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Field Work

Forget Horsepower, We’re Talking Cow Power!

Field Work

Field Work

Documentary, Society & Culture

5652 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Field Work, Zach and Mitchell talk about the future of tractors with New Holland’s Director of Commercial Marketing, Mark Lowery. First up is a look beyond diesel fuel to the methane powered tractor New Holland is planning to introduce late this year. It will have reduced fuel costs and greatly reduced emissions versus a traditional diesel tractor, with the potential to have essentially zero emissions if it is paired with a bioreactor capturing methane from manure. Later, they talk about autonomous operation, where it is now, where it is probably going next, and why we don’t need to worry about them taking over the world (yet).


Read more: A methane-powered tractor

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to a new episode of the Fieldwork podcast. I am Zach Johnson, and I farm in West Central, Minnesota.

0:14.1

And I'm Mitchell Hora. I'm a farmer from Southeast Iowa. Thanks to the Walton Family Foundation for supporting season three of field work.

0:22.4

Hey, Mitchell, do you remember the first time that your dad or maybe your grandpa let you drive a

0:28.4

tractor? Oh, yikes. I don't really remember. More so, I remember the first time that I had to mow the

0:33.7

yard. And that's where I started things out. I got better. Now we got GPS. You know,

0:39.3

it's auto steer. We need that for the lawnmower, I think, too. Yeah, we do. Yeah, everybody should

0:43.5

have GPS in the lawnmower, because that's the most boring thing to drive that there is.

0:47.9

Back and forth, back and forth. And then you got to go on an angle. We're talking about tractors here today. And we're going to talk

0:55.1

about sustainability, of course, too. But as part of that, we need to have equipment. We've got to

0:59.6

have equipment that works for whatever new practices we're going to be trying. It turns out that

1:04.1

there are folks at the big equipment companies that are just as obsessed with sustainability as we are.

1:10.4

We're about to meet one of them.

1:12.2

Mark Lowry is Director of Marketing for the Blue and Yellow Iron, also known as New Holland.

1:18.8

What a coincidence it is that the company of New Holland happens to be from New Holland, Pennsylvania.

1:25.5

A lot of people are surprised to hear that, but it's actually the company named after

1:30.8

the town.

1:31.8

So we are, we're in New Holland, Pennsylvania in the heart of Amish country in Lancaster County,

1:37.8

and our hay tools plant is situated right there.

1:40.9

So work across the street from where we're manufacturing round balers,

1:44.8

dismaler conditioners, and the like. Last year, although we had to celebrate it a little

1:49.4

differently, it was our 125th anniversary. We started making hitting miss engines and other

1:55.4

implements downtown and New Holland, Pennsylvania. So what are you guys making there now? So you're

...

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