A man - a tractor - a work process
Agricultural industry: Agricultural machines are getting bigger and bigger –and increasingly capable. But that is normally at the expense of the soil. Big machinery compacts and damages the soil. The Danish company FionaFA/S has done something about this. Combination machines using more and more plastic – so the machines are lighter.
Erik Jensen, director of the agricultural machinery factory Fiona A/S
The days when the farmer first ploughed, then harrowed, sowed and finally rolled the land are long gone. Today, developments are heading towards doing everything in a single process. Using enormous combination machines up to 17 m in width, the whole job can be done in less than half the time. One man with one tractor – and an array of machinery that can be combined to perfectly suit the task the farmer has to carry out.
“Soil compaction is one of the problems that agriculture is acutely aware of today,” says Erik Jensen, director of the agricultural machinery factory Fiona A/S. “The less you drive over the soil, the better. And when it is necessary for machines to drive over the fields, it’s a matter of making the machines as light as possible, without affecting quality and durability. Fiona has developed the best machines available on the market today on all three counts.”
Up until 1996, Fiona A/S concentrated exclusively on traditional seed drills. The company had built up a sound reputation in this area. Since the establishment of the company more than 100 years ago, Fiona had become a household name to farmers virtually all over the world for seed drills and fertiliser spreaders. However, in 1996, Erik Jensen changed strategy.
From now on, the company would look broadly at the whole area of soil treatment.
“Our machines had developed in a purely technical sense, enabling more and more tasks to be carried out by attaching different implements. We have now systematised this, practically to the point of perfection. By adapting and combining the various machines so that they operate simultaneously in a single work process, we have also cultivated the principle of driving as little as possible across the soil. At the same time, we have carried out intensive research into developing machines that churn up the soil as little as possible, without compromising effectiveness. We still belong to the school of thought, however, that says the stubble field should be handled with care – as opposed to the school of thought that says you should sow directly onto the field.”
One of the areas in which Fiona has pushed back boundaries in the agricultural machinery industry is with regard to replacing heavy metal components with lighter plastic ones. Weight becomes a problem as the size of machines increases. The more combinations are attached to the tractor, the bigger it has to be in order to be able to handle the machinery, either using hydraulics or electric power.
“Our plastic components department has now become an important part of our company,” says Erik Jensen. “Not only for producing components for agricultural machinery, but also for producing plastic components for other sectors of industry altogether. Plastic is a fantastic material and it’s gaining a foothold in more and more areas of the mechanical engineering sector.”
The major structural changes that European agriculture will have to undergo in the next few years have already impacted the Danish agricultural machinery industry. The sector is witnessing a wave of mergers, acquisitions and rationalisation measures.
“We’re also going to see increasingly close co-operation between manufacturers. The big manufacturers will become even bigger – and the machines, too, will grow bigger still. There will be even more combination machines and the electronics, especially, will become increasingly complex,” says Erik Jensen, who also supports a number of research projects into the application of robot technology to agricultural machinery. “But whatever else happens, the man, the tractor and the implements will continue to be a feature of agriculture for many years to come.”
www.fiona.dk
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