Farmer Of Next Century

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 10

Farmer Of Next Century

“Impossible” has no place in the modern agricultural dictionary, says Ford Tractor Operations. Today’s word is simply . . . “when?” In a new film-slide presentation—“ Agriculture 2000” —the Ford tractor makers of Basildon take a 40-minute glimpse at world farming in 2000 A.D. and the years beyond. Audiences will find themselves lifted Into a press-but-ton farming age—beginning only three decades from now —when computers, closedcircuit TV, phonovision and radar-like implement trackers could be as commonplace on farms as grain moisturetesters and workers’ transistor radios are today. Ford emphasise that their new slide presentation is no light-hearted crystal ball-gaz-ing or idle speculation in colour. The inspired forecasting for “Agriculture 2000" is based on today’s known facts and firm trends. Ford’s international researchers canvassed intensively for the considered views of experts at world centres of agricultural learning and practice. From the massive feed-back of information, patterns of informed opinion- emerged which, when collated and analysed, made it possible to build this 115-slide kaleidoscope glimpse of next century’s farming. “2000 Farmer,” it is said, will control his big-investment big acreage, big-profit farm sitting at a control console in a central tower and using huge, multi-purpose machines and remote-controlled devices for many of his field operations. Information to help him farm to optimum efficiency will be fed to him at buttontouch by phonovision and memory computer from multiple sources—governmental, academic and commercial. “2000 Farmer” may never get his boots dirty. As time goes by, even his soil may never be touched by traditional metal ploughs and cultivators. Instead, it could be fractured to perfect tilth by ultrasonic waves, beamed from agri-hovercraft Massive, wide-sweeping, self-contained power machines, of a type that may run 24 hours a day, will be capable of harvesting, cultivating, fertilising and sowing in a single, swift operation.

Cybernetics, the weird science that links thought to action, may bring an age when to think about a field job is to automatically set in motion machines to do It. But the men who still work on farms will be highly-skilled and highly-paid—more white collars and fewer rubber boots will be the order of the day in 2000-plus. Crop yields will rise three, four and fivefold, because man will hybridise and fashion plant life as a sculptor fashions his shapes—breeding plants into forms that will ensure highest moisture and nutrient conservation and maximum fruiting. Science will win the running battle against world and national climatic vagaries and pest scourges. Crop ripeness and harvesting will become fully efficient. Two crops will fit into the time it now takes to grow one. Six-ton yields from wheat and barley will be average. Beef cattle will grow to 1200 lb liveweight in a year and porkers may only require 1 lb of extra-pure, computed feed to gain a pound of liveweight. Sophisticated marketing techniques will guarantee contract prices before seed is sown or livestock even born. But, with a world population rocketing to around the six thousand million mark in the year 2000, hungry nations will still need to find new sources of rich protein. This will come increasingly from palatable “meaty” diets made up from high-yield forage crops. Experts predict that Britain’s population will increase from the present 55 i million to 74 million in 2000 A.D. People may even find themselves eating algae—the slimy, green, pond water scum that has a feeding value 150 times better than a bumper crop of beans. And enjoying it! Farming will not stop where soil ends on coastal cliff tops. “Fish ranching” may become big business, with breeds of superfish held in sea “paddocks” by waves ... of sound! Cattle embryo transplantation will have left the laboratory and entered commercial practice. Fertile eggs from a custom-built super-cow will be placed in common incubator cows, to grow until birth. A top cow may thus produce 1000 top calves in her breeding lifetime, instead of 10. Harvesting of a wide range of crops will be by electronic impulse. Chemically-dressed

fertiliser pellets will release their nutrients to a timed programme, whilst seeds—planted at unorthodox times of year to rationalise against weather and seasonal work—will be kept dormant until “commanded” to grow when the farmer chooses. Controlled environment techniques will be used extensively for all livestock. Huge, plastic cloches will cover acres of high-value crops. Multi - purpose machines may work unmanned and far from home, guided by impulses sent through sub-soiled wires, or by radio beams. Like aircraft, their progress will be plotted and followed on radar and TV screens. Many machines will conquer the wet land bugbear by never touching the soil. They will work from wide-sweep, mobile gantries, high above the ground. And “2000 Farmer” himself? Ford say he will be part economist, part agronomist, part chemist and part engineer. Like his stock and his crops, he is a super-breed of farmer. Concludes the Ford study: “All of the evidence shows there is no need for hunger in tomorrow’s world. But we must prepare immediately for the gigantic job ahead.”