It is wonderful to witness nature at this time of year. Seeing the birds busy building nests and hearing the sound of hungry chicks gives a lift to the day.

Summer has begun in earnest and temperatures are on the rise. The downside of these warm days is that the risk of getting sunburn is higher. With that in mind it is important to remember to apply sun screen lotion, particularly the sales reps who are mostly outdoors on the road visiting customers. 

There is a lot of pressure being placed on governments to make agriculture more sustainable. This has caused a lot of heated debates between farmers – the people to whom we sell our machines to, and environmentalists. The world population is continuously increasing and more mouths are needing to be fed from the same area of land on our planet.  It is our farming customers who are feeding the world so we must try and help them to do this in a sustainable way.

Precision Agricultural Technologies (PATs) are becoming ever more important when it comes to sustainable farming practices. We are already seeing this when sowing seeds and applying fertilisers and sprays to crops. Precision spraying technology, where spraying machines can distinguish weeds from crops in a split second, is becoming more popular. This technology can reduce chemical use by more than 50%.  

Last year, in the US, John Deere unveiled its green-on-green technology called See & Spray Ultimate, which company officials say will cut chemical use by two-thirds of that normally used in normal broadcasting applications that target both crops and weeds. AGCO have done something similar using targeted spraying technology.  

Using this technology has environmental benefits. Reducing the amount of fertiliser and chemicals also enhances farmer profitability, which is good for them and for our industry as well. Through PATs, our industry can deliver an important contribution to sustainable farming practices.

Combining PATs with alternative fuels will lead to a better and improved environment for farming. I already mentioned in an earlier edition of Service Dealer Ireland how alternative fuels are being developed for tractors. Fuels such as Methane and Hydrogen are being tested on New Holland and JCB tractors respectively with encouraging results.

However, it is important to remember that all this wonderful technology is not just aimed at the large scale farmer. The small farmer and grower also need to buy into the digitalisation of farm equipment so that they too can contribute to sustainable and environmentally friendly farming (and benefit from the potential profits). Marketing campaigns may be required, on our part, to persuade them to come on board using this technology.

Going digital and converting to PATs is not cheap. As interest rates are constantly on the rise, securing a loan to buy this equipment is becoming more expensive. We need to show our customers their advantages, not just from an environmental point of view but that it could also be a profitable move.