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A wide span tractor designed for vegetable production

Hans Henrik Pedersen is completing a PhD at Aarhus University in Denmark. He was a key speaker at LandWISE 2013: “New Ideas”. Hans told delegates about his work investigating a wide-span tractor as an option for cropping farmers.

Vegetable farmers, who adopt CTF, face serious challenges at harvest because very few harvesters are designed to match CTF systems. The soil structure is severely damaged when heavy harvest machines run over the well structured growing beds. A few farmers have modified harvesters, but to our knowledge only one CTF vegetable farmer has succeeded in matching harvest machines for all his crops.

As CTF farmers are still a minority the limited demand means that machinery manufacturers do not yet perceive a need. Also 3 m track width, as used by most CTF vegetable farmers, is a challenge as mass produced harvest machines need to meet road regulations in different countries.

In a Danish project partly funded by the Danish Business Innovation Fund a 9.6 m prototype wide span tractor has been developed. It will be tested by a commercial farmer (Jens Kjeldahl, Samsø) who will grow onions on 9.6 m wide beds spanned by the tractor. ASA-Lift A/S has designed and built the wide span tractor. Besides cultivation, drilling and plant care operations, the tractor will be used as a bunker harvester for onions and possibly for other crops. At harvest, the machine will unload at the field edges, thereby avoiding tractors and trailers in the field.

ASALiftGantry First presentation of the ASA-Lift WS-9600 tractor, summer 2012. Photo: Brdr. Kjeldahl

A wide span tractor solves two main challenges facing the traditional tractor:

  • Restrictions in width (e.g. due to road regulations) are solved by changing the direction of travel between field work and road transport. The machine is wide in the field and long when transported on roads but only 2.55 m wide.
  • Weight of the tractor can be reduced as implements can be mounted within the span of the tractor. The forces from the implements are transferred directly to the tractor as opposed to traditional mounting systems, where the tractor needs weight to pull the implement. Also, in conventional implement designs, a strong, heavy and often complex structure is needed to transfer the forces through the tractor hitch, as well as to fold the implement for transport.

Earlier work on wide span tractor designs e.g. as described by Chamen et al. (1994), unfortunately did not lead to commercial production.

A key point in design of any technology is to ensure that the development process is targeted to the priorities of potential customers. As part of my PhD. Studies I have performed a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to derive user-requirements and design parameters.

Twenty eight farmers and farm managers in Europe and Australia have been interviewed about their priorities for the design of a new growing concept based on wide span machines. The majority of those interviewed were CTF farmers. The farmers were asked to score 28 specific requirements on a scale from 0 to 4.

The 10 requirements with the highest priority were: (average scores are given in parentheses)

  • Automatic accurate steering of the carrier (3.9)
  • Reducing soil compaction (3.8)
  • Durability of the machine (3.4)
  • Overview of the entire machine from the operator’s seat (3.4)
  • Total costs per hour (3.3)
  • Clear view and manoeuvrability to avoid damage (3.3)
  • Semi-automatic control for increased productivity and ease of operation for the driver (3.3)
  • Comfort of the driver (3.3)
  • Automatic accurate steering of mounted implements (3.3)
  • Capability to carry heavy loads in the field (3.2)

A next step involved technical experts suggesting technical solutions (Design Parameters) to accommodate the priorities set by the farmers. The results of this QFD analysis can be used by any manufacturer who wishes to develop wide span machines.

Tractors as we know them today were very successful in replacing horses. Since they were introduced in the 1920s, rubber tyres and four-wheel drive have been established, along with other features, but basically the design has not changed. However, the power output has increased more than 10 fold and the weight of tractors has increased by a similar factor. The load of agricultural machines is challenging the productivity of soils. We believe it is time for a change to the traditional tractor and that the wide span alternative can be designed to suit the needs of modern agriculture while significantly improving production efficiency.

Reference:  Chamen, W. C. T., Dowler, D., Leede, P. R., and Longstaff, D. J. (1994). Design, Operation and Performance of a Gantry System: Experience in Arable Cropping. Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research 59, 45-60.

Look also at the CTF-Europe website for more from Hans Pedersen, Tim Chamen and colleagues

 

 

Farm equipment 2020

This article was first published in “The Grower”, following a request for some thoughts on where cropping equipment is heading.

Farm Equipment 2020

An easy way to look stupid is to publish a prediction.

For example:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.”—Western Union, 1876

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, 1977.

“Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.'”—David Pogue, 2006

“Technology Forecasting” seeks to identify technology trends and adoption rates. By tracking research papers, patent applications and early prototypes, an idea of when a new technology will appear, be first and broadly adopted, and its ultimate “market penetration” can be deduced. But it is notoriously difficult.

Looking at farm equipment, some directions are evident. But I’m very, very unsure about the time frames for broad adoption. And there are things just over the horizon that will be game changing. And of which we are absolutely ignorant.

Different folk adopt different things at different rates. Of the three base resources; land (and water), labour and capital, which are most limiting to your business? Your priorities for new ways and equipment will often see available capital move to make the use of your most limiting resources more efficient.

A reasonable assumption is that there will be fewer people producing more, higher-quality produce more reliably. They will use equipment that doesn’t look that different, but is much, much smarter. A planter will still look like a planter, but its control and recording will be vastly different.

Most changes will be to produce more from less – no change there in hundreds of years. But to produce more while minimising our environmental footprint is a newer spin. It will take us until 2020 to fully respond to regulatory changes.

Ten predictions:

1. Embedded information technologies will have a massive impact across all aspects of cropping.  That is an easy call; they already are with satellite guidance, machine control, data capture, smartphones and improving rural broadband access.

2. Almost all equipment will be delivered with smart technology on-board, though not enabled until a licence fee is paid. Infotech is becoming rapidly cheaper and better. The physical bits are relatively inexpensive to produce, but the IP can be costly.

3. Data capture and analysis will be more powerful yet simpler. Automated routines will capture and turn data into farmer friendly information for decision making and compliance reporting.

4. All farm “devices” will be linked, geo-located and synchronised: your phone, tractor, sprayer, office, car, cool room and irrigator. Vehicles will routinely gather crop information as they pass, feeding it wirelessly to the farm office for analysis.

5. We will not see variable rate application based on sensor data as a one-pass operation.  There are too many factors that influence the farm decision and it will be a while before all the considerations can be integrated automatically. Never say never?

6. Irrigation will be more efficient and smarter, using soil moisture data from sensor networks, and better integrated weather forecast information. Systems will deliver more accurate depths more evenly. The drivers are limited water supply and need to reduce nutrient leakage.

7. Variable rate system adoption will continue to increase and fertigation will be more widely used, especially in “fully nutrient allocated” areas. It offers tighter control and reduces the severity of any leaching.

8. Controlled traffic systems incorporating no-till, strip-till or permanent beds will be widespread, giving numerous benefits and very few downsides.   Guidance is already “mature technology” on cropping farms. Seven years is long enough for a lot of equipment to be replaced as a matter of course. Selecting options that match standard bout widths is relatively simple; then common AB lines give CTF by default.

9. Driverless tractor units for harvest trailers/chaser bins will be supervised by harvester drivers. If cars can already drive safely on public roads . . .

10. Robotic sprayers and mowers will be used in orchards and vineyards but will not be common in field cropping.

 

Innovation on the Family Farm

The article first appeared in The GROWER magazine in 2012.

Innovation on the family farm.

Farmers continually adapt to changes in farming conditions and local or global circumstances. This is innovation at work. These innovations are rarely documented but they could be of major benefit to other farmers.

Sometimes farmers want to keep their innovative ideas to themselves, seeking a competitive edge. But this is not always true, and many farmers do willingly share their ideas. They value the critique of others as an important part of on-going improvement.

A recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report1 concludes that farmer innovations should be documented.  The report also encourages closer links between farmers and formal scientific research to allow independent farmer innovations to be validated, and the scientific community to learn from and build on those innovations. This concept is hardly new, but it is relatively rare in practice.

The FAO report also notes farmers need to be organised for collective action, and that access to market opportunities is critical for innovation. It says that resource-poor farmers wish to minimise risk, and this has a major impact on their adoption of innovative practices.

The report comes from an e‑mail conference asking whether family farmers can fully participate in, and benefit from, agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and what policy-makers can do to help. The focus was on family farms in developing nations, but also seems relevant here.

Innovation systems are collaborative. They involve many stakeholders working together, sharing their knowledge to develop and apply new ideas. In contrast, the traditional linear approach assumes knowledge is developed by researchers and fed out to farmers2.

Collaborative research with farmers, industry and scientists was the foundation of LandWISE and has remained central to our most successful activities. A side benefit is that this develops ability for continual innovation.

Innovation systems are “messy”, with many partners with differing roles and views. To make them work better, the FAO report identifies a key role for innovation brokers, described as the “lubricants of the innovation engine”. This role is similar to that formerly played by MAF farm advisors, transferring knowledge both ways between MAF Tech researchers and the farmers.

Unlike the dairy and fruit sectors, vegetable cropping has few innovation brokers and lacks the clearly defined extension role that would support them. Individual projects involve engagement of farmers with scientists and others. But continuity is lacking in the relationships that support shared learning and foster innovation excellence.

Perhaps new information and communication technologies offer farmers opportunities to fully participate in shared learning. Mobile phone and web technologies have their challenges but can be used to bring farmers closer to markets, link farmers to each other and to extension agents, give farmers improved access to technical knowledge and document farmer innovations.

How can we use new technologies and collaborative learning to help growers minimise risk, or overcome the perception of risk, to free them up to innovate?

PS

The FAO report is interesting for a number of reasons – not least being that it is from an e-mail conference.

560 people from 50 different countries shared 242 email messages over a period of four weeks. It was cheap – virtually free to attend.

Nobody had to travel and nobody had to miss a session because they had another pressing engagement. Everyone had time to think about a posting and craft a considered reply.

Maybe we could use that approach here.

References:

  1. “A FAO e‑mail conference on agricultural innovation systems and family farming: The moderator’s summary.” http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/ap097e/ap097e00.pdf
  2. “Agricultural Innovation Systems – A guide” via http://www.slideshare.net/LINKInnovationStudies/agricultural-innovation-systems-an-introduction

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

Food Markets in Peru

Visiting the food markets of France stimulated memories of fruit and vegetable markets in Peru and even of farmers’ markets in New Zealand.

We visited Peru with Tahuri Whenua in 2009, comparing and Maori Potatoes (taewa) and some of the 3000 identified Andean varieties, and the culture that surrounds them. That is another story.

In 2009, about half the fruit and vegetables to feed the Lima population went through the old market. The rest of the produce was distributed via supermarket chains.

Nobody is really sure how many people live in Peru’s capital city, Lima. It is officially about 8 million, but there are a few million extras that don’t officially exist.

The traditional vegetable market’s total area was about three hectares, but most activity was concentrated in a densely filled one hectare centre that was servicing 4 million people!

Much of the produce came from the headwaters of the Amazon jungle, past Machu Picchu in the Andes.  The train track down-stream of Machu Picchu had been washed away so everything was going by road, a couple of days by truck.

Inside the market, transport was manual, with huge sacks on shoulders or barrows. The produce was piled high, and its vendors showed considerable pride through their care with display. There were certainly no flash cabinets and definitely no refrigeration, though plenty of workers climbing over piled sacks of produce.

It was difficult to fully understand how everything worked. The language barrier was significant, and we were shepherded carefully by government staff. But the scale ranged from a person with a very small pile of corn to huge stacks of bagged produce with people running everywhere. Maybe some were farmers come to town, others traders. Some buyers looked to be doing a family shop so there was some retail. But clearly the bulk must go out as wholesale.

Down the road a “proper retail” market had stores, display units and altogether a different role. Our hosts explained how government advisors were training the people in food handling, marketing and presentation to maximise sale value. The appearance of this market was much closer to the French markets visited in 2012.

While in Lima, we also visited the site of the new wholesale fruit and vegetable market being developed at a much larger site. Now in operation, it has cool store capacity, power and space for mechanical transport. It has good transport links to the port, the rail network and the main roads into Lima. It also integrates health and social services that seemed highly needed by the people that worked the old vegetable market.  But it was a long way from their homes . . .  Progress versus traditional practice always has pros and cons.

Food Markets in France

The passion with which the French approach their food is surely to be admired. A brief stay with relatives in a village south of Paris let me visit a range of food markets. 

Driving home from the railway station on Friday evening, we stopped at a farm where a weekly order of vegetables was waiting. Organic produce grown on-site, bought mostly by urban professionals. The farmer loaded our baskets, the week’s mix varying according to what was available.

Saturday morning involved a walk to the village square. Getting food is serious business: vegetables on display, eyed over and specifically selected; this bakery for this type of bread, the other for another; the village butcher intent on preparing your chosen chicken exactly as you want it, in front of you. The queued folk behind you wait their turn. Croissant and coffee at the hotel, the social centre and local information exchange.

My hosts invited a local couple to dinner, an event with strong traditions and expectations. The guests will bring a gift, something for the house, or maybe professionally arranged flowers.

Another food gathering trip required. The supermarket had prominent country of origin labelling. Proudly French mixed with the best from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Brazil and more. A similar range of fresh produce, but higher prices than I expect in New Zealand.

20121118_120547web

Winter vegetables on display in Fontainebleau market. “Vitelotte” looks the same as the Maori potato “Urenika” or “Tutaekuri”.

The hosts laid out a range of cheeses to welcome their guests, noting to me they should know not only where each is from, but ideally who made it. Each meal dish will be contemplated, savoured, judged. Appreciated. With wine chosen to match.

Maybe their profession as vegetable buyers for the UK restaurant trade elevated their interest. But my all-too-brief visit suggested a deep and wide community engagement with anything the locals put in their mouths.

The open air market in Fontainebleau has been running for centuries. Some 50km south of Paris, Fontainebleau was built about one thousand years ago. It is dominated by a huge palace (Chateau Fontainebleau) which probably gave impetus to the French Revolution.

Importantly, Fontainebleau has an outdoor market twice a week. We visited the town centre site on a Sunday morning, in light winter drizzle. It was packed; quality produce and the variety was considerable. Refrigerated display cabinets with meats and vegetables, fruit and wild mushrooms, breads and cheeses and delicate sweets and chocolates.

A campaign was underway and I was pressed to take a sticker, “Touch’ pas à mon Marché”. “Don’t touch my Market!” The local council wants to redevelop the market site, which will require the stall holders to shift to another part of town; temporarily. It seems no one is buying that: “If we go it will be forever!” they cry. They don’t want to be relegated to a fringe site; that would break with history (and lose customers).

Fontainebleau is a wealthy area. The market struck me as a one for the well-to-do middle class and tourists. It prompted me to recall and compare the fruit and vegetable markets of Lima in Peru. So different.

My lasting impressions are the different variety of vegetables available, the attention paid to presentation, and something special about being in an old style marketplace. But, of course, I was both middle class and a tourist.

 

Vegetables in the Israeli Desert

This article was first published in The GROWER magazine following a trip to the UK and Israel to study water policy.

The Desert Blooms: vegetables from recycled water in Israel

 

We left Tel Aviv amid high security, the day after fighting began in Gaza. It was a sobering end to a tour of irrigation and horticulture in Israel.

In Israel, land is owned by the state, and a licence granted to farm it. There is, relatively speaking, a lot of land. There is virtually no water. Water is managed by the State, in trust on behalf of the people.

It’s a nation that desalinates almost a billion cubic metres of water a year, and uses 700 million for agriculture. The key is that agriculture is the second use: almost all ag water is recycled from cities. Parallel pipelines carry fresh and recycled water for thousands of kilometres around Israel. The huge infrastructure cost is borne by the state – it is a matter of national importance.

Much of our tour focused on drip irrigation, including a visit to its developers at Kibbutz Hatzerim, the home of Netafim. Hatzerim is 8 km west of Beersheba in the Negev desert. In such an inhospitable environment, the need for detailed management and high efficiency rapidly becomes obvious.

We visited the Arava Valley, south of the Dead Sea. This is the border with Jordan, currently peaceful after a treaty in 1994. Don’t jump the fence though, the explosive mines are still there, and flooding has redistributed them to who knows where.

In an area with 50mm of rain (if any) and 2,000 mm of evapotranspiration, water is a valuable commodity. The soils are saline, the water is saline. Drip is about the only way plants can be made to survive.  And survive they do, in soil brought hundreds of kilometres, with water brought hundreds of kilometres, to produce crops for consumption thousands of kilometres away in Europe. Why?

The key for the state, it seems, is occupation and security. The key for the farmers is a climatic opportunity that allows excellent production when Europe is freezing. Growing almost exclusively in tunnel houses of plastic or shade, yields can be very good and quality excellent. With water supplied to the district by the state, and to the gate by local agencies, it is supply that is limiting more than cost.

A typical farm is about 4ha, although some are increasing through aggregation. Key crops are capsicums (Bell Peppers) and table tomatoes, which together account for most production. All crops must be removed for a period around July to break pest and disease cycles. Farmers believe the policy is effective, as they have very low levels of disease or virus.  At this time it is too hot to grow anything anyway, and most people head to the coast for a holiday.

Farmers spoke of constraints. New development needs water which is seldom available. Their children want to move to the cities and high paying professions. Tomatoes produce about 20kg/m2, which farmers say is profitable. But they require three times the labour of capsicums, and some farmers just cannot get enough labour to increase production.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are alive and well. We visited a huge reservoir for an almond, olive and grape farm of several hundred hectares. To our Kiwi noses and eyes the water was filthy; to them it was gold. In the distance was its source, Arad, a city of 23,000 people drinking and flushing desalinated water and supporting Israeli agriculture.

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

My thanks to Andrew Gregson of the NSW Irrigators’ Council for organising the study tour, colleagues Andrew Curtis (IrrigationNZ) and Hayden Cudmore (Australian Rice Growers’ Association) and those who hosted us along the way. Dan’s visit to Israel was self-funded.

 

Learning Lessons Again

This article first appeared in The GROWER magazine in 2012. We were getting more reports of cropping paddocks disappearing in the wind, something I regard as a disaster. With a comprehensive flood protection system in place stopping alluvial deposition, no ice age looming to create more loess and hopefully no more major volcanic eruptions donating ash, our local Heretaunga Plains soils are no longer replenished. Once gone, they are gone.

Learning Lessons Again

Do we really forget strong winds are a regular feature in Spring?

Clouds of soil need not be part of this picture. Why do we not plan, or plan not, to account for these winds? I admit to frustration – wind is normal!

Many New Zealand cropping soils are loess covered gravels. Loess is wind-blown silt, ground out of the ranges during the ice age, and exposed by retreated glaciers. Unless we have another ice age, we are not going to get much re‑nourishment.

Many others are volcanic ash – such as from Taupo. Unless we have another (really, really) major eruption, we’ll not get more of that either. So we need to look after what we have.

The very simple message on light soils is that is if you open them up, they can blow away. And blow away they have.

When first developed, horses were used to till land for pasture and cereals. The late soil scientist, Elwyn Griffiths, said that in some parts of the Ruataniwha Plains “about three feet” of soil was lost within a few decades.

Mechanisation replaced horses, powered implements created fine seed beds and wind erosion continued. In the mid-1990s severe erosion events were reported.

A local field rep said, “We lost over 50mm of soil this Spring. I know we did; we planted peas an inch deep, the wind blew and the pea seed bounced across the highway. We replanted and that lot blew away too. Then it was too late to grow peas so we planted sweetcorn instead. Even that got damage.”

In 1999 LandWISE set out to stop wind erosion.  Valuable knowledge about how to keep soil from drifting across the plains and out to sea was gained and disseminated.

Direct drilling or no-till stops wind erosion completely. So long as there is effective ground cover, the particles are retained.  No-till was good for grass and cereals, but less promising for process crops and squash.

LandWISE developed and proved strip-till techniques that allow for seed bed creation yet keep soil intact. With half to two-thirds of the ground still covered with thatch or residues, the soil avalanche can’t get started: strip-till stops wind erosion too.

The additional benefits are numerous: Better water holding capacity, better drainage, reduced fuel consumption, no sand-blasted young crops, less grit in your eye, a soil resource to pass on through the generations, time and energy savings, reducing costs and carbon footprint into the bargain.

Minimising tillage consistently proved viable and cost effective on light soils. It rapidly showed benefits on heavy soils too. The soils were stronger, better draining and generally in better condition. Machinery cost and fuel use were halved.

“It’s a no-brainer,” we said, and devoted several years to demonstrating the techniques, pitfalls and benefits.

Labour weekend 2012, thirteen years later, and across Hawke’s Bay we see clouds of topsoil leaving fully cultivated paddocks. The wind is taking away the richest part of the soil, removing nutrients and water holding capacity and damaging developing crops.

My frustration is amplified. One of these disappearing paddocks is the very one where all our work started. Others are paddocks where strip-till or no-till has been used very successfully in the past.

Why do we have to learn these lessons again and again?

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

Risk Management for Good Practice

The future hasn’t happened yet. Today we make educated guesses and do something. Later, we’ll discover if our choices were good.

We use “good agricultural practice” even though it is no guarantee. What seems right today turns out not to be. Hindsight is easy. Its value is in building knowledge for foresight the next time around. Foresight is part gamble, but greatly enhanced with local knowledge, historical context and good advice.

Growers need to make a profit. And they are expected to keep people, property and the environment safe. This is central to good agricultural practice. With so much uncertainty about so many factors, and so many things to consider, getting it “right” is a big ask.

Good agricultural practice applies deliberate choices based on good information, acknowledging and accounting for unknowns. It weighs the likelihood and implications of possible events against potential costs and rewards. Much attention has been placed on the financial side, but increasingly the environmental aspects must be taken into account.

Implementing a formal risk management approach enhances good agricultural practice. Risk management involves identifying hazards, assessing associated risks and implementing interventions. Things will go wrong, but the frequency and consequence are reduced.

Hazards are things that can cause or lead to events with undesirable consequences. Heavy rain, frost, pests and market collapse are hazards.

Risk combines the likelihood of the event happening with the severity of consequence. There will be heavy rain events, but how often? They can destroy crops, leach nutrients, wash away soil and damage infrastructure. What are the immediate and on-going severe consequences? How much will they cost? What effect on waterways?

Interventions are actions that avoid, minimise or mitigate the event or consequence. The size of risk and effectiveness of intervention help determine the investment that is justified.

Good practice has always had an element of risk management. Making it explicit helps demonstrate that the potential impacts of adverse events have been considered and appropriate management applied.

Who should decide what good practice is? Should it be prescribed, or should farmers have choice?

We prefer to have choice. Every site on every farm is unique – yes, your soils are different! By assessing our own situation and making our own justified plans, we can get the best fit for site, fit for purpose good practice.

Creating a full risk management plan for every aspect of farming is a daunting task. The same process can be followed to manage any risk. But it will be harder if we are dealing with unfamiliar topics or are not sure of the possible problems and solutions. We want to make it easier.

As part of the “Holding it Together” project, we scoped a risk management process to address soil quality and loss. We saw resources to help farmers work efficiently through a robust process, identifying and quantifying hazards and risks, and sifting through potential interventions would be useful.

A book or website with checklists and supporting information would make things much easier. Imagine clicking on a “hazard” and seeing a list of risks and image sets showing relative severity and ideas on avoiding the impact. Follow the cues relating things to your farm. Click “Print” and your Good Practice Risk Management Plan is complete.

Dan Bloomer and Phillipa Page, LandWISE

Resilience

Resilience is the ability tobounce back from adverse events. When we are generally happy and healthy we can handle most things nature (or life) throws at us. If we are run down, tired and sick, the slightest thing seems to knock us for six.

Farms are very much the same. They handle adverse events better if the soil is healthy, water available, and infrastructure (and capital) in place. And the reverse is true too. Beaten up soils, lack of water, inadequate or poorly maintained infrastructure and high gearing leaves a farm (and its people) at higher risk when bad things happen.

Resilient Cropping Workshops

Building resilience into cropping farms is the aim of our “Resilient Cropping” project. A joint venture between LandWISE, Foundation for Arable Research, Horticulture NZ and Tahuri Whenua the Maori Vegetable Growers Collective, it is funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

A main focus of Resilient Cropping is preparing for adversity such as extreme weather events, fuel cost spikes and restricted access to irrigation water. In-field workshops across the country involve local growers sharing experience and ideas and proposing local solutions.

Among the topics covered are soil quality, irrigation efficiency, nutrient management and energy use. A common question is, “what can we do to best prepare for uncertainty?” An alternative is, “How should we farm knowing that adverse events will certainly happen sometime, and possibly more often?”

Is resilience an issue?

The first stage of the Resilient Cropping project was a survey of growers about the impact of adverse weather on farming businesses.  101 replies were collected.  Some respondents were offended by the survey and made the point that managing the impacts of the weather on their farming businesses was what farming was all about.

Diana Mathers reported that, of 101 respondents, only 9 had not lost money from a climate related event in the last 5 years. Only 7 believed that climate variability would not affect their business in the future.

Severe weather had impacted two thirds of cropping businesses two to four times in the last five years. Weather events affected profitability of more than three quarters of growers. Almost half said the losses were severe.

Farmers in Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Gisborne said both drought and rain are important regional issues. Those without irrigation ar condisering a change their farming system.  Some are looking to reduce cultivation intensity to reduce soil moisture losses, while others are changing the sort of crops that they grow.

What do undesirable events cost?

Estimating crop yields, their value, and the cost of lower production is made easier by a LandWISE tool called YieldEst. It is an output from our Sustainable Farming Fund project, “Assessing the cost of crop loss at paddock scale”.

Growers and agronomists recognise areas of suppression, damage and loss within crops. YieldEst systematically assesses the financial cost of losses and the contribution of adverse events. Quantifying the cost of lost production and the relative impact of different problems also helps target where efforts will have most benefit.

YieldEst starts by assessing the yield in the main part of a paddock, and comparing that to expected or “potential” yield. Because it can consider multiple grades with different prices, a shift to lower grades will be also identified, along with the monetary implications.

Variable paddocks are assessed by monitoring yield in “Loss Zones”.  Growers are asked to name the “cause” of lower production in each zone and again, multiple grades can be entered.

The project was funded by the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund, LandWISE members and Horticulture New Zealand levy payers through the Vegetables Research and Innovation Board. The YieldEst tool was developed with generous in-kind support from Chris Folkers at ASL Agricultural Software.

Dan Bloomer, LandWISE

Steps towards Farming Within Limits

The article was first published in The GROWER magazine.

Farming within limits is the phrase of the year, by-line of numerous conferences, and part of many conversations. Farming within limits is nothing new. Financial constraints, market size, climate and soils, labour . . . you name it.

But farming within off-farm environmental limits puts a new spin on the topic. Both regulators and growers are under pressure to lift performance. Fortunately Horticulture New Zealand took a lead role years ago when it launched New Zealand Good Agricultural Practice.

New Zealand GAP is constantly evolving to meet new opportunities and requirements. And the bar will continually lift as governments, markets and other stakeholders expect ever higher standards from producers. But good agricultural practice is, and will be, the core of farming successfully within limits.

Successful growers already aim for profitable production with environmental stewardship. They have systems that ensure the basics are done well, and for continuous improvement. They measure to manage, they record to report.

These leaders of the pack are prepared for, and often do well from, change. They have a mind-set of adapting management to meet or beat changing situations. They already do a bit extra such as riparian planting and supporting local stream care. They are ready for most, if not all, that “farming within limits” may throw at them.

It is a year since the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management 2011 came into effect requiring councils to set limits on fresh water quality and the amount of water that can be abstracted from our rivers, lakes and aquifers.

Councils have four years left to establish programmes that will give effect to the NPS by 2030. They will need to amend regional policy statements, proposed regional policy statements, plans, proposed plans, and variations. It is a lot of work, and councils are under pressure to have the necessary changes in place sooner rather than later.

Government stated, “We are committed to monitoring improvements in fresh water management from the NPS and reviewing its effectiveness within five years as the complete package of reforms is rolled out.” There is a strong sense of urgency.

Growers can take action now. Both on and off-farm activities are needed, and many things can happen in parallel. There is a need to be involved, and no need to wait to do things better.

The freshwater quality driver points to many things; irrigation and nutrient management, soil conservation, stream enhancement, eel fishery management, and a range of environmental offsets. It is the effect of the combination of all management and mitigation that will determine the outcome.

Of the off-farm activities, Horticulture New Zealand Natural Resources and Environment Manager, Chris Keenan, says, “The key task in front of growers right now is participating in a limit setting process, because that will determine how much effect limit setting will have on the business.” Chris Keenan further notes that if they are going to do this effectively, they will need to be organised. Catchment management groups will be necessary in many cases, if not all cases.

On-farm, growers can adapt their management.

Two critical on-farm factors under direct grower control are water and nutrient management. We can’t control the rain, but we can definitely control irrigation and artificial drainage. And we are in control of our fertiliser application and can do quite a lot to keep nutrients in the root zone.

Our evaluation of irrigation systems and irrigation management records shows a wide range of performance. Some growers are highly focused, manage intensely and have high water use efficiencies.  Unfortunately, some don’t.

Without carefully monitoring soil moisture levels, weather forecasts and irrigator performance testing, effective efficient irrigation is impossible. You must know how much is needed, and how much is going on. If the basics are not right, no amount of fancy technology will help.

The same is true for nutrient management where a wide range of performance is evident. Some growers apply excellent soil fertility testing, nutrient budgeting and planning, and fertiliser spreader calibration; essential steps to maximise nutrients use.

Water and nutrient management are closely linked. Too much water will cause unnecessary nutrient loss to freshwater, just as will too much fertiliser.  Too little water reduces crop growth which leaves unused nutrients in the soil, often also increasing losses that end up in freshwater.

Fortunately, efforts to manage water and nutrients better can improve farm profitability as well as environmental performance. So it can be a win-win. Focus on getting the basic things right. Look for big, easy gains first. Then look at fine-tuning.

Catchment management groups, farmers getting together to manage the overall effect of all activities on the quality of water in each catchment, are a powerful way to make progress. Such groups provide a forum for ideas, a place of co-operative learning, agreement on actions and priorities, and opportunities for benchmarking performance.

If everyone performed at the level of the top quarter, overall performance would rise significantly. Then the community would be able to see the fresh water quality improvements sought.