Reading Time: 3 minutes The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and there’s soon to be a buzz in the air — no, not the sweet sound of bees pollinating your crops, but drones. And like pollinators, drones do their best work during the spring. “Your drone isn’t just for taking pictures for your Twitter feed. It gives […] Read more
Now is the right time to brush up on your drone pilot skills
As of June 1, anyone flying a drone over 250 grams will need a pilot’s certificate — including recreational users
Ag tech tackles the next frontier — the people shortage on farms
The labour shortage has gone from problem to crisis — and that’s prompting a new tech revolution
Reading Time: 5 minutes Advances in farm equipment over the past 15 years have focused on one thing — allowing farmers to do more with less. Bigger equipment to cut the time when seeding and harvesting. GPS to minimize overlap. Precision tech to make every seed and input count. No till to capture snow and retain moisture (with less […] Read more
Canada’s short line equipment makers on the cutting edge
These smaller manufacturers exported $1.8 billion of equipment and implements last year
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you’re frustrated that the big names in equipment manufacturing aren’t rolling out autonomous systems quickly enough, you may want to look a little closer to home. “With the clock ticking on when we’ll see autonomous farming become a commercial reality, my hope is that we’ll see Canadian manufacturers lead the way there,” said Leah […] Read more
VIDEO: You have to seed it to believe it
Ag in Motion 2018: Air seeders put to the test in live field demos
Reading Time: < 1 minute If you attended Ag in Motion last month, hopefully you made your way over to the field demonstration area where there was no shortage of activity. Here, sprayers were compared side-by-side in the Ride & Drive, land-levellers churned out arable land from pasture, and as you’ll see in this video, a variety of air seeders […] Read more
Iron backlog has come and gone
It’s taken a few years, but dealers have finally whittled down high inventories of equipment
Reading Time: 3 minutes Two years ago, you couldn’t drive past an equipment dealership without noticing the rows upon rows of machines — carry-over of anticipated demand that never came. “In 2013 and 2014, everybody was firing on all cylinders,” said Leah Olson, president of the Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada. “With our record harvests, there was a fundamental shift […] Read more
Still just taking pretty pictures? Drones could be making you money
It’s taken a while but more and more producers are discovering ways to boost their profits with drones
Reading Time: 7 minutes Mike Barrett was trying to find a practical use for a pricey toy when he decided to fly his drone over his feedlot to count his cattle. That was when his purchase paid off. “With the average gain of the cattle, we easily paid for the drone in the first year that we counted that […] Read more
Things go better with standard operating procedures
All sorts of companies have so-called SOPs — because they save time and grief, and empower employees
Reading Time: 3 minutes Pilots complete checklists before every flight, even when flying the same plane several times a week. Farm equipment operators, on the other hand, often rely on their memory from 11 months ago when they start up the air drill or other equipment at the beginning of a new season. Some farm owners and managers, however, […] Read more
Fully automated feeding — the rise of the machines
Technology that handles everything from feed formulation to delivering it to cattle is becoming ubiquitous
Reading Time: 3 minutes Ken Van Raay remembers how things used to be at his 30,000-head feedlot. It required a lot more co-ordination, that’s for sure. In his previous system, Van Raay dealt with his local feed mill on the phone; spent more time on the road; managed pelleting, storage, blending and monitoring micro-ingredient levels in bins; and generally […] Read more
Steel tariffs could rebound on farmers here
It’s not clear what impact tariffs will have on farm equipment but any increase will likely be passed on
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s unclear if the new steel tariff proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump could be bad news for Canadian producers when it comes time to buy new farm equipment. If the tariffs are imposed, U.S. manufacturing companies would pay 25 per cent more for imported steel and 10 per cent more for imported aluminum, unless […] Read more
Robo-tractors invented by farmers are already here
Software-savvy producers aren’t waiting for equipment makers — they’re writing code and automating their machines
Reading Time: 5 minutes Kyler Laird did it the John Deere way when he returned to the family farm in Indiana after his father’s death in 2010. But after five years of sitting in a tractor, planting crooked rows of corn, he decided to do it his way instead. “Even when I was a kid out discing or out […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
