High Demand For Smart Machine Operators

New technological developments have triggered a demand for more sophisticated machine operators as well as improved training.

- Glenneis Kriel

In the future, a typical commercial farmer might be able to enjoy a lazy drink on his stoep while driverless machines work day and night to bring the harvest in. Or depopulated rural areas might be farmed by machines monitored via a cell phone from a megacity, with drones programmed to intervene where problems occur.

So much for the future. For now, the adoption of driverless farm equipment has been slow in South Africa. Dr Jim Rankin, secretary of the South African Agricultural Machinery Association, ascribes this to the high cost of this type of technology, which adds another R3 million to the price of machines that would otherwise sell for roughly R7 million, in combination with psychological factors.

The remarkable systems on these machines make them safe to use, resulting in little to no risk of accidents or machines running onto neighbours’ lands. The machines can be tracked in real-time and have the ability to alert producers of potential glitches, such as when they are running low on fuel, fertiliser or pesticides.

Farmers can even manage the machines remotely, adjusting their course or driving speed.

In spite of this, farmers are generally afraid to allow these expensive machines to do their jobs all alone out on the land.

“The perceived risks are too great. It would be like giving your son free rein to do as he pleased just after he joined the farming business,” says Rankin.

For now, therefore, farmers tend to use operator-steered technologies. The technologies in these systems have, however, also greatly improved over the past decade. So it’s no longer enough merely to know where the brakes or ignition of a machine are.

“A 400kW machine may be in the same price range as a Ferrari, but unlike the Ferrari, you can’t simply buy one and drive off. The electronics in these machines are more comparable with those found in aeroplanes,” says Rankin.