Soil machinery company, Lemken has confirmed that improving soil health is a priority for the business – across all of its markets.
Lemken area sales manager for Ireland, Derek Delahunty, spoke at a recent farm work shop, held in north Co. Antrim.
“Our focus is to assess how different machines actually affect soils. Change is happening all around us,” he explained.
“In many cases, these developments take place in other countries first. And it is for this reason that Lemken has consistently taken groups of Irish farmers to other countries.
“This provides the members of the visiting group with an opportunity to see how new ideas are being developed and implemented.
“A case in point was last October’s visit to France. While there, we visited three farms to gauge how the farmers in question looked after their soils,” he added.
Delahunty explained that trips such as the one to France, also serve to highlight that farmers around the world are confronting the same challenges.
E.g., how do they manage input costs? How do they deliver profitability? And how do they manage their soils in the most effective manner possible?
Future for tillage farmers
According to Delahunty, it is imperative that all farmers can look forward to a sustainable and profitable future.
“Finding labour is a challenge for farmers at the present time, as is working with the environment. All of these boxes have to be ticked, irrespective of our ideology,” he said.
“We all know that the basics of ploughing, tilling and sowing represent a pretty good strategy when it comes to establishing a crop. But if we have to change, it would be good to know what we should change to.”
Delahunty pointed out that Lemken is a tillage-based operation. Stubble cultivation, ploughing, seed bed preparation, drilling and subsequent crop care-related activities are all reflected at the very heart of the company’s product range.
Lemken and soil health
Putting the soil first is what drives the Lemken approach to machinery development apparently.
“We want to fully understand what is taking place within soils. Fundamentally, soils are living entities. So they cannot be treated like concrete surfaces,” Delahunty further explained.
“Tillage equipment must deliver a gentle form of soil management. And it’s important that our dealers and their staff understand exactly what this means.
“This is why Lemken fully commits to training its dealership network on the fundamentals of soil structure and then linking all of this to the utilisation of tillage equipment in the most effective manner possible.
“But this all comes down to putting the soil first,” he concluded.
