Additional and sometimes confusing information began to slowly filter out from the U.S administration later in the day.

A ‘monkey with a machine gun’

“It’s like a monkey with a machine gun, they’re going in all different directions,” said Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association president Flavio Volpe during a televised interview on CBC the next day. “The fact they don’t understand this or don’t care is going to crash the U.S. auto sector.”

The belief this tariff would seriously harm the auto industry in all three countries was reiterated by University of Toronto professor Dimitry Anastakis, who spoke on an Energy Media podcast on Thursday.

“This is going to go down as one of the greatest own goals in economic and policy history. This is crazy.

“The auto industry is one of the most competitive and difficult industries in the world in the best of times. When you add in that we’re trying to make this transition from an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) to EV (Electric Vehicle) future and face competition like China, which is already so far along, to turn around and disrupt and insert so much chaos into the North American sector when legacy manufacturers like Ford and Stellantis are just trying to catch up is asinine.”

According to Cox Automotive’s senior economist Jonathan Smoke, who spoke on an industry insights and sales forecast call, the tariffs will cause a significant reduction in industry output, raising new and used vehicle prices and force the elimination of some vehicle models.

“If there are no carveouts for autos, the tariffs would add $3,000 to U.S. made cars, and $6,000 or more on a vehicle assembled in Canada or Mexico. If tariffs go through this time, by mid April we expect disruption to all North American vehicle production, amounting to 20,000 fewer vehicles produced per day, which is about a 30 per cent hit to production.”

Disrupted production

The uncertainty caused by the on-again-off-again tariff threat has already disrupted production of some vehicles and slowed or stopped capital investments.

“A few weeks ago Ford announced it was going to delay the next generation F-150 because of all the chaos around tariffs that Trump has created,” said Anastakis. “So it’s not just hurting EV rollout, it’s hurting the very manufacturers Trump was supposed to protect and support.”

The goal of the tariffs, according to the U.S. president, is to bring automotive manufacturing back to the U.S. But currently there are about 700 different manufacturers in Ontario alone that supply components to the auto sector. Then there are many more in Mexico. It’s improbable to think they can all relocate to the U.S. in the short term to avoid tariffs.

Experts generally doubt the U.S. could ever return to the kind of manufacturing economy it had in the 1950s, especially when it comes to automotive production. Not all of those needed support sectors could operate economically in the U.S.

“There are some specializations in Canada,” said Anastakis. “Whether it’s tool and die, mold manufacturers, aluminum production — you cannot replicate that in the States. So these border tariffs are going to have a tremendous impact.”

Transition to electric vehicles

A critical goal for future viability of North American auto companies is to catch up to China in the transition to electric vehicles. China has all the resources it needs to form a complete supply chain in that production cycle, from raw materials through to manufacturing facilities. That gives it a key advantage in the EV market.

However, Canada was set to play a key role in bringing similar advantages to North American companies. It has critical minerals as well as new production facilities.

“When I saw this announcement that they were going to go through with this on automotive, I said to myself, ‘they’re popping champagne in Beijing,’” added Anastakis. “The United States hobbled its own industry without the Chinese having to lift a finger.

“There’s a very good chance in 10 years we’re all going to be driving Chinese EVs, whether they’re made in China or elsewhere in the world, because this is a pivot moment, it’s a paradigm shifting moment. I don’t know how the industry is able to recover from this, when they’re already facing such incredible burdens to begin with.”

“We’re at an interesting crossroads today in 2025,” agreed Smoke. “The problem is a substantial change in trade policy due to tariffs will be highly disruptive to North American vehicle production.”

Said Volpe: “Maybe he (Trump) has to send the U.S. over the edge, have hundreds of thousands of auto workers at home before he understands the depth of the problem he’s caused.”

The post ANALYSIS: U.S. auto sector tariffs an “own goal” appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

A portion of those exports were straw choppers and weed seed control units, manufactured by Redekop at its plant near Saskatoon.

Redekop has farmer customers in Montana, North Dakota, Kansas and other states who want a better chopper on their combine. The Redekop straw chopper cuts straw into fine pieces and evenly distributes the residue across the field, which is desirable for growers.

“We tend to focus on small grains and the higher volume of residue, where you have lots of straw,” Trevor Thiessen, chief executive officer of Redekop Manufacturing, said while sitting at a booth at the Commodity Classic, a trade show held in Denver March 2-4.

U.S. sales growth

Redekop sales to the U.S. have increased in the last five years as word spread about the straw choppers and Redekop’s weed seed destructor.

However, sales were soft in 2024 due to the downturn in the ag equipment market.

“Farmers were hesitant to spend a lot of money … 2024 was a hard year for a lot of equipment guys,” Thiessen said.

Last year was challenging, but 2025 could be more difficult for Redekop and other Canadian manufacturers.

U.S. president Donald Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on all goods from Canada March 4, although the tariff rate and implementation date may have changed by the Western Producer’s March 10 press time.

A spokesperson for another manufacturer of ag equipment on the Prairies, who also attended the Commodity Classic, said his company acted before March 4 to avoid the tariffs. The Manitoba business moved machinery across the border this winter and should have sufficient stock in the U.S. for many months of sales.

Shipping ahead of tariffs

Redekop took similar action in February.

“We shipped pretty much 98 per cent of our (U.S.) distributor’s order already,” Thiessen said.

Exporting farm equipment to the U.S. has become a larger part of Saskatchewan’s economy.

Sales climbed by $500 million from 2019-23, reaching $834 million in 2023.

“There certainly is growth in the agricultural machinery and equipment exports from Saskatchewan specifically to the U.S.,” said Peter Siarkos, director of manufacturing and technology with the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership, which helps provincial businesses sell their products to the world.

Exports of ag equipment have created strong relationships between Saskatchewan firms and American buyers, but explaining the impact of tariffs and who will cover the cost can get awkward.

“When I talk to U.S. farmers and customers, I’m not sure everyone fully understands that the importer, i.e. the U.S. farmer, is the one who is going to have to pay the premium,” Thiessen said.

Who absorbs the tariffs?

To maintain American sales, Redekop and other Canadian makers of ag equipment may absorb a portion of the 25 per cent tariff. The customer will take on the rest.

“I think we’ll be fine.… Maybe we take a margin hit (on U.S. sales) for a period of time, but it’s not going to cripple our business.”

As of March 2025, it’s impossible to predict Canada’s trade relationship with the U.S for the next four years. It could be OK, bad or horrific.

If tariffs do stick around for years, Thiessen is considering a branch plant or a partnership to do some manufacturing in the U.S.

“We’ll make these core components, you assemble,” he said, describing one scenario.

“Set up a (U.S.) assembly plant, which would (maybe) get us past the tariff.”

Such decisions are a few years down the road, depending on what happens with trade and tariffs.

In the shorter term, Redekop Manufacturing wants to diversify sales to other parts the world. It has set up a company in South America to sell straw choppers and weed seed destructors to farmers in Argentina and Brazil, Thiessen said.

“(We’re in the) second year of testing in Brazil and the first full season of selling in Argentina.”

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Kip Eideberg, vice-president of government and industry relations with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), said it’s very challenging right now to talk to Republicans about the benefits of trade.

“It is a frustration … that there seems to be precious few Republicans on Capitol Hill who are for free and fair trade,” said Eideberg while standing beside the AEM booth at the Commodity Classic trade show in Denver March 3.

“This used to be a Republican core issue (free trade). Where have all those Republicans gone?”

‘Tariffs are taxes’

Despite the frustrations, the AEM and other groups continue to lobby politicians and members of Trump’s cabinet about the danger of tariffs.

The AEM, which represents manufacturers of farm and construction machinery is still trying to talk with politicians and deliver a clear message.

“Our position is very simple. Tariffs are taxes. They’re taxes on American manufacturers. They’re taxes on American farmers…. This is no way to bolster U.S. manufacturing,” said Eideberg, who has been listed as one of the top lobbyists in Washington for the last six years.

Eideberg and others are still able to get access to policy-makers and powerful people in the American government.

At the Commodity Classic in Denver, he walked the trade show floor with U.S. agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins.

His message to her was that tariffs on Canada and other countries are damaging for American farmers.

“These tariffs are going to make all of this great (farm) equipment, on display here, more expensive. That will lead to fewer American jobs.”

Listening to farmers?

Rollins, who spoke to the media at the Commodity Classic, said she’s listening to such messages. She has only been in the role of ag secretary for a couple of weeks but has met with hundreds of farmers.

Many of them are worried about tariffs and the consequences for America’s ag industry, she said.

“That is my role,” Rollins said.

“To ensure that those concerns are heard, effectively.”

That’s positive for groups like AEM, but Eideberg believes that Trump is hell bent on imposing duties on Canada, Mexico and other countries.

The U.S. government will proceed with tariffs on a wide range of goods and products, which will have economic consequences.

The American public and the economy will have to suffer before Trump changes his mind, Eideberg said.

“I think the one thing that’s going to perhaps ensure that the tariffs come off or are not fully implemented is a recession,” he said.

“Tariffs are inflationary and are going to drive up (inflation)…. It’s a shame we have to rely on something like a recession … unfortunately.”

Another possibility is a re-negotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, provided President Trump can tell his supporters he got a “win” in the new deal.

—Updated – adds photo of Kip Eideberg

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The completion of the transaction was subject to certain regulatory approvals which have all been met, Linamar said in a news release.

Linamar, best known as an auto parts manufacturer, announced it would acquire the Saskatchewan-based firm in late December.

“Linamar’s long term vision is to focus on six markets where we see significant market and technology evolution over the coming decades as a result of key global trends that are under way,” said Linda Hasenfratz, Linamar’s executive chair and CEO, during an online press conference in December. “Food and agriculture is a key market in this long-term vision, and we are rapidly enhancing our footprint in that market.

“We’re calling this our third down project,” added Jim Jarrell, Linamar president and COO. “This is the third short-line acquisition we’ve done to build our powerhouse company, to hit the strategy of feeding the world. If you go back to the day when we bought MacDon, this (Bourgault) was a clear target and discussion point we thought was complimentary. Also as part of the transaction we’re acquiring the business of Freeform plastics and the Highline manufacturing line”

Both Freeform Plastics, which builds plastic tanks for ag applications, and Highline, an implement brand, are divisions of Bourgault.

Hasenfratz said the focus at Linamar is on acquiring shortline equipment manufacturers that produce specialized products which the major manufacturers don’t hold a dominant market share in.

The deal saw Linamar buy 100 per cent equity in Bourgault for CAD $640 million. Current president Gerry Bourgault will step away from the company, although the remainder of the management team will remain in place.

Linamar said it doubled MacDon’s business if five years and hopes to do the same with Bourgault.

The post Linamar makes Bourgault buyout official appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The black-and-white photo, circa 1943, shows Murray and Archie Dickson atop their family’s Nichols & Shepherd Red River Special.

The pull-type combine is hitched to a small, metal-wheeled tractor. There’s a long shaft with universal joints linking the tractor’s steering wheel to the one on the combine’s platform. A rope appears to work a lever mounted just behind the belt pulley, which probably works the clutch. Two ropes drop under the steering shaft, possibly to open and close the throttle and operate the kill switch.

The jury-rigged setup allowed both combine and tractor to be operated by one person and was the brainchild of the family’s patriarch, W.G. Dickson.

That one person would first start the tractor and combine engines, put the threshing body in motion, tie back one rope to engage the clutch, climb to the tractor and put it in gear, climb back to the combine and then let out the clutch rope. Only then could the outfit begin threshing.

Why it matters: Rural areas in Manitoba have spent decades trying to revitalize their communities, even as Manitoba’s population becomes more urban.

In a 2019 article, the Manitoba Agricultural Museum gave its best theory as to why the elder Dickson devised such a unit.

The Second World War was raging at the time the image was taken, and labour was short on the Prairies. The self-propelled combine was still in its infancy. Two of Dickson’s sons were in the air force. Archie appears in the photo because he was on leave at the time. The youngest was still in school.

Dickson had to find a way to bring in the crop alone.

In the two decades following the photo, mechanization would rapidly change the farming sector and, by extension, the Manitoban countryside.

The proportion of Manitobans living in rural areas began to decrease year over year starting after the Second World War.

Concern over the shrinking farm population eventually made its way to Manitoba’s legislature. The late-1960s and ‘70s government of Edward Schreyer became worried about the financial impacts to Manitoba’s highly agricultural economy. It led the government to implement the Stay Option, a policy of investment in agriculture and rural communities that purported to stem the tide of rural migration.

This included a youth summer work program in the mid-‘70s, dubbed the STEP program. It employed teams of rural high school students on local projects in their home communities under the supervision of post-secondary students. (For more on the STEP program, see the first story of our series, “How do you keep a kid on the farm?”)

Statistics over the following decades show little change in the rural population outflow.

As of the 2021 Census of Agriculture, the number of Manitoba farms had dropped just under 55 per cent compared to 1976, and rural Manitoba accounted for about a quarter of the province’s population.

Making it big

It is unlikely that today’s farmers would envy the way their parents or grandparents ran their operations.

Mechanization, along with the agrichemical advances and varietal development of the Green Revolution, saw production spike to unheard of levels as the 20th century wore on. Farmers today harvest more, harvest faster and use technological integration and know-how that previous generations would likely have described as science fiction.

Two years before W.G. Dickson rigged his combine to operate solo, there was one tractor for every 2.5 Prairie farms and one combine for every 11 farms. By 1976, there were about two tractors and “nearly one” combine per farm, author Gerald Friesen wrote in his book The Canadian Prairies: a History.

A farmer from 1940 wouldn’t understand the technology, crops or inputs that underpinned farming 40 years later, Friesen said. Increased mechanization and crop technology allowed individual farmers to handle larger acreages than ever before — and if they could, they did.

Farms began to consolidate. Between 1940 and 1980, the number of farms on the Prairies reduced by half. Land values rose dramatically.

Farm operating expenses, meanwhile, rose by a factor of five between 1956 and 1976. Farms were also making more money. Farm income tripled in the same window.

“Because the modern farm was likely to have been expanded recently, the interest payments on the price of the additional quarter-section would have to be met,” Friesen wrote.

Thus, he added, “the farmer of the 1980s worked with financial calculations on a daily basis where his predecessor would rarely have bothered, except in spring and fall.”

Farming became a large, capital-intensive business that “operated on a line of credit and relied on Mother Nature to produce satisfactory earnings,” Friesen said.

Farmers also became greater consumers, shopping in similar stores and sending kids to similar schools as the urban population. The farm was no longer a “self-sufficient garrison” from which “the family could surmount the vagaries of world prices changes and even of the weather.”

The modern farmer was tied into world markets, big business savvy and had big machinery to match. At the same time, those big machines and big farms needed fewer people to operate.

Fast travel

Other factors affecting rural Manitoba’s population drain may have had nothing to do with agricultural practice.

Gordon Goldsborough, a Manitoba author, historian and head researcher for the Manitoba Historical Society, noted the start of the depopulation slide dovetails with the period in which travel became easier.

“If I was pressed, I would say [rural depopulation began] sometime in the late 1940s, early 1950s, because that’s when the provincial government began putting resources into road construction in rural Manitoba,” he said.

Rural electrification also began near that time, he noted, and telephone service was advancing.

As the rural road system improved, residents had more freedom to move around and were no longer at the mercy of the train. They could drive to the nearest big town for groceries or haul grain to a more distant elevator for a better price.

In the 1960s, Goldsborough recalled, his grandparents would regularly drive from Ferndale, southwest of Winnipeg, to a downtown grocery store.

“That would have been unthinkable even probably a decade earlier, because the highway that they would have to take to get there wouldn’t have been passable for much of the year.”

In other words, rural people started leaving the countryside because they could, and the farm was just a telephone call or a drive away.

A tectonic shift

In 1941, 60 per cent of the Prairie population was rural. By 1981, only 30 per cent was rural and only 11 per cent lived on farms, wrote Friesen.

“In contrast to the golden days of rural life, the countryside was empty. And without people to participate and observe, the schools, churches, ball teams and sports days ceased to exist,” he said.

By the ‘70s, the archetype of the kid leaving the farm to make their way in the big city was well established.

Kim McConnell, who joined a STEP crew as a teenager, wanted to stay on the farm.

“That was my ultimate desire,” he said.

His parents had a rule: He could come home to farm, but he had to get an education first.

After university and a stint employed at a company selling crop inputs, he spent a year farming rented land. Then he lost that land base, and it didn’t feel right to “weasel in” on his mom and dad’s farm, he said.

McConnell returned to agribusiness, moved to Calgary, and got into marketing and communications. In 1984, he and his wife set up a marketing communications firm in their basement. Today, that firm is AdFarm, one of the largest agricultural marketing and communications firms in North America.

Close to home

Not all former rural STEP kids left their homes and farms. Robert Schwaluk, a team supervisor in 1973, still farms about a mile east of Shoal Lake, where he was born and raised.

Likewise, Margie Brincheski grew up in Point du Bois and boarded at Lac du Bonnet while she worked in the program. She had a summer romance with a local boy who eventually became her husband. They still farm together today.

– This series will continue in the Jan. 11 edition of the Manitoba Co-operator.

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“Linamar’s long term vision is to focus on six markets where we see significant market and technology evolution over the coming decades as a result of key global trends that are under way,” said Linda Hasenfratz, Linamar’s executive chair and CEO, during an online press conference. “Food and agriculture is a key market in this long-term vision, and we are rapidly enhancing our footprint in that market.

“I feel like our team has really hit it out of the park this year, finalizing three acquisitions. All three business bringing excellent technology to the table and strategic value.”

“We’re calling this our third down project,” added Jim Jarrell, Linamar president and COO. “This is the third short-line acquisition we’ve done to build our powerhouse company, to hit the strategy of feeding the world. If you go back to the day when we bought MacDon, this (Bourgault) was a clear target and discussion point we thought was complimentary. Also as part of the transaction we’re acquiring the business of Freeform plastics and the Highline manufacturing line”

Both Freeform Plastics, which builds plastic tanks for ag applications, and Highline, an implement brand, are divisions of Bourgault.

Hasenfratz said the focus at Linamar is on acquiring shortline equipment manufacturers that produce specialized products which the major manufacturers don’t hold a dominant market share in.

In the press release announcing the takeover, current Bourgault president Gerry Bourgault commented, “We are excited to have our team of over nine hundred people in Saskatchewan, and over one thousand worldwide, join the Linamar family. Linamar has a proven track record for not only successfully integrating acquired companies, but also for their manufacturing expertise and business execution overall.”

The deal will see Linamar take 100 per cent equity in Bourgault for CAD $640 million as current president Gerry Bourgault steps away from the company, although the remainder of the management team will remain in place.

“Bourgault is a company we’ve long had our eye on,” said Hasenfratz. “We like the technology. We like how the business is run and how it complimented our existing lineup of products. So we’ve been talking to them on and off. The timing was right. The family was ready to make an exit. It comes at a time when all of our business can complement and create growth.”

When it acquired MacDon, that company had sales of roughly $500 million, about the same as Bourgault does now. Linamar has managed to push MacDon’s current sales into the range of $1 billion. Hasenfratz expects to be able to achieve the same level of growth with Bourgault. She thinks the company can do that by increasing Bourgault’s global reach and cutting manufacturing costs by including it in Linemar’s current procurement processes.

“We have the ability to link and leverage our purchasing efforts,” confirmed Jarrell.

“We see excellent growth potential with the business,” Hasenfratz added. “It’s not dissimilar in size to what MacDon was when we acquired it five years ago. We are selling now in more than 30 countries with nearly 2,500 dealers and distributors around the world. We’ve really created quite a broad strategy around our agricultural products.”

The deal is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2024.

Said Hasenfratz: “We doubled MacDon’s business in five years. We hope to do the same with Bourgault.”

The post Bourgault becomes third shortliner acquired by Linamar since 2017 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now and, generally speaking, we would see two to five per cent increases per year, so that would be a four to 10 per cent increase over the two-year span. We’ve really eclipsed this,” said provincial farm management specialist Darren Bond.

Why it matters: Manitoba Agriculture’s farm machinery guide can help farmers plan for purchases or reconcile equipment operating costs.

Bond listed some standout price increases during a November webinar hosted by Manitoba Agriculture. Medium front-wheel assist tractors (160-224 horsepower) increased by 35 per cent. Large four-wheel-drive tractors (over 550 hp) increased by 28 per cent. The price of Class 9 combines rose 27 per cent, flex auger headers (35 feet) rose 23 per cent, and large air drills with independent openers (66-86 feet) rose 62 per cent over the two years since the last report.

Bond said it’s still a little surprising to see numbers like that.

“I don’t know how many more times I can talk about supply chain issues or COVID[-19] when we talk about some of these changes to values, but there were disruptions with production, and that not only put pressure on new equipment, it also put upward pressure on used equipment,” he said.

Report access

The latest version of the cost of production report is available online. Bond said the printed version will come out in January and will be available at all major trade shows and exhibitions, as well as at Manitoba Agriculture service centres.

The prices are determined by looking at cost of ownership, equipment values, depreciation, financing costs and hours of use.

“It’s quite a large undertaking. We have over 200 pieces of equipment listed. We come up with values for each piece of equipment from all the major manufacturers. So there’s a lot of searching that we do to come up with these values,” he said.

“We take this very seriously. We want people to have confidence in this guide.”

Bond noted equipment prices vary based on the options selected, so the department approaches options with moderation when doing the report.

“We tried to price these as a middle-of-the-road standard configuration. They’re not optionless, but they’re based on the most commonly used options.”

2024-25 changes

There are a few changes to this year’s edition of the guide.

The tracked tractor section is split into two-track and four-track categories, and the combine header configuration was modified to include rigid drapers, flex augers, flex and flex drapers. Writers added clarification on air drill categories. There’s a new addition of round baler net wrap configurations, and tractor horsepower requirements for some of the drawn implements (such as air drills and vertical till implements) have been updated.

“We found that farmers were using more horsepower on some of these drawn implements than what the agricultural engineers were suggesting. So, we wanted to reflect what was going on in the countryside,” Bond said.

The guide also has a companion calculator available for Microsoft Excel, although a similar tool is available through the Manitoba Agriculture website.

“You can use it on your phone, your tablet or whatever the case may be,” said Bond. “It’s really quick and easy. You can see all the numbers that we preloaded and you can change these numbers to suit your situation.”

The guide-calculator could also be used if a farmer wants to determine a fair rate to charge for work done on a neighbour’s farm.

“It’s not intended to be used for companies that rent equipment,” said Bond. “This is not a market survey. This is a cost-basis calculation. This is just saying that this type of equipment under these types of assumptions will come out to this much per hour, this much per acre, this much per bale – nothing more, nothing less.”

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The clinic was one of the agenda items during the 2023 Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference.

Why it matters: Increasingly complex computer systems in the cab generate more field, yield and other data every day.

There were queries about who gets to see machinery data and what it is used for outside the farm.

“My husband’s biggest thing is he’s giving away his information for free,” one audience member said.

It’s a common question, said Nathan Reimer, integrated solutions manager at Greenvalley Equipment, where the clinic was held. The answer depends on the farmer.

“It’s really locked down to what the operator allows,” he said.

When the farmer sets up an account to use John Deere’s digital tools, they can choose to share data anonymously. In that case, nothing that could identify the farm is shared. Other options allow the farmer to share information without anonymity, or not to share data at all, Reimer said. They also have the option of sharing data with a third party.

That policy appears similar to other data-collecting companies like New Holland, Ag Leader or Farmers Edge.

John Deere is hoping farmers will collect data, Reimer said, because that information can be used to learn about the machinery and predict things like breakdowns. For example, a certain model of tractor, with 2,000 hours, when run at peak engine load, will likely see a particular part break at a generally estimated time.

That can help dealers like Greenvalley Equipment stock the right parts, Reimer said.

“We can already anticipate some failures, get more parts in, and get there faster,” added Curwin Friesen, Greenvalley Equipment’s CEO.

Despite the advantage of data, Friesen cautioned, the dealership still makes educated guesses about which parts to stock. He estimated the business has the right part about 80 per cent of the time.

Dealers could also use farm data to help farmers find efficiencies or to make decisions on which equipment to replace, said Roberta Falk, the company’s director of operations.

For example, productivity and fuel consumption data could indicate whether it’s possible to replace two combines with one new one, she said.

Healthy skepticism

Farmers’ wariness isn’t without reason. Agriculture data is big business, said Kelly Bronson in a 2022 op-ed published in the Co-operator.

“While there are benefits to farmers who buy the data-driven insights, there are clear and potentially incommensurate benefits for the corporations,” wrote Bronson, who is a Canada Research Chair in Science and Society at the University of Ottawa.

“Both the data-driven insights as well as the datasets are sources of profit for private firms,” she said.

For instance, data about weather and pest pressure could be used to predict which products are needed where, and then used to maximize companies’ profit, Bronson wrote.

Because artificial intelligence (AI) is only as good as the data feeding it, she added, the companies that collect and control the most data may gain the most power in an industry already dominated by corporate giants.

The post How companies use your cab data appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

1. There are signs that the scale of farm equipment is hitting its maximum, not just for Europe.
Farm equipment around the world has continued to grow in size and weight. But that’s making it more difficult to get those machines down the road efficiently and a challenge to reduce the soil impact of more weight.

Two of the major product launches at Agritechnica were huge in their power potential, but they both included elements that showed that engineers were trying to get their size under control, even if the horsepower or throughput increased. Many people point to Europe’s narrow roads as a driver, but anyone operating a combine down a Canadian road also knows how challenging it’s become.

The New Holland CR11, is a massive machine, as are all modern combines. However the engineers at New Holland kept the physical size and weight the same as the CR10 models, despite adding significant horsepower (to 775) and threshing capacity (rotor length was increased by 50 per cent). They did this by changing the orientation of the engine to align with the direction and tilt of the rotors, and they then could drive some power down through the rotors to the front of the machine, instead of routing that power into belts outside of the main body of the combine.

Massey Ferguson’s new high horsepower 9S tractor has a range of 285 to 425 horsepower, but it weighs less than most other large tractors per horsepower. Massey is quick to point out that the tractor can carry a lot more weight if necessary, but it can be run lighter. It also has an option for a tire inflation adjustment system to reduce the impact on soil.

2. Autonomous power systems that perform their tasks in fields without humans continue to grow in number.
Numerous companies had prototypes or concepts at Agritechnica, including implement companies like Kuhn and Lemken. However, there are few autonomous units ready for the market. There are exceptions including Naio, the French company that makes robots mostly for horticulture markets and which has a number of its units operating in Ontario through Haggerty Ag Robotics. The company is currently building out its global dealer market, which means it has a product to sell.

AgXeed (pronounced as they told me Ag – ceed) is a Dutch company that is also building a dealer network as it now has units running in 20 countries and is making sales. AgXeed has three different units that would replace tractors in field situations versus Naio which is replacing mostly human tasks like weeding and crop monitoring. In discussion with both companies, it’s obvious that they’re thinking about liability, and safety, not just making the technology work, and I believe that for farmers to use the technology, they will need more of a partnership with their suppliers, as someone will have to set the boundaries of the field and whoever does that will take on some liability.

AgXeed is also thinking about standardizing the interface between implements and power units and has worked to create an independent organization with Claas and Amazone to help set those standards. The standards also would apply to the interaction between tractors driven by people in the same field as autonomous units to coordinate their operation.

This is an important step and shows maturity in the autonomy market. We all remember the many standards that existed as data started to be recorded in farm machines and how much of that data was siloed. Much of it has now been freed by more standardization and integrations.

3. There will be electrification in large machinery in the future, but most of the power will continue to be supplied by combustible fuels for large horsepower machines.

Several companies at Agritechnica showcased a variety of new engines, which will handle different types of fuel. Most major tractor companies now have most of their diesel engines that can also use biodiesel made from vegetable wastes or oilseeds. Many also now have hydrogen engines in development, along with hybrids. Hybrid cars operate by supplementing the highest fuel demand periods with electricity and tractors and combines will likely do the same. That’s for high-horsepower tractors. For those under 100 hp, there will be a cascade of electrified options, as many companies, from CaseIH to John Deere to Claas, Kubota, Fendt, Landini and others we don’t see in much North America like Tafe, had under 100 HP electrified tractors on their displays.

4. There are increasing numbers of sensors being added everywhere in agriculture equipment, but at some point I expect there will be some of them that won’t last in the market as they won’t make financial sense. Take Fendt’s mower conditioner which can add more conditioning to areas of a hay field with more biomass.

There are currently three ways the Fendt conditioner will work: 1. By the operator in the cab turning it on depending on what they observe in the field. 2.  By sensing with a drone and through a map set and with that data loaded into the tractor path control and 3. On-board sensors that measure biomass as the tractor mows through the field. I’m going to guess that the operator sensor will be the simplest, easiest and most economical.

5. As one of the world’s leading exporters of agricultural products, Canada should have a larger influence outside of the country in machinery and services. Some large Canadian agriculture companies came to play at Agritechnica, including grain storage company AGI and MacDon, which continues to grow its influence around the world as the draper head expert. A MacDon head is on the new New Holland CR11 combine for example.

But maybe Canadian influence doesn’t have to be in machinery, maybe it can be in targeted expertise. Bushel Plus, the agile and creative startup from Manitoba that started with a pan to measure grain loss from combines, now has 30 employees and is offering combine training around the world, from Europe to Australia to the southern United States.

– John Greig is a senior editor with Glacier FarmMedia. Watch for much more detail on these and many more stories and videos from Agritechnica in our Glacier FarmMedia newspapers and websites.

The post 5 lessons learned at Agritechnica appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Agritechnica is the world’s largest agriculture machinery show, drawing more than 400,000 people from around the world to Hannover, Germany. Glacier FarmMedia Senior Technology Editor John Greig was there and summarized the major product launches and some of the ag-tech industry trends he observed.

– John Greig is a senior editor with Glacier FarmMedia. Watch for much more detail on these and many more stories and videos from Agritechnica in our Glacier FarmMedia newspapers and websites.

The post Agritechnica wrap-up: New combines, tractors and industry trends appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.