AgEng2008 International Conference on Agricultural Engineering

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AgEng2008 International Conference on
Agricultural Engineering

• AGRICULTURAL MACHINES EVOLUTION IN A CHANGING
  WORLD

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INTRODUCTION
We are in a changing world. And the changes,
even in far distant areas, are more and more
correlated (globalization effect). So we will
focus today mainly on Europe (now extended to 27
member states), but we cannot lose contact with
the rest of the world. What is relevant to
observe is that a lot of apparently independent
changes are causing economic, environmental and
social trends with combined relevant effects on
the evolution of agricultural machines.
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BASIC STATISTICS
Our world is rapidly changing. The continuous
evolution of society, economy, technology and
culture is under our eyes, and if we give a
closer look to some statistic key indicators we
can better understand the size and direction of
change.

• Demographics
• Agricultural labor force
• Cultivated land
• Organic land
• Farm size evolution
• Climate change and precipitations evolution
• Gross Domestic Product
• Agriculture value
• Commodity prices
• Agricultural income
• Bio-fuels

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Statistics Population
Europe has 7.5 of the world population and it is
about two times the USA population but it is
much smaller than both India and China.
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Statistics Demographics
The effect of Europe net migration will no longer
outweigh the natural decrease after 2025, when
the population will start to decline gradually.
The worldwide population of the least developed
areas will pass from 5,4 billion to 7,9 billion
in 2050 while the developed areas will remain
stabilized around 1,2 billion. They would undergo
a decline normally if one did not take in account
the migration of the developing countries towards
the developed countries
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Statistics Demographics
While the European population is substantially
not growing, China, India and the USA populations
are growing around or more than 1 per year.
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Statistics Demographics

• All European countries population evolution
  by age groups

Europe has grown so far only due to the addition
of new state members (from Europe-12 to
Europe-27). The European lack of population
growth is also pictured here where the main age
group trends are shown.
Source Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(DESA) - 2007
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Statistics Rural Population
The percentage of rural population is wide
ranging and its decreasing everywere
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Statistics Agricultural Labor Force
Over the period 1995-2000, the agricultural labor
input has declined by 2.0 p.a. in the EU15.
This rate of change has speeded up since 2000 to
-2.3 for the period up to 2005 (EU25 -2.5)
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Statistics Cultivated Land

• Over ¾ of the territory of the European Union is
  agricultural (42) or wooded land

Source United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP)
Source Eurostat, 2005
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Statistics Organic Land
The total organic area in the EU15 increased from
2.3 million hectares in 1998 to 4.9 million
hectares in 2002. The organic farming area
reached 3.8 of the total Utilised Agricultural
Area (UAA) of the EU15 in 2002, up from 1.8 in
1998 Worldwide (2006) approx. 31 million of
hectares are grown organically
Evolution of the total number of organic
producers and size of total organic area in the
EU15, 1998-2002
Source Eurostat, 2005
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Statistics Farm size
Total number of Agricultural Holdings (in 1000)
Source Eurostat
Number of agricultural holdings by size, of at
least 1 ESU (Economic Size Unit) in 2005 Since
1986, 2 ESU have been worth ECU 2 400, which is
approximately 3 hectares wheat-equivalent
source Eurostat
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Statistics Climate Change
Future impact on summer temperature (C) of
climate change simulated within the scenario
GIEC-B2. The small red squares correspond to a
temperature increase between 3 and 4 C
This climate simulation model (ARPEGE-Climat) for
the years 2070-2100 is not a real forecast but it
shows what could be possible if the radiation
active gases concentration will increase
according to the model hypothesis
Source CNRS Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique - France
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Statistics Precipitations Evolution
Difference between the winter precipitations in
the period 2070-2099 and the ones in the period
1960-1989. Figures a and b are related to two
simulations of the period 2070-2099 versus the
period 1960-1989, made with the model
ARPEGE-Climat, different only by the initial
conditions assumptions. The scale is in mm/day.
The trend on both simulations shows an increase
in winter rainfalls over Europe and a decrease
over the Mediterranean see and the Northen
Africa. The figures c and d correspond to the
figures a and b and show the same trends for the
summer rainfalls.
Source CNRS Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique - France
winter precipitations
summer precipitations
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Statistics Climate Change
Source UCAR University Corporation for
Atmospheric Research ESSL Earth and Sun Systems
Laboratory
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Statistics Gross Domestic Product
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Statistics Agriculture value

• According to the EAA the output value at producer
  prices (the producer prices excludes subsidies
  less taxes on the products) of the agricultural
  industry is 292 billion in 2005 for the EU25

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Statistics Commodity prices

• All the institutions are predicting significantly
  higher prices for the next 10 years
• than over the past decade.
• The projections are subject to many
  uncertainties assumptions about productivity
  growth, risks of sanitary and phyto-sanitary
  crises, climate change, the weather, etc.

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Statistics Europe Agricultural Income
EU27 real agricultural income per worker rose by
5.4 in 2007, after increasing by 3.3 in 2006.
This increase was the result of a growth in real
agricultural income (3.1) and a reduction in
agricultural labour input (-2.2).
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Statistics Biofuel
Current biofuel technologies
Source IFP

• The use of vegetable oils as engine fuels may
  seem insignificant today but the such oils may
  become, in the course of time, as important as
  petroleum and the coal tar products of the
  present time.
• Rudolph Diesel, 1912

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Statistics Biofuel

• EU Directives targets
• - Current 2 of biofuel
• - by 2010 5.75 of biofuel
• - by 2015 8 of biofuel
• - by 2020 10 of petrol and diesel to be replaced
  by biofuels (20 of energy consumption coming
  from renewable sources)
• In 2005, 2.6 million hectares in Europe were
  occupied by energy crops used to produce
  biofuels 2.4 million hectares of crops to
  produce biodiesel (95 rape, 5 sunflower) and
  0.2 million hectares of crops to produce
  bioethanol (49 wheat, 51 sugar beets)
• In 2005, Europe consumed about 4.2 Mt of
  biofuels, equivalent to 1.2 of road transport
  fuel consumption. The European Union did not
  attain its target biofuel content of 2 - which
  represents 5.8 Mtoe of biofuels.
• By 2010 the target is 16.6 Mtoe, which would
  require about 82 Mt of farm biomass and a land
  area of about 13.8 Mha. To meet this demand for
  biofuel, it would be necessary to allocate a land
  area for rape alone larger than the cumulated
  area of all fallow land in Europe (approx. 8.2
  Mha), knowing that not all of these lands are
  cultivable.

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GENERAL TRENDS
From all these data we can observe, inside the
change, some clearly emerging trends

• Agricultural workforce decrease / average age
  increase
• Farm size increase
• more complex farm management
• Regulations evolution
• safety / health protection
• environment / pollution reduction
• Productivity / precision increase
• Bio-fuel / Bio-mass production increase
• Water shortages
• Organic cultivation expansion

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Population decrease / average age increase

• Agricultural workforce decrease (combined effect
  of European population slight reduction and
  decreasing agricultural percentage of the
  population).
• Average age of people working in agricultural
  areas is increasing and this drives a strong
  request for equipment ergonomic, ease of use,
  low-effort controls, highly automatic operation
  sequences, safe drive.
• Agricultural income positive trend, in conditions
  of workforce decrease, implies a significant
  productivity increase.

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Farm size increase

• The progressive increase of farm size implies a
  general complexity increase in the farm activity
  management (more crops, more machines, more
  workers).
• The enterprise risk also increases and more
  management skills and tools are required
  (business approach, accurate accounting,
  cultivation and crops planning, fleet management,
  maintenance programs, purchase of services,
  etc.).
• The farm economic development implies a
  continuous search for productivity and
  efficiency, which means more machines and more
  productive machines.

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Productivity / precision increase

• The demand for higher productivity on all farm
  operations is constant
• efficient machines
• high speed operations
• bigger machines, higher power
• automatic operations
• ease of use
• comfort
• Precision in farm operations is also an
  increasing priority, because it usually increases
  the efficiency in the use of machines and
  materials (seeds, water, fertilizers, etc.).

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Bio-fuel / Bio-mass production increase

• The limited availability of fossil fuels and the
  rapidly increasing oil prices are driving a
  strong interest on bio-fuels
• Both in the USA and Europe the spontaneous
  extension of bio-fuel crops is supported by
  dedicated governments plans.The European target
  to have by 2020 10 of petrol and diesel to be
  replaced by bio-fuels is going in this
  direction and probably more specific support to
  the bio-fuels crops will come.
• The fight for low cost bio-fuel will drive even
  more the productivity of these cultivations and
  of the machines used for that, seen that the
  available land is limited.
• Bio-fuel will require wider fields for energy
  crops, and farmers will require bigger machines,
  with more hp, and bigger implements.

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Water shortages

• The climate changes are difficult to forecast,
  but there is a general consensus among scientists
  that the global warming is a real process and
  that significant modifications will happen in the
  next decades.
• The main consequences of global warming will be a
  change in precipitation pattern (probably some
  increase of precipitations in Northern Europe and
  a decrease of precipitations in Central and
  Southern Europe).
• Therefore the availability of water for
  irrigation will change significantly, driving
  changes in the mix of cultivations.
• The demand for water will also increase
  dramatically in the rest of world, with the
  increase of irrigated land needs.

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Organic cultivation expansion

• In Europe the land cultivated organically is
  roughly doubling every two years, leading to a
  significant business impact in the agricultural
  world.
• The choice of non-OGM crops, the very limited use
  of pesticides and herbicides and the use of
  accurate cultivation methods is driving a
  significant use of specialised machine work, but
  with needs of clean machines, with low
  emissions and high prevention of land and crop
  contamination (e.g. oil drops).
• This also leads to high value agricultural
  production, sustained by prices higher than
  average but with demand for high quality process.

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Regulations evolution
Another important trend in Europe, and in many
other countries, is the rapid evolution of
regulations. This is a direct consequence of the
social and political evolution, with increased
sensitivity to population and workers health and
safety. Air pollution and gas and particles
emissions are already strictly regulated and they
will be more. EEC legislation on agricultural
machines is quite complex and subject to
significant evolution. - machines need to
comply with a long list of EU directives -
homologation is gradually replaced by
self-certification
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Regulations evolution

• Typical examples where regulation has a
  significant impact on the product design
• Health and safety
• Roll over protection (ROPS), falling objects
  (FOPS)
• Hazardous substances
• Air purifying devices, to limit operator exposure
  to hazardous substances (tractors, sprayers)
• Protection of passenger
• Seat belts anchorages and location and mounting
  of passenger seat
• Social or horizontal Directives, intended to
  cover the risks in the work sites.
• Exposure of workers to the risks arising from
  physical agents (vibration)
• Compliance with these regulations is in charge of
  the employer but, obviously, becomes a task for
  the manufacturer.
• Road transport
• Drive by noise
• Vehicle width, axle weights and signalisation
• Increased road speed, braking performance
• EMC (electromagnetic emission)
• Engine emissions

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Engines Emissions Targets

• Since 2000, there has been a continuous reduction
  of particulate and NOx emission levels
• From Tier 4 onwards exhaust after-treatment
  devices will be required

2001
2006
2011
2014
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Engines Emissions targets Europe and USA
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Engines Emissions targets Other Countries
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GENERAL TRENDS DRIVE MACHINE EVOLUTION

• All the trends we have seen so far have a
  powerful drive into the evolution of agricultural
  machines.
• The combined effect of these drivers and the
  evolution of technologies will cause rapid
  changes and new offering in the machines
  scenario.
• The main evolution directions can be summarized
  as follows
• Bigger equipment / higher power
• Emissionised engines / clean machines / use of
  bio-fuels
• Safe work environment
• Higher speed
• Serviceability / maintainability improvement
• Precision farming / Auto-guidance
• Automation / CVT transmissions / electronics /
  interaction with implements
• Specialized products / highly configurable
  products

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Bigger equipment / Higher power

• Larger fields, less manpower, demand for higher
  productivity will continue driving up equipment
  size and power.
• Larger implements will then require more pulling
  and controlling power.
• The endless power up trend will continue.

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Emissionised engines / Clean machines / Use of
bio-fuels

• The future agricultural machines will be more and
  more respectful of the environment.The engine
  emissions regulations, already quite severe, will
  continue to follow the big push for further
  reduction, even in the emerging economies like
  India and China.
• The global push to save the environment and
  respect the nature will drive our machines to
  become always greener and cleaner.
• The use of bio-fuels and all sort of alternative
  fuels will increase significantly. Users and
  dealers must become familiar with the storage,
  handling and use of bio-fuels.

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Safe work environment

• The agricultural machine is often seen as a
  working environment, where the operator stays for
  many hours a day and where he does a lot of work
  operations.European and North American
  legislations are very focused on guaranteeing
  safety and healthy working conditions.
• This means not only safe equipment and low levels
  of noise, vibration, air pollution, but also ease
  of use and comfort.
• Instructions must be clear and exhaustive
• Controls must be easily reachable and immediate
  to understand and use. Signals and warnings have
  to cover all the significant potential risks.

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Higher speed

• Even if the European legislation is a little bit
  behind, the tractors speed desired by users is
  often higher than 40 km/h.
• 50 Km/h is becoming normal in many countries
  (recently including the USA) and 60 km/h or more
  is the next step.
• Improved braking systems and axle suspensions
  will be more and more required for a safe high
  speed drive. And the same applies to trailers and
  other towed machines.
• But speed is also required in many other machine
  operations, because it means productivity so it
  will become a constant trend for complete
  vehicles and for specific operations.

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Serviceability / maintainability improvement

• The social progress, the evolution of comfort
  perception and quality of life and the ageing of
  population will all lead a demand for better
  machine serviceability.
• Customers want to service their machines less
  times and in an easy and safe way.
• They want to access to all the relevant parts of
  the equipment without risk or fatigue and easily
  check the need for maintenance, in this supported
  by clear on-board diagnosis.
• Maintenance has to be easily planned and all the
  service operations must be very simplified.

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Precision farming / Auto-guidance

• The adoption of precision farming techniques is
  one of the most effective ways to increase the
  yield and productivity of the agricultural land.
• Satellite maps, ground and crop analysis, yield
  history, culture optimization planning are now
  possible with the help of services and equipment
  available in the market place.And the use of
  these tools is proving to be very effective in
  farm operations improvement.
• Auto-guidance systems will more and more drive
  with precision the machines on the ideal paths,
  to minimize errors and redundancies in field
  operations, pulling increasingly sophisticated
  large implements.

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Automation / CVT transmissions / electronics /
interaction withimplements

• The demand for productivity, ease of use and
  field operations improvements will drive even
  more the already exploding rate of electronic
  and automatic devices on agricultural machines.
• Continuous Variable Transmissions will grow at a
  very high rate and electronics will become the
  technology mostly spread around in our machines.
• Electronic bus technology, based on existing
  standards (CAN-bus, ISO-bus) and on new ones,
  will transform the machines in complex integrated
  systems, more and more intelligent and with
  extended capabilities to communicate each other
  and with implements and attachments.

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Look at this combine
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Or at this tractor driveline
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And the driver will no more be required

• The rapid evolution of the machine capabilities
  will exceed the human expertise in the
  agricultural domain and the machines will act
  autonomously, fully robotized.
• Examples will be
• machine to machine optimal settings - copying
• coordination of machine / machine activity
• fleet management (coordinating the operation
  between all machines on the field for time and
  efficiency gain)
• Up to the full drone machine, working without any
  operator on board and fully capable of
  self-regulating and adapting to the field work,
  taking instructions from remote computers and
  operators.

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Specialized products / highly configurable
products

• In addition to the technology evolution, the
  agricultural machines will also become more
  specialized, to optimize their use in the various
  conditions and cultivations.
• This will follow a two-fold path
• true machine specialization, with specific
  devices and features for a particular set of
  operations
• high configurability of generic machines, through
  options and dealer installed accessories, to
  adapt them to special work and conditions.

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Engineers Are Key Game Players

• Mechanical and agricultural engineers are key
  game players in this evolving natural, social and
  technological scenario.
• Our best efforts should be devoted to
• - understand general change trends and
  anticipate farmers and social needs
• - continue pursuing innovation, not only on
  technology
• - identify new or specific needs of groups of
  people in agriculture
• - identify new product functions
• - develop new ways to provide functions.
• Knowledge, skills and innovation attitude are
  needed qualities, to surf the wave of change and
  shape the future of our agricultural world.