An established European company, Sveaverken has recently entered the Australian market with its smart and robotic solutions making life easier for farmers
For over a century, Sveaverken has been a trusted name for European farmers and hardworking individuals across various sectors.
Its roots date back to 1911 in Sweden, where the business started off creating mechanical tools for dairy farmers, such as auger systems, ventilation systems and manure scrapers.
As the business grew, Sveaverken not only advanced its solutions for farmers, but also started creating innovations for sectors it hadn’t ventured into before.
Today, the business serves more than 30,000 customers in over 100 countries and focuses on four key sectors – including precision agriculture, herd management, landscaping and commercial cleaning.
Robotic solutions
Since its customers endure tough labour-intensive work, Sveaverken has recently invested more of its resources into developing new robotic-related technologies to make life easier for its customers.
“Due to labour shortages, economic pressures and climate change, we believe one of the most effective ways to help our customers is by providing smart and robotic tools – not just the traditional mechanical ones,” Sveaverken vice president of global operations Felix Tian says.
Not every farmer will be willing to make this change overnight and Sveaverken understands this – keeping its traditional products available on the market to cater for those that aren’t looking for automation.
“A lot of our customers have already invested lots of money into mechanical tools, so we don’t want them to feel that they have to make change straight away,” Tian says.
For customers who have moved to automated solutions, the technologies have been welcomed, with more farmers spreading the word, Tian says.
“Our customers have been happy to see us move forward and make this transition because they’re directly informed of what’s being changed and what the challenges are,” he says.
Key products
Sveaverken has a diverse range of products for the agriculture sector, with its key solutions focusing on precision farming and herd management.
Suited for precision farming systems, the F100 Auto Steer System can be installed onto an existing tractor and uses real-time kinematics [RTK] with global navigation satellite system [GNSS] technology to enable auto steering and driving.
Accurate to within 2.5cm of its guidance, Tian says the system benefits farmers by enabling a tractor to follow straight lines, make U-turns and follow different paths – all by itself.
This can be combined with Sveaverken’s Farm Management System, which monitors progress and collects all the useful data that farmers can use to make better informed decisions.
For the herd management side of things, Sveaverken provides farmers with a smart collar for cows – MooCollar Bree – which offers monitoring 24/7, so farmers know if their cows are behaving abnormally, displaying signs of illness, or breeding.
The automated Sveaverken Brush is another smart product for cows. It senses when the animals lean on it, and then automatically starts spinning to provide effective grooming.
Another automated product new to Australia is the feed-pushing RoboPusher Nimbo. Suited to barn environments, this robot eliminates the need to manually push feed back towards cows as they eat.
“We already have some Australian customers using our products and lots more interested in our products,” Tian says.
“We’re also looking to bring in some new products, including a manure robot for barns.”
Australian presence
As a Swedish company, Sveaverken already has a large distribution channel in Europe, but has recently made the move to enter the Australian market.
“Australia is one of the biggest countries for agriculture and is a very important market for us,” Tian says.
Although the company has just entered this space, it says it is already seeing strong interest with new customers in various areas.
The vice president of global operations says Sveaverken is also in the process of discussing potential distribution partnerships and expects to make significant progress in this area very soon.
When asked why Sveaverken hadn’t tried its luck in Australia earlier, Tian said the company wanted to make sure its products would provide as many benefits as possible for Aussie farmers.
“Australia is a very important market to us, so we wanted to make sure all the products, solutions and services that we provide were ready,” he says.
“We have quite a long history and we take every new step seriously, so we wanted to take one step at a time – especially for the implementation of new products.”
With the company originating in Europe, Tian adds that Sveaverken first had to make sure if its products would be suitable Down Under – since the agricultural markets differ significantly from each other.
“For the rest of the year, our main goal is to start increasing our distribution channel development and build high-quality partnerships with the local distributors,” he says.
“At Sveaverken, we want to understand and learn from local end customers to make sure that our products are what Australian farmers need.”
For more information on Sveaverken’s products, visit www.sveaverken.com
