TERRASEM – the new generation

The new trailed seed drills are now also available with working widths of 8 and 9 metres and can be custom-equipped to handle all site-specific conditions. Thanks to the disc harrow as the leading tillage tool, the TERRASEM seed drills are ideal for mulch drilling and are available with WAVE DISC’s as an option for loosening the soil in strips. The CLASSIC version without tillage tools is impressively smooth running on prepared seedbeds. With their large working widths, high operating speeds are possible with the best positioning accuracy.

Convenient operation without crabbing

A new configuration of all tillage tools ensures that the machine works efficiently and 100 percent in a straight line. The disc harrow as well as the fertiliser coulters (D Z-machine) and DUAL DISC seed coulters are mounted in an X configuration. There is no need to grease the tillage tools because they are mounted on sealed bearings.

Metering with the highest precision

The metering systems are designed for the highest possible precision and ensure that exactly the right amount of any given seed type is used. The TERRASEM V 8000 D and TERRASEM V 9000 D are equipped with two metering systems as standard and have a seed hopper capacity of 5,600 litres. Seeding rates of 1.5 kg to 420 kg at 12 kph are possible. The seed flow rate can easily be adjusted on these machines without leaving the tractor seat.

Multiple sowing options

Single shoot, double shoot and double shoot-mix are the key to perfect emergence. Optimised to specific conditions and crop rotations, it is possible to vary between the application of

• seed,
• seed with fertiliser,
• two different mixtures of seed,
• additional components such as microgranules or a companion crop

using the TERRASEM Z models with FERTILIZER feature.

PÖTTINGER also proves its expertise in the digitisation with the new TERRASEM models by making them agrirouter-compatible.

Source: Pöttinger

The post Pöttinger Presents V8000 and V9000 New Trailed Seed Drills appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

The first report concludes that farm production costs are likely to increase 6% in 2022, which follows a 12% increase in 2021. This continues a trend stretching back several years. Since 2013, farmers have seen almost all production expenses increase. For example, livestock and poultry expenses have gone up 46% and marketing, storage and transportation costs have increased 59%.

Farmers are seeing a number of production cost increases including:

• Rising fertilizer, seed and chemical prices, which now make up to 17.5% of on-farm expenditures
• Rising fuel and energy prices, exacerbated by uncertainty due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict
• Increased costs of labor, both on-farm and for agribusinesses serving farms
• COVID-19 disruption of labor markets and production

“The rising prices for fuel, fertilizer and other supplies create an unwelcome counterforce to higher commodity prices,” .
“Higher prices for crops are getting a lot of attention right now and of course help farmers balance the books, but when expenses are rising just as quickly or even outpacing revenue, the financial gains evaporate. Right now, there are serious concerns about whether farmers will be able to access the supplies they need to put a crop in the ground.”

said AFBF President Zippy Duvall.

AFBF is working to ensure the administration and Congress understand the severity and potential implications of increased production costs and the limited availability of some supplies.

Future Market Intel articles will explore the rising cost of production expenses like seed, pesticides, energy, machinery, land, labor, credit and water. A Market Intel analyzing fertilizer prices was published in December 2021.

Source: Farm Bureau

The post Farm Production Costs Expected to Increase 6% in 2022 appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

STARGATE research project develops a breakthrough, multiscale, and holistic climate-smart agriculture (CSA) methodology, capitalizing innovations in the field of microclimate and weather risk management, as well as in the field of landscape design.

STARGATE is based on earth observation, weather intelligence, and IoT technologies to support effective farm management and related options for adaptation to climatic changes, local and regional policy formulation leading to better landscape management.

The project implements the Living Lab approach by connecting research organizations, policy-making organizations, ICT companies, farmers, and other stakeholders to shape a CSA multi-actor regional framework. Moreover, STARGATE studies the benefits of applying agri-environmental-climate technical solutions to achieve sustainable agricultural development at the field and landscape level including livestock farming and agroforestry.

STARGATE is leveraging access to these data and climate-smart decisions tools to foster easy and affordable adoption by farm management and policymaking bodies.

Furthermore, STARGATE provides innovative components for the visualization of big data with an emphasis on geospatial visualization and dynamic charting. Additionally, the project has been designed so that its results may be further developed in other projects, or adapted to broader contexts, providing opportunities for influencing policies.

The project is well in symphony with the required actions to support sustainable agriculture, and resilient agricultural management and will run until September 2023 involving 26 partners from Greece, Czech Republic, Israel, Spain, Latvia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Germany, Norway, and Belgium.

The post Research on Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices has a Primary Role in Sustainable Agriculture appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Rolls-Royce Power Systems is taking the next step towards a climate-neutral future. By 2030, the Rolls-Royce business unit is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35% compared to its 2019 level through the use of new net zero and cero carbon technologies. This near-term target plays a significant role in Rolls-Royce Group’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2050 at the latest.

To accomplish that mission, the role of pioneer goes to Power Systems:

“With ‘Net Zero at Power Systems’, we’re not just taking action to protect the environment. We’re re-aligning our strategy towards eco-friendly energy and propulsion systems. We already see these explicitly as growth opportunities for our business in the coming years,”

says Andreas Schell, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems.

A key element in achieving these goals is the certification of the most important mtu engine products, which will run on sustainable fuels from as early as 2023 and then be successively brought into use.

“The certification means that the new generation of Series 2000 and 4000 engines, that currently account for 85% of our sales revenues, will be qualified to run on second-generation bio-fuels and on E-fuels,”

explained Dr Otto Preiss, Chief Technology Officer and COO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems.

The engines are used in a wide variety of applications, for example, in energy supply, commercial shipping, heavy land vehicles, passenger trains and in yachts.

Power Systems is taking a multi-pillar approach to reducing emissions: Besides using sustainable fuels, the Rolls-Royce business unit is also building on new technologies such as CO2-free fuel cell systems. From 2025, these will be used in power generation solutions – from balancing energy for compensating fluctuations in the public grid to continuous power and the provision of emergency power in, for example, hospitals and data centers. On top of that, development engineers are also working on engines powered by hydrogen and methanol as well as on concepts for decentralized Power-to-X systems. Other sustainable solutions such as battery energy storage systems, hybrid propulsion systems for marine and rail applications and microgrids already feature in the Power Systems portfolio for decentralized, environment-friendly power solutions.

Considering the key buying criteria related to fossil fuel (as presented in Figure 3) and assuming an acceptable TCO assessment, availability of bridging technologies, and the specific priorities of the applications, Rolls-Royce Power Systems expects a change in technology split as shown on the right side of Figure 3. 

Tackling the biggest sources of emissions first 

“To make as big an impact as possible in the fight against climate change, the first priority of Power Systems is to re-align its product portfolio towards sustainability. That’s the area we’re concentrating on at present because that’s where we see the biggest potential for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But this year will also see us setting milestones for gearing our production and value chain to long-term climate neutrality”

explained Dr Otto Preiss.

Figure 4 gives an outlook of the expected relevant technologies needed for the market transformation as Rolls-Royce Power Systems sees it today. Independent of the underlying GHG scenario the figure shows their expectation of the still important role of ICE in the coming years. However, it is clearly competing with the rise of battery and fuel cell technology.

As a specialist for propulsion and energy solutions, Power Systems is thus setting strong milestones with ‘Net Zero at Power Systems’, which follows on from the Rolls-Royce parent company’s ‘Pathway to Net Zero’ programme. In total, the Power Systems products sold in 2019, the year before the pandemic, will generate some 109 million tons of greenhouse gases over their service life in the field – almost double that emitted by the Greater London region every year.

“That means that when it comes to lowering emissions, we have a lot of leverage. But the onus is on policy-makers as well to put in place stable framework conditions for sustainable energy solutions in the areas of industry in which we operate, thereby providing clear incentives to participate in the changeover to sustainable products”

said CEO Andreas Schell.

The move towards sustainability began at Rolls-Royce Power Systems some time ago. ‘Net Zero at Power Systems’ is in fact a further development of the ‘Green & Hightech programme’ and as such forms an integral part of the overarching corporate strategy that has been driving the transformation into a provider of integrated sustainable solutions for energy and propulsion since 2015.

The post Rolls-Royce Power Systems at Work for Climate-Neutrality With “Net Zero at Power Systems” Program appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Resource Innovation Institute (RII) has assembled a council of global business and environmental leaders to advise the non-profit on its efforts to serve the needs of agricultural producers facing climate risk and technology adoption.

The new Strategic Advisory Council–composed of senior leaders from business, investment, government and philanthropic communities–will shape RII’s strategic plan, which will be announced this fall.

“Agriculture is changing. Many producers are shifting toward various forms of ‘indoor’ cultivation, which is driving a need to holistically quantify resource impacts and support farmers of all kinds,”

said Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute.

“Governments, utilities, investors and producers need data-driven solutions to identify the most efficient, productive and profitable cultivation approaches. Our role as a trusted non-profit organization with five years of expertise on these issues is to lead the measurement, adoption and celebration of the most efficient agricultural ideas. We are appreciative of the commitment of our Strategic Advisory Council to help guide our planning.”

RII recently began work on a three-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant designed to advance a data-driven market transformation strategy that targets greater resource efficiency in emerging ‘controlled environment’ horticultural sectors, including greenhouses and vertical farms growing a range of crops, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries. RII is developing the strategy in partnership with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Since its founding as a non-profit organization in 2016, RII has established:

• The world’s largest privacy-secured data framework containing standardized and comparable cultivation facility environmental performance data
• A multi-sector funding model, including governments, foundations, utilities and industry leaders
• A subject matter expert network, which provides peer-reviewed technical guidance on resource-efficient cultivation practices

Now, with global partnerships under development, RII is poised to be a leader in the development of international standards to guide decision-makers toward a resilient agricultural future.

The Strategic Advisory Council is providing input on key strategic issues including:

• Serving producers – Fine-tuning a model to support producers with data- and privacy-secure resource benchmarking services to accelerate efficiency, productivity and profitability
• Aligning funding – Leveraging global public, private and philanthropic dollars to magnify returns on impact investments ranging from climate resilience to advancement of racial and social equity
• Engaging the value chain – Establishing transparent market mechanisms to provide credible asset valuation, leadership recognition and consumer education

The organizations represented by RII’s Strategic Advisory Council members include:

• Budding Solutions
• Equilibrium Capital
• Farmers Conservation Alliance
• Fifth Season
• Fluence by OSRAM
• Ford Foundation
• LegacyWorks Group
• Lomo Plateado
• Greenwich Biosciences
• Grodan
• HortAmerica
• MAPS
• McGill University
• Poseidon Partners
• Schneider Electric
• The Sustainable Finance Company
• Tress Capital
• World Business Council for Sustainable Development
• World Wildlife Fund

Source: Resource Innovation Institute

The post Resource Innovation Institute and Global Leaders Together to Guarantee a Resilient Future for Agriculture appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Nutrien also launched six commitments to address the challenge of sustainably feeding a growing global population while protecting the planet. The Feeding the Future Plan has action pathways to help transform agriculture by the year 2030:

• Enable growers to adopt sustainable and productive agricultural products and practices on 75 million acres globally
• Launch and scale a comprehensive Carbon Program, empowering growers and the agriculture industry to accelerate climate-smart agriculture and soil carbon sequestration while rewarding growers for their efforts
• Achieve at least a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 + 2) per tonne of our products produced*
• Invest in new technologies and pursue the transition to low-carbon fertilizers, including blue and green ammonia
• Leverage our farm-focused technology partnerships and investments to drive positive impact in industry and grower innovation and inclusion
• Create new financial solutions for growers to strengthen social, economic and environmental outcomes in agriculture

The world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion people by the year 2050, and innovation is needed to increase food production for generations to come. The Feeding the Future Plan reflects Nutrien’s commitment to drive systemic change by helping to scale sustainable and inclusive agriculture. It also includes Nutrien’s commitment to set science-based climate emissions targets through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Nutrien’s 2021 ESG Report is a valuable tool for investors and other stakeholders to review Nutrien’s key material ESG risks and opportunities.

Executive Commentary

Chuck Magro, President and CEO, Nutrien, said,

“Nutrien is focused on meeting the United Nations’ Zero Hunger Sustainable Development Goal in the coming decade by helping growers increase food production in a sustainable manner. Our 2030 commitments and ESG performance targets are ambitious, but necessary, which is why we are dedicated to working across our value chain on initiatives like our comprehensive Carbon Program to build a pathway forward that will help lead the next wave of agriculture’s evolution. This effort drives at the core of our strategy to feed more people, using less resources and with fewer emissions.”

“We know a collaborative effort is required to address climate change and feed the world. With a long-term goal to scale our programs and create real, lasting change, Nutrien is encouraging stakeholders to come together to evolve the systems and policies needed to address these challenges. As we strive to transform our food system, we encourage the sharing of information and pooling of resources for a new generation of systems-based solutions.”

“We take our role in feeding the future seriously. Our direction is clear. Join us on our journey,”

added Magro.

Nutrien will host an ESG stakeholder update to speak in more detail to our ESG plans and our comprehensive Carbon Program on May 17, 2021 in association with our Annual General Meeting.

Source: Nutrien

The post Nutrien ESG Report and Six Commitments for a Sustainable Agriculture and Impact Climate Change appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Sharing and having already put into practice this approach, FPT Industrial has teamed up with Slow Food to support two local communities, in Italy and in France, in order to facilitate and accelerate their journey towards change. Founded in 1989, Slow Food is a global grassroots organization, established to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of the so-called ‘fast lifestyle’ and to combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, and how our food choices affect the world around us. Since its beginnings, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people in over 160 countries, working to ensure everyone has access to good, clean, and fair food.

FPT Industrial chose to partner with Slow Food in order to strongly reaffirm, at the local level, its long-time commitment to sustainability; a commitment demonstrated not only through the production of low-impact, high-performance engines, but also with sustainability projects and concrete actions, such as “Fishing for Plastic”, the initiative enabled three tons of plastic to be retrieved from the seas of San Benedetto del Tronto (Italy), and Urban Forestry, a reforestation project involving the planting of 1,000 trees of 32 native species in the Basse di Stura area to the north of Turin (Italy).

The two communities jointly selected by FPT Industrial and Slow Food are the cooperatives Valdibella and NoE in Sicily and La Seyne-Sur-Mer Prud’homie in the Var department in France. The Valdibella cooperative, in the Italian region of Sicily, operates in the production and transformation of biological food. Its 41 members favor the farming of local and ancient varieties and use sustainable agriculture approaches through conservation cultivation methods in order to maintain natural soil fertility. The NoE (No Emargination) cooperative was founded in 1993 and deals with the social inclusion of disabled people. In 1998 the city of Partinico entrusted it with a plot of confiscated land from the mafia. This land was converted into biological agriculture fields, cultivated with olive trees, vegetables, and arable crops.

FPT Industrial and Slow Food will support the two cooperatives in their projects focused on the creation of a “food forest” reproducing the natural eco-system and capable of diversifying food production while preserving the landscape, and to create a free and autonomous supply chain model, to deliver high-quality biological food to everybody at an affordable price.

The La Seyne-Sur-Mer Prud’homie is one of the 33 prud’homies (fishing collectives) present along France’s Mediterranean coast. These collective organizations, tied to specific geographic areas, evolved out of medieval trade guilds and have been used to manage French marine resources for over ten centuries.

The prud’homies play an essential control and conservation role in marine zones, preserving a historic cultural model and participating in everyday port life. About 20 fishermen, some of them working with FPT Industrial powered boats, are committed to sustainable fishing and to passing these virtuous traditions on to younger generations through the strengthening of the local supply chain.

Through the FPT Industrial and Slow Food support, the community will be able to upgrade its infrastructure, with special attention for those devoted to maintaining the cold chain and to improving fish management, as well as to create additional local jobs.

These two projects are an important opportunity for FPT Industrial to promote the brand and the product portfolio, including the related sustainability initiatives.

Daniela Ropolo, Head of Sustainable Development Initiatives at CNH Industrial, declared:

“Having led some of the most prestigious World Sustainability Indices over the last decade- Also means demonstrating, day by day, true interest and concrete support for all those initiatives which can produce a tangible change in people’s and communities’ lives, be they big or small. In exactly the same way as the $2 million global Solidarity Fund initiative CNH Industrial has set up to support the fight against Covid-19 in communities where businesses have been affected by the virus.”

Egle Panzella, Brand Equity, Sustainability, and Heritage manager of FPT Industrial, stated:

“The strong proximity of these two communities’ fields of action with two of our main businesses, marine and agricultural engines. Acted like a starter and ignited a real enthusiasm among all involved in this project. To have the opportunity to contribute to making a difference, helping people committed to a healthier, more just, and more sustainable way of living and producing is part of FPT Industrial’s DNA and mission. And doing this in partnership with Slow Food is a real privilege.”

“Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture, and the environment. Through our food choices, we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced, and distributed, and change the world as a result. These projects had already started, but they needed ‘to accelerate’ in order to show that the right way is the right choice. That’s why we, in cooperation and collaboration with our partners and supporters, decided to finance them. Because the change has to happen: and happen now.”

commented Francesco Sottile of Slow Food.

The post FPT Industrial and Slow Food Support Sustainable Food Production Communities appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Chairman and CEO Juan Luciano said:

“Every single day, ADM is focused on keeping its employees healthy and safe while simultaneously ensuring we are continuing to support the world’s food supply. At the same time, we believe it remains vitally important that we continue to plan for the future and remain good long-term stewards of our company and our planet. We know that the health of our natural resources is critical to our future. Consumers around the world know it as well, and they are making it clear that they expect their food and drink to come from sustainable ingredients, produced by companies that share their values. We care deeply about our partners, our customers, our employees, our shareholders, and the planet, and that is why we are setting these ambitious emissions and energy goals for ourselves. Our future will be stronger for these goals.”

The new goals follow on ADM’s original “15×20” plan, unveiled in 2011, in which the company committed to per-unit improvements in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water and waste to landfill by 2020. After meeting those goals ahead of schedule, ADM engaged WSP Global, one of the world’s leading engineering professional services firms, to conduct an in-depth feasibility study to help shape a new set of commitments to combat climate change. WSP’s study, which can be read here, identified several pathways toward success, including:

• Purchasing renewable electricity;
• Increasing use of biomass fuels;
• Transportation fleet changes; and
• Equipment changes in some locations.

Luciano continued:

“Our new goals are ambitious yet achievable. The greenhouse gas emissions we’ll save will be the equivalent of those from charging every single smart phone on the planet 250 times. This is going to have a real impact, and is a key way in which we’re going to continue to give our customers an edge in meeting the market challenges of today and tomorrow.”

ADM’s new goals are only one element of a wide-ranging plan to pave the way on sustainability. In 2019, ADM’s Board formed a new committee on Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, offering guidance, leadership and oversight at the highest level for its sustainability and corporate citizenship efforts. The company is increasingly using technology – such as satellite imagery – as it maps its supply chains. And in December, ADM was shortlisted as a Sustainability Champion by the Food Ingredients Innovation awards for its work promoting and supporting sustainable agricultural practices among more than 12,000 smallholder farmers in Brazil and Paraguay.

Source: ADM

The post ADM intensifies Eco-sustainable plan appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.