Farming future may have electric tractors
Electric tractors may be the farm transport of the future as fossil fuels become rarer.
Head of the Lincoln Universitybased Future Farming Centre, Dr Charles Merfield, said people would have to farm smarter in the future, rather than relying on chemical pesticides and fertilisers.
He talked to about 20 people, including farmers and growers, as part of a sustainable agriculture and horticulture workshop in Palmerston North.
Merfield said people acknowledged they’d have to change their farming and fruit and vegetable growing systems, and said many were thinking about it, with 50 people attending a similar workshop in Pukekohe.
‘‘Going back to the 1980s is a good comparison. It would have been inconceivable to talk about sustainability then. All of this would have been thought of then as wacky – part of the hippy movement. Now it is mainstream.’’
He suggested electric tractors might be part of farming in the future.
‘‘Most farmers use tractors during the day and they can go back for charging in the shed overnight. But we need big agriculture machinery manufacturers to put electric tractors on the market.’’
When it came to fertilisers, he said nitrogen could be made with sustainable energy and, along with phosphate and potassium, should be used really efficiently.
Merfield said farming and growing in the future would be more difficult but more environmentally friendly.
‘‘Chemicals are easy. But the non-chemical approach is often cheaper. We’re talking about hoeing weeds, mesh to keep pests out, crop rotations and trap crops that attract pests to an area off the main crop.’’
He said chemicals had been used for 70 years but were usually a ‘‘one-trick-pony’’, in that they rid a grower or farmer of one thing only, and resistance built up.
‘‘We need to go back to the whole farm system. We used to do that – treat the farm as a more integrated system.’’
Merfield said farmers and growers were not conservative by nature, but cautious as they had so much money tied up.
‘‘Farming is a hard business because you’re at the mercy of the weather and market forces. So if you take a risk, you might make a lot of money in good years, but lose the lot in poor years and you could lose the farm.’’
He said some consumers in developing economies were concerned about food safety and quality.
‘‘ The dynamics are changing – we think that about the markets in Europe but not in developing markets.’’
He said many supermarket consumers wanted the cheapest food, but others who shopped at more upmarket supermarkets were not so concerned about price, rather food safety and quality were their drivers.