Comment – the big smoke

It’s been a busy week at Agrimachinery.trade HQ, not only with a trip to London (more of that shortly), but a frantic scurry to put the fertiliser on before the rain and the need to drench and inject some lambs.

First up, it was an honour to be invited to the Agricultural Engineers Association’s 150th Anniversary Parliamentary Reception to celebrate 150 years of Land-based innovation and technology. A great chance to catch up with colleagues and rub shoulders with MP’s.  AEA members did a good job of inviting their own parliamentarians, with 26 or so attending, alongside around 150 industry figures. Whilst it’s important to look back and recognise how far the industry has come, it’s also vital to look forward and have hope for the future. I enjoyed a great catch up with my own MP and spent some time explaining the importance of agricultural technology to enable safe, resilient and sustainable food for society.

The invasion of Ukraine is having an impact, with Russia’s largest agricultural machinery manufacturer Rostselmash, taking drastic measures  by shutting up shop and  sending 15,000 employees on compulsory leave for the month of June. With combine harvester sales from January to May 25 declining by 76% in comparison to the same period in 2020, self propelled foragers and tractor sales have declined by 50% during the same period. For the full story see here.

As a simple Cumbria, Bitcoin has mainly passed me by, other than the odd comment in the press. Unless they start selling tups at Bentham priced in Bitcoin, not Guinea’s, I’m probably not going to engage too much. However, what interested me was this piece on the BBC’s news website regarding the energy consumption needed. A Bitcoin is ‘mined’ by supercomputers, and each one takes increasingly large amounts of processing power, and hence electricity. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the US electricity grid capacity. World wide estimates put energy use at 0.7% of global electricity production. This will only escalate as ever increasing amounts of electricity are needed to produce a bitcoin.

Right, I’m off to see if my grass seeds have struck, now that the rain is upon us.

Have a good week

Andy