Writing in the Irish Examiner, Ray Ryan tells us that Harry Ferguson first demonstrated the new Ford-Ferguson tractor at Chantilly Stud Farm in Shankill, County Dublin, Ireland, in 1940. Ferguson predicted that it would make farming prosperous by reducing production costs. Over the next seven years the Ferguson-Ford ‘handshake’ partnership produced 350 000 tractors.
Thereafter, Ferguson produced more than half-a-million of his own grey Ferguson TE20 tractor – the much-loved Vaaljapie.
Interestingly, many of these were sold as a package deal with a matching plough and other implements. This enabled farmers to engage in all kinds of farming ventures that would have been impossible without some form of mechanisation.
In many ways, agriculture in Africa is at a similar stage to farming in Ireland in 1940 – affordable mechanisation is probably what’s needed most in order to progress.
And Keval Bodasing of the well-known Bodasing farming family of the KZN North Coast is confident that Captain can fill this need. His aim is to empower small-scale farmers by providing affordable, quality tractors and implements that will increase efficiency and productivity on smallholdings. At the heart of the ‘package deal’ is the Captain 120Di tractor. It has a single cylinder 625cc air-cooled diesel engine rated at 9kW driving an 8F/2R synchromesh transmission. It’s also available with 4WD.
Fuel consumption is claimed to be approximately 1l/hr! The combination seed and fertiliser planter seen with the 120Di above has seven rows and a working width of 1,27m.
A wide variety of implements
The Captain implement range includes a rotary tiller, cultivator, seed drill, front-end loader, back-hoe, dozer blade, conventional mouldboard plough, reversible plough, chisel plough, crop sprayer, leveller, furrow attachments, post-hole digger, road sweeper, pump, generator, trailer, tanker and even a reaper and thresher.
Captain 4WD with reversible mouldboard plough that can work up to 250mm deep.
