Get a glimpse of how farm mechanization has advanced as you read about the overwhelming exhibition of machines for every farming purpose at the KIEMSTA 2016, the biggest agricultural mechanization trade show in Cheonan City in Korea.
ATTENDING KOREA’S biennial agricultural machinery trade show can be overwhelming. You are overwhelmed by the size of the exposition as well as the number of farm machines for almost every purpose.
This is KIEMSTA 2016, the Korea International Exhibition for Machinery Equipment, Science and Technology for Agriculture, staged on November 2-5, 2016 in Cheonan City by the Korea Agricultural Machinery Industry Cooperative (KAMICO) headed by chairman Shin Gil Kim.
Imagine seven exhibition halls, each almost as big as the indoor exhibit area of Agrilink at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. And each exhibit hall is filled with nothing but machines and equipment for mechanizing agriculture. The machines come in sizes ranging from the very big ones, as well as very tiny ones.
The big ones include the Robotractor, which is a massive machine that can perform big jobs like excavating fields with its giant buck hoe, or picking up giant bales of hay for livestock feed and other heavy materials. The machine is really big but is very maneuverable, as we witnessed at the demo site. The other big machines are the giant Branson tractors of Kukje Machinery Company and other international exhibitors.
SMALL CULTIVATORS - Of course, there are also machines of more modest sizes that are suitable for developing economies like those of the Philippines and other Asian countries, where there are many small landholdings.
These include the versatile dryland cultivators that are excellent for preparing land for planting vegetables and other high-value crops. One of the biggest manufacturers of this versatile tiller is Asia Tech, headed by Jae-Won Uhm. Aside from the small tillers, Asia Tech boasts of a ride-on small tractor to which implements can be attached, such as a rotavator, sprayer, weeder, fertilizer spreader, and direct grain seeder. Being a ride-on type, it is very comfortable for the operator.
By changing implements that are attached to Asia Tech’s allaround small cultivator, one machine can perform 40 different functions and finish the work of 40 people. It is capable of ridge weeding, trench hilling, ridge making, and drainage making between narrow furrows and inside greenhouses.
Asia Tech also boasts of multi-purpose speed sprayers for pest control in fruit trees, ride-on rice transplanters, plastic sheet