The sound of the powerful engine gave me the fright of my life. I started crying, and that was it for my tractor-driving career. It was 10 years later before I got onto a tractor again. I still had a healthy respect for the monster, but this time I was eager to show off my fledgling driving skills. I was also determined to prove that I could make the straightest furrows. A year later I was off to boarding school and it wasn’t until I visited Nampo that I sat on a tractor again.
I suppose my dad didn’t judge my furrows straight enough. Mind you, driving that tractor was hot and dusty work, not something every teenage girl would like to do on her weekend at home. Tractors have come a long way since then. Air-conditioned cabs are just the start of it. Gone are the days when the straightness of a furrow depended solely on the skills of the driver. Ploughing, planting, spraying, harvesting – all of these activities are planned and executed with the highest accuracy in mind.
Expensive Way
With precision farming, the right amount of seed or fertiliser is applied, and diesel consumption is cut to the bone. This is the way of the future if farmers want to maximise yields while cutting input costs. But as Western Cape farmer Dirk van Papendorp told us: the equipment for precision farming is expensive.
You might recoup most of your costs in your first year with the savings the equipment affords you, but not everyone has the capital to fork out that kind of bucks, he said when we interviewed him this week. According to Dirk, the only way it made economic sense for him was to go bigger.
Farmers are adamant that the only way farming will be viable in the future is through the use of technology. Whether it be high-tech equipment or advances in seed breeding, climate change and rising input costs necessitate improved farming practices in order to make it financially worthwhile to farm.
But where does that leave those developing farmers who can’t afford the latest equipment and who can’t afford to buy land, never mind enough land to benefit from economies of scale?
Learning to crawl
Just as you don’t expect a two-year-old to drive a tractor, we shouldn’t expect someone who has never farmed commercially to understand the latest farming practices or adopt the latest technology. Failed land reform projects have shown us some beneficiaries need help learning to crawl before they can run. No matter what the tractor dealer might tell you, a better tractor doesn’t automatically make you a better farmer.
