This is the future

Boydvalley

Member
Location
Bath
The biggest legacy of Covid will be unemployment. I have spoken to several people with businesses who are wondering what a lot of their staff have been doing and going forward are going to invest in tech and pay people well to work with it. They’ve never had a better time to get rid of the staff,as one put it,”that are not on your side”

small light robots that work 24hrs a day will be normal.

Its historic times we are living through and a golden opportunity for the young.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
i'm sorry things like that baffle me. If you don't like the work associated with your chosen career maybe it's time for a change of job. Me i was brought up with a muckfork in my hand so tractor driving is the easiest bit of farming.

my career is a farmer - not a farm labourer
There is a LOT more to my job than just being a seat polisher . . ,
In a whole farming year, I might spend a max of a month / 6 weeks in a tractor . .

I haven’t chosen to be a farmer because I like sitting in tractors . . .

personally, I’d rather clean public toilets for the Council than sit in a tractor all day
 
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Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
You say that, but how about a scientist in 10 years time came up with a wheat/ PRG/ clover hybrid, which produced a 10 tonne milling wheat crop, fixing its own N and did not need re establishing every year.
Russian scientists claimed they had some such in the 1960’s ;)

it would still need harvesting, but yes I agree that kind of tech is interesting and exciting as well IF it just doesn’t mean we end up working for the big Ag co’s that own the tech behind it

if it doesn’t make us better off what’s the point regardless of how clever it is !
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
it would still need harvesting, but yes I agree that kind of tech is interesting and exciting as well IF it just doesn’t mean we end up working for the big Ag co’s that own the tech behind it

if it doesn’t make us better off what’s the point regardless of how clever it is !

GM / bio tech cotton HAS been a real game changer here in the cotton industry ( especially a MASSIVE reduction in insecticide use ) - but we do pay over $300 / ha “licence” fees to use the technology & are subject to fairly strict auditing & legislation. . .
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
my career is a farmer - not a farm labourer
There is a LOT more to my job than just being a seat polisher . . ,
In a whole farming year, I might spend a max of a month / 6 weeks in a tractor . .

I haven’t chosen to be a farmer because I like sitting in tractors . . .

personally, I’d rather clean public toilets for the Council than sit in a tractor all day
That's a bit sad and a bit arrogant in my opinion. Farming takes a multitude of skills and for an arable farmer the operation or the understanding of the operation of machinery is one of them. Technology is brilliant but it should be to assist us not replace. I understand the need for an autonomous device for say bomb disposal or mine clearance but for driving a tractor I'm not sure it's necessary. I could understand it if you were on a tractor 12 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days of the year but its a small proportion of your time. However i am very much aware that everyone is different me I like tractors and buying them and using them is what makes farming fun for me and I'd hate to lose it.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Nah - I have done many hours & am highly skilled in many machinery operations ( working for myself, being employed by a number of other people & also running planters contracting for other farms for years ) & take pride in my ability & the work I am capable of doing. Did nearly 20 years of contract planting work in the past & $1million worth of contract cotton harvest in four months last year, just as an example.

I just don’t have nocturnal emissions thinking about them

machinery is a necessary evil with arable farming - NOT the reason for being . . .
 
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Kidds

Member
Horticulture
That's a bit sad and a bit arrogant in my opinion. Farming takes a multitude of skills and for an arable farmer the operation or the understanding of the operation of machinery is one of them. Technology is brilliant but it should be to assist us not replace. I understand the need for an autonomous device for say bomb disposal or mine clearance but for driving a tractor I'm not sure it's necessary. I could understand it if you were on a tractor 12 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days of the year but its a small proportion of your time. However i am very much aware that everyone is different me I like tractors and buying them and using them is what makes farming fun for me and I'd hate to lose it.
I bet you write emails instead of posting a letter. Same difference.
We already have tractor jobs where the driver just sits there watching porn until he crashes into a pylon, may as well do away with that and he can sit at home and watch it on a bigger screen with no pylon damage.
At least once a week I am out spraying until after 10pm because that is when it is fit. I would love it if my tractor went and did it on its own. And having seen the vast
size of the macadamia plantations as in the vid I can fully understand how they can play an incredibly useful part.

I am strongly of the opinion that tractor driving is a young mans game, I am in pain after an hour or so these days.
 
We already have tractor jobs where the driver just sits there watching porn until he crashes into a pylon, may as well do away with that and he can sit at home and watch it on a bigger screen with no pylon damage.


I am strongly of the opinion that tractor driving is a young mans game, I am in pain after an hour or so these days.
I have to agree, when I was in my twenties, I thought I was the mutt's nuts sitting on a tractor day and night. Now nearing 60, I avoid anything that takes more than about an hour at a stretch if I can possibly help it. I still enjoy a few weeks making the hay with my collection of oldies but that is partly nostalgia/hobby and it would probably pay to get it done by someone else.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I bet you write emails instead of posting a letter. Same difference.
We already have tractor jobs where the driver just sits there watching porn until he crashes into a pylon, may as well do away with that and he can sit at home and watch it on a bigger screen with no pylon damage.
At least once a week I am out spraying until after 10pm because that is when it is fit. I would love it if my tractor went and did it on its own. And having seen the vast
size of the macadamia plantations as in the vid I can fully understand how they can play an incredibly useful part.

I am strongly of the opinion that tractor driving is a young mans game, I am in pain after an hour or so these days.

I remember at college a lecturer telling us of the incredible boredon he experienced cultivating on the prairies in his youth. I found it puzzling but years later i realised that the excitement of driving a machine to the limit all day had gone. I think it was the pain at night and the realisation I had no one to take over the donkey work, that decided me to sell up , while I could still enjoy the money.
i still enjoy driving a tractor or combine, but have no wish to do either for extreme shifts day in day out.
 
I just look at the tiny cab of my Stockman Special sitting forlorn in the corner of the yard and think "Did I really spend 12,000 hours sitting in that little box ? " Imagine being an astronaut and being told "We're going to shut you in that capsule for 18 months !" :)
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
I spent twenty five years not in a tractor.
I was out in my truck,30,000 miles pa supervising, shouting , repairing stuff, on the phone or in the office or working the drier. Most hours i did was on a manitou loading and shifting grain and straw
Getting stressed and overweight.
Now i enjoy the peace and solitude of a tractor cab and quietly doing stuff myself.
If anyone hates a crucial part of the job so much, its time to move on or pay someone else to polish a seat.
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
Tractor driving is largely a young persons occupation. As you get older your interests and commitments vary, but I also think that modern technology is partly to blame. So much if the skill has gone out of the job, particularly driving straight. When I see pictures posted by the likes of @slim shiny I’m full of admiration for the quality and efficiency of the kit, but have often wanted to ask him what he actually does and thinks about all day. After losing relationships to working all hours, I’ve first hand experience of the downside to tractor driving as a job, much as I used to love it.
Back on topic though, robotics have to have a bright future. We’ve just started growing a small acreage of organic veg. The idea of a small robotic weeder pottering up and down the rows a bit like a robo mower, either hoeing or zapping with electricity sounds great to me. It doesn’t all have to be about prairie farming.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
I bet you write emails instead of posting a letter. Same difference.
We already have tractor jobs where the driver just sits there watching porn until he crashes into a pylon, may as well do away with that and he can sit at home and watch it on a bigger screen with no pylon damage.
At least once a week I am out spraying until after 10pm because that is when it is fit. I would love it if my tractor went and did it on its own. And having seen the vast
size of the macadamia plantations as in the vid I can fully understand how they can play an incredibly useful part.

I am strongly of the opinion that tractor driving is a young mans game, I am in pain after an hour or so these days.
I like tractors and machinery because of the jobs they do not just because I like shiny paint although having started with nothing (most of which I still have) it's nice to be able to buy reasonable stuff. I don't have to sit on a tractor I can find plenty of cheapish labour here to do that but I enjoy doing it when I am not doing the miriad of other jobs that are part of being a Farmer not Labourer. It's easy here in Africa to send someone off into the field to do the work and as such maybe that's like having an autonomous machine but being in the fields especially with my cropping is very important and you see a lot more from the tractor seat than on foot just by virtue of travelling more ground. With regard to spraying for the last two months it has been my job and I have really enjoyed it and probably saved myself a lot of money by looking over the crops and being able to make informed decisions (I don't have autosteer but do have autoshut off on the sprayer so I am not totally against technology). I personally would rather pay someone to do the jobs I don't like such as office work and do the fun stuff myself.
 
As you get older , I think you can make it not crucial by altering your business to suit. I enjoyed a lot of things in my 20s that make me feel tired just thinking about them now. As long as it is enjoyable, then fine, but you can always adapt your farming to suit your physical capabilities and interests. I must say I get as much pleasure from machinery cutting logs with my little B250 and £500 saw as I did with a combine years ago.
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Having had robotic milking machine (6 of) and robotic slurry scrapers (3 of) and robotic silage pushers (2 of) , they’re the dogs when they work ....

Not so clever when they crash

And it’s odd how on promotional videos everything is hunky dory, ain’t it?
Wonder how Harper Adams are getting on with their “Hands free hectare”? By now, it should have been hands free 10ha
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Theres probably not that many on here now who started out on a cabless tractor, but that gave an understanding of the soil that you dont get sitting Miles up in a luxury cab .
I often see younger tractor drivers happily going up and down, on their phones making an absolute howk
 
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Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
Theres probably not that many on here now who started out on a cabless tractor, but that gave an understanding of the soil that you dont get sitting Miles up in a luxury cab .
I often see younger tractor drivers happily going up and down, on thror phones making an absolute howk
I agree you need to get closer to you soil and crops not further away.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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