Over nearly two decades, innovative German farmers have managed to squeeze nearly 2,000kg of extra milk annually from each of their cows. Roland Magunia / AFP
Over nearly two decades, innovative German farmers have managed to squeeze nearly 2,000kg of extra milk annually from each of their cows. Roland Magunia / AFP

Where there’s much farm output there’s technology



When it comes to camel farming, there is a limit to the labour-saving benefits of machinery.

The beasts are so sensitive that when they are being automatically milked, they each still need humans standing next to them to keep them calm.

It is a different story with cattle. Milking machines have been a standard feature on dairy farms in developed economies for decades, and digital technology is enabling businesses to enhance productivity even further.

Here is an example. To maximise the output of a dairy cow, it must calve as regularly as possible, once every 400 days. But the window for artificially inseminating cows is quite narrow, because they are only in heat for four to eight hours every three weeks. Farmers need to spot the signs – the cows become more active, hold their heads differently and tend to jump on others. Ulrich Westrup, who runs a farm with 600 dairy cows in the village of Bissendorf in north-western Germany, was tired of spending days and nights keeping an eye on each animal.

So he decided to let the cows tell him when they’re ready – via text message. He attached radio chip collars to each of them to register the physical movements of the animals and send the data to a computer centre in France.

Whenever a cow becomes agitated the centre sends Mr Westrup a message. “It’s a liberation for me,” says Mr Westrup.

“I save labour time and I can be sure I’m not missing animals in heat even though I don’t have to conduct any intense supervision at night.”

Technical innovations have enabled German farmers to boost the annual milk production per cow to 7,200 kilos from 5,400 kilos in 1995, according to the German farming federation.

There are few industries where technical innovation is more crucial than in agriculture. The world’s population will grow to eight billion people by 2025 from 7.1 billion now, according to a United Nations projection. By 2050, it could be nine billion. Humankind needs to use its limited arable land not just to feed people but to grow bio-energy crops to help combat global warming. And at present, crop yields worldwide are not increasing quickly enough to meet global needs by 2050, according to research published this year by the University of Minnesota.

For crop yields to be sufficient, agricultural productivity will have to rise by at least 60 per cent, and may need to more than double, the researchers wrote. They found that the yields of four key staple crops – maize, rice, wheat and soybeans – were increasing by only about 0.9 per cent to 1.6 per cent per year.

That would lead to an overall increase of about 38 per cent to 67 per cent by 2050, which would only be enough to feed the population if the lower end of the estimate of yields needed and the maximum yield rise materialise. The report does not take into account climate change, which the World Bank said could lead to serious food shortages in many areas as soon as the 2030s.

Increased mechanisation could help to tackle the problem. In developed economies, machinery enabling “precision farming” is already well established. Tractor cabins these days resemble cockpits in which farmers can, and should, switch to autopilot because the machines themselves can plough, fertilise and harvest land far more efficiently if guided by GPS than if steered by human hand.

Even in good weather and with years of experience a tractor driver can only drive in precise rows for one or two hours at most, say experts. Machines do not tire or lose concentration, and hence do not miss patches of ground or waste expensive seed, fertilizer or pesticide.

“With the help of very precise GPS technology, automatic steering systems are already available, in fact they’re almost standard features in big tractors and combine harvesters,“ says Stefan Böttinger, a professor of agricultural engineering at the University of Hohenheim in south-western Germany.

For more than a century, productivity in agricultural engineering has gone hand-in-hand with size. The bigger the machine, the more quickly it could work the land. If you walk around farm equipment trade fairs today you will be awed by rows of mechanical monsters on show.

To reach the cabin of the S690i, a combine harvester made by the US company John Deere, you have to climb a 14-rung aluminium ladder. Some of these behemoths have engines with up to 1,100 horsepower under the bonnet.

“We’ve reached the limits of size now, so we need to make the machines more intelligent to enhance their productivity,” says Professor Thomas Herlitzius, a specialist in farm engineering at the Dresden Technical University.

The new buzzwords are “smart farming”, in which machines communicate with each other. They can also pass the data they obtain via sensors and cameras, such as soil moisture, nutrient levels and crop yield, into a cloud-based data collection system, a kind of agricultural internet.

All the data gathered can be transmitted for analysis to specialist companies which then provide advice on planting, crop treatment, pest control and the best time to harvest. Last month, DuPont Pioneer, an agricultural seed firm, said it had joined forces with Deere to provide farmers with “precision agriculture” analyses.

“These modern tools help the farmer to achieve the same output with fewer resources or in some cases to increase their output,“ says Prof Böttinger.

There are many other applications of smart farming. Engineers have developed software that monitors the grain tank of a combine harvester and calls over a tractor-trailer before it gets full, thereby eliminating waiting times.

Fendt, a German firm, has created paired tractors in which the driver sits in one and the other automatically copies its actions in another row, halving the time it takes to work the field.

GPS technology allows harvesting machines to precisely map the land they pass over and to store data on the quality of the soil. That permits fine-tuning when it comes to spraying fertilizer and pesticide and offers huge cost-savings, as well as benefiting the environment.

For example, if the crop yield in one 10-by-10 metre patch of field is found to be lower than elsewhere in the field, that patch can be identified as needing more fertilizer when the field is next planted.

“We must use land, water, fertilizer and energy more efficiently so that we can produce the output volumes that a growing world population needs,” says Hermann Garbers, the head of research and technology at the German equipment maker Claas.

The new technology is needed to keep farms profitable in developed economies, where just 1 to 3 per cent of the population still works in agriculture. There is also a market for it in the Bric countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, where a steady labour migration from the countryside into cities has cut the manpower available for cultivation.

But it is unsuited to many countries of Asia and Africa, where farm technology is decades behind, fields tend to be much smaller than in Europe and America and farmers cannot afford sophisticated machinery.

“The technology drivers and the big markets are North and South America and Europe, and new technology will always be introduced in these markets first,” says Prof Hitzelius.

That begs the question of how crop yields can be enhanced in the poorest developing countries where population growth is often highest. There is a danger that large areas of land – including forests – could be cleared for agriculture to compensate for the slow growth in yields, potentially harming the climate and ecosystems.

“In developing nations it’s important to raise mechanisation to a good level,” says Prof Böttinger.

But, he concedes, “The move from manual labour and animals to machinery is a long road.”

business@thenational.ae

Guide to intelligent investing
Investing success often hinges on discipline and perspective. As markets fluctuate, remember these guiding principles:
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Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy 

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

List of officials:

Referees: Chris Broad, David Boon, Jeff Crowe, Andy Pycroft, Ranjan Madugalle and Richie Richardson.

Umpires: Aleem Dar, Kumara Dharmasena, Marais Erasmus, Chris Gaffaney, Ian Gould, Richard Illingworth, Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Bruce Oxenford, Ruchira Palliyaguruge, Sundaram Ravi, Paul Reiffel, Rod Tucker, Michael Gough, Joel Wilson and Paul Wilson.

Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
  • 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250 

Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

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Family reunited

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.

She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.

She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.

The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.

She was held in her native country a year later.

'Midnights'
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Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.

When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.

How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Three ways to limit your social media use

Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.

1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.

2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information. 

3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.

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AT4 Ultimate, as tested

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Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

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Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
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