Alternative farm fuels and automated vehicles
Decarbonising agricultural vehicles & fuels
If the rural economy is to play its part in the reduction of emissions, it needs to develop a pathway to replace diesel, with low and zero carbon fuels.
The net zero transition
It is essential to consider vehicle or infrastructure asset replacement cycles, given that many farm vehicles have working lives of 15 to 20 years.
Electric vehicle and gas fuel instrastructure costs
For a transition to succeed, accessible and reliable power supplies 24/7 will be a pre-requisite, either from the grid or from on-farm renewables.
Autonomous systems on farms
This section covers potential transformation of farming operations based on system such as controlled traffic farming, autonomous vehicles and robotics.
Automated field systems
Such techniques can increase yields by as much as 20%. However, most autonomous systems currently remain driver supervised.
Novel fuels and powertrains
The speed of replacement of fossil fuels on farms will be greatly enhanced by more on-farm working demonstration sites often managed by ‘early adopters’.