The end for big tractors?

Farmers’ love affair with big tractors could be over if they are to meet tighter environmental goals while maintaining production targets.

Instead, larger farming machinery will be replaced by more efficient systems relying on emerging technologies, agricultural robotics expert Simon Blackmore said at the International Triconference for Precision Agriculture in Hamilton.

Blackmore is a professor and head of agricultural robotics at the Agri-epi-centre and Harper Adams University and is also the director of the National Centre for Precision Farming in the United Kingdom.

While big, heavy farm machinery for cropping had increased work rates and reduced per hectare costs, they could not work in smaller fields, which had to be productive if farmers were going to feed the world.

‘‘In my vision of agricultural robots in the future, I do see robots working in smaller fields, smaller farms and less developed areas,’’ said Blackmore.

‘‘We are caught in this cycle of machines getting bigger and bigger all the time. We cannot change the soil or the weather, but we can change the tractor.’’

He estimated 90 per cent of energy going into cultivation was repairing soil compaction damage caused by machines in the first place.

That damage then gets repeated year after year, he said.

‘‘We are caught in this cycle of machines getting bigger and bigger all the time.’’ Simon Blackmore

IAING MCGREGOR/STUFF Big, heavy tractors will have to be replaced by lighter vehicles that cause less soil damage and are better for the environment.