise loca on data they can make notes and have specific loca ons of where pests, poor soil temperature or moisture are located. With the preciseness of global posi oning systems farmers can also accurately mi gate threats thattheyfindintheirfields. GPS has now been incorporated into many different pieces of technology which help farmers to scout their fields much more efficiently and accurately. An example of these technologies includes different apps that are available for tablets or smartphones. These apps help farmers to not only mark their exact loca on in a field, but also make field notes, compare notes from previous years and more. These apps can help to show a farmer whereexactlyonan aerial photo of their farm target areas of issue are, as well as helping farmerstomakefuture decisions based on past crop issues they havehad. UAV inCropScou ng UAV's are one piece of technology that have been developed and p e r f e c t e d f o r agricultural purposes in the past 10 years. UAV'salsoknown as unmanned aerial vehicles, are constantly being perfected and developed to be more efficient, easy to use, and effec ve. Two main models of UAV's used in agriculture are the fixed wing pla orm, which is very similar to a plane, although it is scaled down and controlled with a remote control or GPS. The second model is the mul - copter - this model is similar to a helicopter although it generally has more propellers - some mul -copters have anywhere between 4 – 8 propellers. The more propellers that are added to a mul -copter typically provide more stability and power to the machine, this makes it easier to fly and maneuver in different weather condi ons. Typically m u l - copters are preferred on smaller farms where landing space is limited, while planes are usually be er suited for extremelylargefarms. UAV's have assisted the agricultural sector by combining their technology with that of infrared cameras. These two pieces of technology combined mean that a farmer can get a bird's eye view of his or her farm and see their crops from a whole new perspec ve. UAV's are also capable to use these infrared cameras to render a variety of different informa on, including: what species are in their fields (weed and crop scou ng), moisture levels of the soil or plants, plant development stages, plant health, and much more. These UAV's give farmers a more holis c view of what is happening in their fields and with the use of these UAV's, farmers are able to be er understand their crops not just on a field by field basis, but on a plant by plant basis. This is because some UAV's are carry cameras capable of showing onepixelasonefootofland,thismeans that the farmer can see each foot of land on their field and understand a wide range of informa on about that par cular piece of field. UAV's are helping farmers to undertake more accurate farming prac ces and with thisprecisioncomesbe eryield. 26
  • 27. technological innova on so it may be considered the mother of all future innova ons. A second major step took place in M i d d l e A g e w i t h s i g n i fi c a n t improvements in the agricultural techniques and technologies. The development of handcra s and processing of iron improved the produc on of agricultural implements such plough and hand tools as well as animal trac on techniques with horse shoesandharnesses. Then with the advent of the Age of Enlightenment in 1700 which extends the applica on of the analy cal Agricultural mechanization: Development of civilization 27 method and mark the beginning of m o d e r n s c i e n c e , a g r i c u l t u re undergoes a major transforma on of both the farming system and the technical means that from “tools” evolve into “machines” in the modern sense. Thus began the drama c development of mechaniza on of the last three centuries that led to increase by more than a thousand mes the produc vity of human labor thus reducing employees in agriculture to 12% of a c v e p o p u l a o n i n m o r e industrializedcountries. Nowadays agricultural mechaniza on is facing two major challenges: from one side to produce food supplies for a growing popula on that is expected to rise to 10 billion in a few decades and on the other hand protect and preservetheenvironment. An addi onal global strategic role of mechaniza on is its key role in the improvement of economic condi ons of the less developed countries: a low level in agricultural engineering in generallyassociatetoahighlevelof The long journey of human civiliza on began 10.000 years ago when humans, un l then hunter-gatherers, thanks to theadventofagriculturehadaccesstoa food surplus that led to the forma on of permanenthumanse lements. From then un l three centuries ago the development of human society was based on technical development of tools and facili es dedicated to primary economic sector and therefore it can be said that the “agricultural engineering” - in its earliest and simplest forms-wasthefirst o f “The development of handcrafts and processing of iron improved the production of agricultural implements such plough and hand tools as well as animal traction techniques with horse shoes and harnesses”.
  • 28. Look under the bonnet of a Kubota and you will find something very special. Three words that convey trust, quality and engineering excellence, Mode in Don’t compromise. For your own peace of mind, insist on 100% Kubota. Contact your local Kubota dealership or contact on +91 9940337618 | Email: madalasagar.s@kubota.com For Earth, For Life www.kubota.com
  • 29. p o v e r t y w h i l e a g r i c u l t u r a l mechaniza on can reduce the number of people working in agriculture and increase the GDP ofthecountry. T h e e x c e p o n a l development of agricultural machinery industry of the last decades is based on a growing globaliza on and on a worldwide networking and coopera on in order to reduce the produc on costs andtoincreasethequality. Driving forces of modern farm machinery are automa on and electronics with enormous progress in diffusion of IT technologies that have led to tremendous improvement in both efficiency and produc vity of machinery and environmental protec on during opera ons as has o en been discussed in the Club of Bologna. The contribu on of mechaniza on to the goal of feeding the planet in the near future must also focused on the development of simple and cheap machines for developing countries in o r d e r t o i m p r o v e e ffi c i e n c y o f t h e agricultural systems, reduce malnutri on and improve the economic condi onsofthosecountries. Robot farming system in Japan Noboru Noguchi - Hokkaido University, Japan Agriculture in developed countries after the Industrial Revolution has tended to favor increases in energy input through the use of larger tractors and increased chemical and fertilizer application. Although this agricultural technology has negative societal and environmental implications, it has supported food for rapidly increasing human population. In western countries, “sustainable agriculture” was developed to reduce the environmental impact of production agriculture. At the same time, the global agricultural workforce continues to shrink; each worker is responsible for greater areas of land. Simply continuing the current trend toward larger and heavier equipment is not the solution. A new mode of thought, a new agricultural technology is required for the future. Intelligent robotic tractors are one potential solution. In Japan, the number of farmers is decreasing and aside from the fact the problem in aging farmers. In the near future, Japan farmers will decrease rapidly that will result to shortage in food production. That is why researchers in Japan are doing a research about robot farming system which is one of the possible solutions to solve the food shortage production. This presentation will give the application of robot vehicles in agriculture using new technologies. The robot framing system will fully automate the farming from planting to harvesting until to the end user of the products. A robot tractor and a planting robot will be used to plant and seed the crops using navigation sensors. It includes a robot management system, a real-time monitoring system, a navigation system, and a safety system. In the robot farming system, the robot vehicles receive a command from the control center and send information data through a wireless LAN or packet communication. The robot vehicles such as a robot tractor and a robot combine harvester can perform its designated tasks and can work simultaneously with each other. The operator at the control center can analyze the data sent by the robot vehicles in a real-time basis and can immediately send the necessary information to the farmers, retailers, and producer's cooperation, etc. Also, the operator can see the real-time status of the robot vehicles using a GIS while their performing its task. 29
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  • 31. 31 Agricultural mechanization in Peru By Shimon Horovitz / Agronomist An experience to make your soil preparation in a short and in an efficient way: I am an Israeli Agronomist and spent a year in Peru and wish to elaborate here theideaIimplementedthere. It is an idea I know from Israel but I did try to show it in in Peru in 2006 and 2007 where I was a consultant to a company selling seeds of Israeli Co on to farmers and later helping them with loansandadvice. Smallholders: The farmers in Peru are small holder farmers. They have a 2 ha Farm usually. Imetfewfarmerswith10or20hafarm, Very Few farms had 50 ha and more than that. I saw 3 farms of 500 ha in the northofPeru. Soil: Soil is a saline soil as it is a desert area, pHisusuallyabove7.8. Water: The irriga on is mainly by flood, the watercomesfromareservoir,whenthe lever of the reservoir is down then water for the fields are stopped un l lever of the reservoir is back to a minimum. That is leaving the farmers some meswithoutwaterfor30days. Lackofmachinery: The small farmer can hire machinery from a government office at the edge of the town they live nearby. The machinery is simple containing some disc plows disc harrowsandsoillevelers. History: Part of the problem of the machinery started a er in 1968, when Peru took (na onalized) the big farms from the owners and gave 2 ha to every man in Peru. Costsofthemachinery: When I asked about their ability to Use a Sub-soiler or a rooter they said “it is too costly ”! Later they told me the cost is high for one me and they usually do it 2 mes, (once across theother) T h e m t h e y men onthereisan extra obstacle here; as the soil is so it consumes more water then what they can afford, as the water is countedperseason. Background: I arrived to the idea that if I wish to help them I need to have a “sub-soiler that can ridge at the same me, in this way you make the ridges exactly on top of the path that the sub soilerdid. This way you have the soil so exactly u n d e r t h e place of the plants in the future. You do not need to sub soil all the field, (and notunderthetractor’swheelplace). You want the soil to be so and easy to enter by the roots only where they are, whichisunderthetopoftheridge. Imadesomemoreresearchspeakingto fa r m e rs a n d A g r o n o m i s t s t o understandbe er: As farmers tend to save on soil prepara on,mostofthefarmersdonot prepare the soil in the best way, most of them irrigate before the soil prepara on as the soil is hard and very drya ertheformercrop,thesoil Picture show two implements in Peru first on the left is the leveler and in the back the Disc Harrow. A tractor can pull these two at one go to the field on roads.
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  • 33. prepara onrou necontain: It is a known rou ne to do: irrigate before allac vi es. a) Plough b) DiscHarrow c) Leveling As a “three passes basic rou ne”. But I guess some of the farmers do only part of thislist: a) Partofthemwilluseaplough. b) They all use a “Disc Harrow” in theirfields. c) Some or most of them will use a soil leveler, as most of them use flood irriga onanditisrecommended. Farmers of Co on today were rice growers yesterday. Irriga ng the field is in a method which is known for rice, in flooding method. With high borders so water will remain inside theirrigatedfield. They do their prac ce in a short me as not to lose too much of the humidity for the seeds to germinate, subsequence - they willmakeaditchinthesoilsotheseedswill findsomehumidity. In the south of Peru I saw this done by planter: some mes the ditch is made by animal. ThefieldsIsaw(mostofthem)werenot planted nice and the crop was not evenly germinated, such a field can’t be sustainable. The poor performance is part of lack of knowhow and bad prac ces. Ifyouusebe erprac cesyoucanreach abe erstart: In contrast here is a field I managed the soil prepara on; you may see that the croplooksgoodandhomorganic. Here we made ridges and irrigated them and later we disked harrowed the field one me and use planter that placed the seeds on the flat soil but exactly where the center of the ridge used to be so the soilisveryhumid. Explana on: The ridge gets drybutthecenteroftheridge,furtherinto itiss llhumid,sotheideaoftheridgeisto help us keep part of the ridge wet for longer me and s ll be higher and further fromthe“hard-pan”. The base of my idea is “Make ridges beforeirriga on”. The second commandment I say is use “fixed tracks”. Meaning try keep the crop on the same track all the years. Keep the place that the tractor compacted to be again the path where the tractor will go again. The place where the tractor compacted once is not fer le as the other areawhereitwasnotcompacted. Thesoil that was alive one year will remain alive next year. The soil unde r the tractor’s wheel is “dead”(kindof). As an example of the idea – in the picture we s e e t w o t ra c t o r s working one behind the other, the first one is carrying a sub- spoiler and the second is carrying a ridger, but this is with 2 tractors, while my idea was to put 2 implements t o g e t h e r o n o n e tractorononeframe.   To use the idea to the maximum I made an implement: T h e i m p l e m e n t I promoted in Peru is coming to do the job in one path, use sub soiler and use ridges and use“fixedtracks”. HereinthepictureistheimplementImade and promoted between the farmers I met. Thenextpictureshowanimplementwhich was “downsized” so a smaller tractor can dothejob. The tractor is making ridges in a field one next to the other. Only a er comple onIwillirrigatethisfield. I add a drawing here to show the idea oncemore: The bed should be a bit higher from the rest of the area, so water can go to the lowareaandleavetheplanttoaerateits roots and get more air. You can leave the bed in the same place next your or next season, this is the main idea of “fixed-tracks”. I am adding here few more diagrams in ordertomakemyselfcleareroftheidea: The way I show is to plant on the ridge and not in the furrow. When soil had become dry and no rain will come then we cut and throw the dry soil from the top to the furrow, then we see the center humid soil of the center of the ridge and plant there. ( it may become a flat field now but the seedsareplacedinahumidzone.) 33 Irrigation was with flood methods that make the crop suffer some days from over watering and sometime too long intervals. The picture shows a field being irrigated by flood irrigation. Part of the people make a furrow like seen in the picture with a mule or a horse and later put the seeds by people into the furrow where it is a bit more humid.
  • 34. You can see the borders of the fields is a ridge of soil to border the water not to go to another field in the flood irriga on. The seeds are placed low and too close tothe“hardpan”. Thismeanstheroots will not develop nicely as they can’t grow deep as the hard pan will not let rootsgodeep. Whenrootsareshallow the ability of the co on plants (or others) will suffer when water is too much as water are put a lot as there is no assurance when the farmer will get his next irriga on. As some me the interval between 2 irriga ons may reach to 25 of more days which is a bit too much so the plants will shade the flowers and buds, and the yield will be low. Downsizing: The implement we made started the job with a 240 hp tractor but soon later the tractor had to go to otherjobs. In order to adopt the implement to a smaller tractor, we down sized the nes so a 115 hp tractor will be able to dothejob. There was a me we used the idea on 2 tractors going exactly one a er the other, The first tractor went ahead with a sub- soiler and the second one came right behide in its footprint and made the ridges.  34 Here in the picture is the implement I made and promoted between the farmers I met. The next picture show an implement which was “downsized” so a smaller tractor can do the job. Looking from the back at the “subsoiller – ridger “ implement Looking from the other side at the smaller “subsoiller–ridger implement” Farm of the future Giuseppe Gavioli – CNH The evolution of the farms in the next 30 years will be impressive. There are several external drivers that will have a very strong influence on the farm of the future such as: the increase of food demand for growing world population and for growing individual food consumption, the need to increase productivity and efficiency of production on current crop land and to cultivate new land, the availability of new technologies for farm tools, the pervasive presence of information and data. The farming activities will also have to be increasingly sustainable for the environment. Farmers will interact more and more with global crop and food markets, which will increasingly drive farm medium to long term strategy, while they will be strengthening links and connections with local farm communities and groups, leveraging on local and regional networks for energy production and sharing, logistic optimization, information and services. Farm of the future Giuseppe Gavioli – CNH The evolution of the farms in the next 30 years will be impressive. There are several external drivers that will have a very strong influence on the farm of the future such as: the increase of food demand for growing world population and for growing individual food consumption, the need to increase productivity and efficiency of production on current crop land and to cultivate new land, the availability of new technologies for farm tools, the pervasive presence of information and data. The farming activities will also have to be increasingly sustainable for the environment. Farmers will interact more and more with global crop and food markets, which will increasingly drive farm medium to long term strategy, while they will be strengthening links and connections with local farm communities and groups, leveraging on local and regional networks for energy production and sharing, logistic optimization, information and services.
  • 35. Qk;ns %  xksfcUn jksVksosVj vU; d`f"k ;a=ksa dh rqyuk esa ,d ;k nks gh tqrkbZ esa t+ehu dks cksus ds fy, rS;kj dj nsrk gSAftlls yxHkx 40ø Mhty dh cpr vkSj 60ø le; dh cpr gksrh gSA  ikjEifjd rjhdksa ls [ksr dks cqvkbZ ds fy, rS;kj djus esa yxHkx 10 ls 15 fnu dk le; yxrk gS ijUrq xksfcUn jksVksosVj ls [ksr cqvkbZ ds fy, rqjUr rS;kj gks tkrk gSA  xksfcUn jksVksosVj feV~Vh dks cqvkbZ ds fy, rqjUr rS;kj dj nsrk gS] ftlls fiNyh Qly dh feV~Vh dh ueh csdkj ugha tkrh] bl izdkj ty izcU/ku esa enn Hkh djrk gSA  vU; d`f"k ;a=ksa dh rqyuk esa cjlkr gksus ds ckn rqjUr blls tqrkbZ fd;k tk ldrk gSA xhyh feV~Vh esa tqrkbZ bldk vkn'kZ mi;ksx gS] lkFk The content of this catalogue is only giving information to the end user without engagement from our side. The Company can modify the specifications of the total machine & its components without notice. Tractor Power Overall Width Tillage Width Gear Box Speed Side Transmission P.T.O. Speed (RPM) Rotor Speed (RPM) No. of Blades Gear Box Overload Protection 30 to 35 H.P. 150 cm 120 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 36 Shear Bolt 35 to 45 H.P. 180 cm 150 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 42 Shear Bolt 45 to 55 H.P. 205 cm 175 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 48 Shear Bolt 55 to 70 H.P. 230 cm 200 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 54 Shear Bolt 70 to 75 H.P. 255 cm 225 cm Multi Gear 540/1000 220 60 Shear Bolt GI - 120 GI - 150 GI - 175 GI - 200 GI - 225 rduhdh fo'ks"krk,a % xUuk dikl dsyk dkuZ LVkDl lw[kh&xhyh t+ehu vf/kd` r foØsrk % Rotor Speed (RPM) for Multi Speed Gearbox 160 16 17 18 19 2015 20 19 18 17 16 15 13 22 180 200 225 252 282 232 Tractor PTO 540 (RPM) 1000 (RPM) vf/kd` r foØsrk % GOBIND n’kgjk ckx+] gSnjx<+ jksM ackjkc dh ¼;w0ih0½ ( A Unit of Gobind Alloys Limited ) An ISO 9001:2008 Company gobindindustries.co.ininfo@gobindindustries.co.in +91-7705900901, 903, 904, 906, 923 9415049542, 941504862, 9415049543 Gobind Industries ( A Unit of Gobind Alloys Limited ) An ISO 9001 : 2008 Company Dasharabagh, Haidergarh Road, Barabanki (U.P.) Sugarcane Cotton Banana Corn Stalks Wet & Dry Field ADVANTAGE:  Gobind Rotavator is better than other agricultural equipments to prepare the soil in just one or two times of cultivation, and also it save the 40% diesel and 60% time.  Traditional method takes minimum 10-15 days to prepare seed bed where as by Gobind Rotavator soil is immediately available for sowing.  Gobind Rotavator can immediately prepare the soil moisture of previous crop does not go waste, thus helps water management.  Cultivation of soil can be done immediately after the rain because it is the ideal use for Rotavator, it also push the tractor forward in soil.  Gobind Rotavator is beneficial for the land of reaped sugarcane, bananas, jute, dried grass and other corps. SALIENTFEATURES:  Gear Box: Heavy duty export quality gear box, and it have longer service life.  Box Frame: It have heavy duty square pipe and made up from heavy plates.  Trailing Board: It have automatic spring which helps in to have a quality cultivation of soil, and its pressure balance the wet soil .  P.T.O. Shaft:- Water proof cross with protection guard.  It have double spring multi lip oil seal.  Tiller Blades : Blades made up from advanced imported parts which easily cultivate the soil without heavy load and also helps in smooth running.  Side Transmission: Side gears made out of best quality steel & properly heat treated technology which gives the regular functioning with longer life. gobindindustries.co.ininfo@gobindindustries.co.in For Dealership and Distributorship Enquiry : Lalit Sachedva +91 9643040547 sachdeva.lalit2015@gmail.com The content of this catalogue is only giving information to the end user without engagement from our side. The Company can modify the specifications of the total machine & its components without notice. Tractor Power Overall Width Tillage Width Gear Box Speed Side Transmission P.T.O. Speed (RPM) Rotor Speed (RPM) No. of Blades Gear Box Overload Protection 30 to 35 H.P. 150 cm 120 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 36 Shear Bolt 35 to 45 H.P. 180 cm 150 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 42 Shear Bolt 45 to 55 H.P. 205 cm 175 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 48 Shear Bolt 55 to 70 H.P. 230 cm 200 cm Single/Multi Gear 540/1000 220 54 Shear Bolt 70 to 75 H.P. 255 cm 225 cm Multi Gear 540/1000 220 60 Shear Bolt GI - 120 GI - 150 GI - 175 GI - 200 GI - 225 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION Rotor Speed (RPM) for Multi Speed Gearbox 160 16 17 18 19 2015 20 19 18 17 16 15 13 22 180 200 225 252 282 232 Tractor PTO 540 (RPM) 1000 (RPM) GOBIND varjk"Vªh; ekudksa ds vuqlkj fufeZr jksVksosVj gj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viukgj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viukgj fdlku dk liuk xksfcUn jksVksosVj gks viuk de [kir vf/kd tqrkbZ Approved by Government of India Mcy fLizxa vf/kd bVkfy;uvf/kd bVkfy;u CysM ds lkFkCysM ds lkFk vf/kd bVkfy;u CysM ds lkFk Approved by Government of India   "A Dream of Every Farmer""A Dream of Every Farmer""A Dream of Every Farmer"  LOW CONSUMPTION MORE PLOWING jksVksosVj OIL FILLED GEAR DRIVE ! WARNING Check oil level before using machine tighten all bolts everyday 35
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  • 47. MUMBAI: Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) on Thursday signed a definitive agreement to acquire 33 per cent in Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery Co (MAM) for $25 million or Rs 160 crore. The world's largest tractor maker by volumes will gain a significant voting stake in the subsidiary of M i t s u b i s h i H e a v y Industries through fresh issue of common shares and Class A (nonvoting) shares of M i t s u b i s h i A g r i Machinery. The deal is t o b e c l o s e d b y October 1, with funds infused by Mahindra going into expanding the capital base of the Japanese company. The acquisition will help the Mahindras work closely to devise an appropriate product portfolio strategy for the overseas markets. Apart from penetrating deeper into the US market, this tie-up will help M&M reach out more effectively to markets of China, South East Asia and eastern Europe. It will also provide a platform for both to leverage technology and product development synergies. Both part ners will work towards common s o u r c i n g t o b r i n g d o w n expenditure. The Mahindras have an old association with Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery. The latter has been supplying tractors to M&M's US subsidiary, in addition to sharing technical license for walk-behind rice trans-planters and a tractor. " F r o m a b u y e r - s e l l e r relationship, we now have a deeper bond with MAM. It will help in leveraging our future in markets like the US," Pawan Goenka, executive director of M&M, told ET. M i t s u b i s h i A g r i c u l t u r a l Machinery had revenues of $408 million in 2014-15 and with M&M's equity infusion; it will mostly be debt free. MAM makes losses at the net level, but a higher capacity utilization of the plant will help the company m a k e i t p r o fi t a b l e . T h e Japanese firm has a roster base of 1,700 employees. Goenka said the company needs to get a better balance in terms of its volumes spread, with 90 per cent of its business coming from India. Acquisition of stake will help it increase its presence in overseas markets. Goenka also pointed out that despite being the largest selling tractor company in the world; M&M was at number 5 in terms of revenues. A p u s h o n f a r m machinery business globally is the key to climb up the revenue ladder. "Tractors only make up for one third of global farm machinery business while implements and machineries like rice-planters make for a big business. In case of Mahindra, almost 95 per cent of business comes from selling tractors. With this tie-up with Mitsubishi, we would like correct that position by focusing more on farm mechanization," he said. Mahindra is also likely to launch a lighter tractor in India with the help of Mitsubishi next year, which will help the company cater to a 20,000 units per annum market for orchards. 47 M&M to acquire 33% stake in Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery Company for Rs 159.24 crore NEWS
  • 48. COIMBATORE: To give school students a true experience of what an average farmer has to go through daily, Tractor and Farm Equipment Ltd today launched its 'Be a FarmDost' initiative here, providing them with kits containing seeds and other material like an institutional manual. The initiative was aimed to celebrate the farmer and bring back the farming community into the social consciousness and to encourage students to understand the importance of farmers, Sunitha Subramanyam, Senior Deputy General Manager, Corporate Communications, said at the launch at National Model Higher School, here. Through this initiative, the company wanted to reach 20,000 school children in Coimbatore by distributing FarmDost kits, which contain seeds, a packet of cocopeat, a friendship agreement, a f a r m d o s t s t i c k e r, a n institutional manual, besides letters to them and their parents, requesting child's involvement in this, she said. Once students participate by cultivating seeds from the kit,they are expected to click pictures of the farming process regularly and post it on FarmDost website, Sunitha said. The pictures will later be promoted as Be a #FarmDost Page-Facebook. Com/foremost and the top three students from each city will be awarded Best #FarmDost student award, she said. After covering the initiative in Coimbatore, Madurai and Trichu, it would be held in Chennai schools, somewhere in mid of August and awarding ceremony will be held during September. Another award 'Thank You Farmers Student' award will encourage students to meet, interact and thank farmers in an innovative way, Sunitha said. 32 Tractor and Farm Equipment Ltd launches 'Be a FarmDost' initiative to recognize farmers NEWS