NFM Magazine issue 9, May 2014 will go on-sale from May 19.
Climate change has long been a hotly debated subject in society and famers such as Mark Wootton is determined to do something about it. After all, as the current chairman of Australia’s Climate Institute, it makes sense for him to practice what he preaches.
Recently, his 16.5-acre livestock property in central Victoria called Jigsaw Farms has been selected to host 10 young farmers touring Victoria in September on the ‘Carbon Bus’ – a national agriculture initiative aimed at addressing climate change.
Find out why and read the story behind the carbon conscious Jigsaw Farms in the May 2014 issue.
Read also our generous offering of machinery test reviews in this issue which include:
- Branson 5820R tractor (watch the video)
- John Deere 1025R Compact Utility tractor (watch the video)
- Massey Ferguson 7624 tractor (watch the video)
- Renault Master single cab-chassis
- Goldacres G3 sprayer
As technology is slowly but surely changing the way farmers do their work, we decide to take a good look into the world of precision farming for this issue. Steve Kealy spoke to precision ag specialist Ag Leader to decode confusing technological jargons and find out what the future holds for the industry.
Which leads us to an exciting announcement – this is the first tech feature of more to come in our brand new section, “Tech and Gear”. Along with IT, the new monthly section will consider essential parts, accessories, implements – any bit of gear farmers need but can’t always get independent advice about. So watch this space!
On a similar note, Col Jackson headed out to Emerald Queensland for this issue where he got a little sneak peek into the future. A future where enormous farm equipment is made obsolete by small task-oriented bots programmed to function like an insect colony. That’s when he stumbled upon the ‘SwarmBot’ — a top secret experimental model Australian farmer Andrew Bate has in development.
Celebrating 40 years in business, Smallaire is this month’s featured dealer. The company is also exceedingly proud to be one of the few onshore Aussie manufacturers left. Director Lolita Keyte was taught by her dad, Gary Small, who founded the business, never to say “I can’t”.
Last but definitely not least, exclusive to NewFarmMachinery, industry guru Dr Graeme Quick presents a fascinating new series on the history of Australian tractor manufacturers, starting with the country’s first: the McDonald Imperial oil Tractor.
Our Buyers’ Guide for this month focuses on 50-100hp (36.8-73.6kW) tractors where we have full specs for all the top brands listed down for you on 25 whopping pages.
We hope you continue enjoying NewFarmMachinery magazine and please subscribe to the magazine for your monthly dose of exciting news, informative reviews and eye-opening features.