Comment – The Winds of Change

15th November 2025 webmaster

Don’t you just love those phrases ‘disruptive innovations’, ‘technology stacks’, ‘game changers’ etc?

Now that yours truly has returned from a very enjoyable few days in Germany at the Land.technik AgEng2025 Conference followed by Agritechnica, I’ve been doing some thinking.

First, with the innovation direction towards autonomy (in very specific cases, such as robot weeding, and perhaps arable prime movers), coupled with the increasing prevalence of electric drives and alternative power units (think methane, hydrogen and battery electric), there is a clear opportunity for new players to enter the marketplace.

If we also look at farming economics, with cereal prices languishing at 1980’s levels, and milk getting a hammering, existing cost structures and approaches will be reconsidered.

At this point let’s leap sideways onto the drive at home, and think back three years or so, who had heard of BYD, Omoda, Jaecoo and Maxus? But given their warranty backup, level of technology and price point they are making massive inroads into the UK car market. Battery Electric Vehicles now represent 20% or so of the UK market.

Which takes me back to Agritechnica, where about 10% of the 2500 or so exhibitors were from China, with the obvious western knock offs, but alongside that, some truly different products and approaches.

Take the pictured Zoomlion Hybrid Electric combine, not currently sold in Europe, but sold in large volumes in Australia, Brazil and Russia apparently. It’s a class 7 combine (think Lexion stunt double), with all electric drives for the reel, threshing mechanism and drives, from a diesel engine via an onboard generator.

Two observations here, first, for that elite band who have had to remove all the belts and pulleys on the side of virtually any combine in the last 30 years or so, wouldn’t it be lovely to do away with all that and just have a direct electric drive? Second with a list price of about 30% of the established European equivalent, it’s going to make customers think twice. Look what’s happening as we speak in the car market.

I understand that there are challenges for overseas companies to access domestic markets, but the combination of technology, price point and current farm economics might just start something.

I don’t know the future, but it’s clear that our colleagues in the east are leapfrogging proven western technology with their hybrid electric transmissions and autonomous options, and that, coupled with the parlous economic state of UK, US and EU farming could produce some ‘disruption’.

What do you reckon?

Have a good week.

Andy