Does high-tech farming re-establish small agricultural machinery?

Increase of tractors´engine power

GPS-aided autonomous drones, genetically modified seeds or robots assisting farmer´s work from sowing to harvesting – these images cross one´s mind thinking of new technologies in agriculture.

New technologies simultaneously create opportunities to reverse developments in agricultural production no longer accepted by the public. Just imagine a couple of small machines working on the fields effective as heavy machines, but in a more eco-friendly manner. Could this be the future?

It is well known that the size of agricultural machinery increased heavily during the last decades. Since 1960, the average motor power of combine harvesters has risen about 5 kW per year. At the same time the curb weight rose for 280 kilograms per year. The key driver for farmers to use bigger machines was the option to farm more land within the same time or in other words to maximize the output per hour labor input. Therefore, farmers harvest five times more grain in one hour than back in 1960. 

Anyhow, new technologies in the field of automatization might break this trend. In a world with autonomous agricultural machines, labor efficiency for single farming operations is not relevant anymore and might therefore reintroduce smaller machines again.

To get a first impression whether small autonomous machines can compete with large equipment we calculated the operating costs of tillage and harvest operations with small and large machines.

For the calculations we substituted one 340 kW tractor with a 12,3 m wide cultivator by 20 small 13 kW tractor with a 1,2 m wide cultivator to be able to reach the same capacity per hour. For the harvest we substituted one 400 kW combine with a 11 m header by six 50 kW combines with a 1,7 m wide header. 

Our first calculations show that due to higher labor cost, the small autonomous machines can currently not compete by far with large equipment. As a result, the operating costs for the small machines are more than double as high as for the large machines. But if labor costs are not considered for autonomous machines, operating costs of small tillage equipment are 40 % and those of small combines 20 % lower as for large machines. 

Anyhow, these are first results, which need to be revised. Also the question arises, whether small machines lead to other advantages like lower soil compaction, the option to introduce mixed crops options or electro mobility. These questions are subject to a joint project of the Thuenen Insitute, the Julius Kühn Insitute and the Institute of Mobile Machines and Commercial Vehicles in Braunschweig.