GPS flood reduction farming

 Learning lessons from the British floods of 2007

The problem

Throughout the twentieth century, European arable farmers have adopted North American prairie farming techniques, in order to remain commercially competitive. But, unlike North America, Europe is a crowded continent.

The results are proving to be an environmental disaster. Wild life habitats have been lost and soils have been depleted by wind and rain erosion as hedges are removed. Annual topsoil losses of between 0.1 and 20 tones per hectare are silting our rivers and clogging our drains. (Girling, R, “Century of neglect means the land can’t take any more, Sunday Times News, page 12, 29 July 2007.)

Water polluting agri-chemicals have to be used in large quantities to compensate for the reduced soil quality and loss of natural pest controls.

The poor water holding capacity of large exposed fields combined with blocked drains is contributing to the devastating effects of flash floods as climate change becomes reality. Ironically, the rapid drainage is also causing drinking water shortages because the water has less time to trickle down into the aquifers.

The contribution of modern farming techniques to the 2007 British floods was predictrable. Since the disastrous Rhine floods of 1995, we have been aware that, "Changes in farming practices have made fields less absorbent, as hedges and forests have been chopped down to create prairies farms." http://www.geogonline.org.uk/Rhine%20mystery%20notes.doc

 A solution for Europe and other crowded lands

Revert to traditional European small field farming, but use GPS guided robo-tractor teams, supervised by human controllers, to allow the efficient cultivating of the land. Robo-tractors would have a shorter working length than existing models because seeds and agri-chemicals could be carried in the space currently occupied by the drivers cabin. Ploughs and other tractor attachments would be miniaturised to allow operations in small fields. But productivity could be higher than using prairie farm machinery because one controller would supervise several tractors.

The controller would teach the robo-tractors the locations of the field boundaries, in a one-off human guided boundary touring exercise.

Subsequent robo-tractor team activities would be monitored by the controller using a screen display indicating the GPS located positions of the tractor team.

Guidance in GPS blind spots would be supported by local transmitters, dead reckoning and on-board CCTV systems.

 Benefits

• GPS guided robo-tractors will be able to follow curved paths, allowing furrows to be ploughed and hedges to be planted parallel to the contours. This will reduce soil erosion and the rate of rain water runoff.
• Small field systems would allow the environmental benefits of crop rotation and companion plants to be brought to industrial scale agriculture.
• In critical flood water donating agricultural areas, the crop rotations could be arranged so that at least one field in any direction of water runoff was always in an optimum condition for catching and retaining the rain water.
• Robo-tractor usage logged against GPS verified coordinates will allow the collection of data on diseases/pests and agricultural trends. This will aid agricultural planning and reduce the administration costs associated with claiming agricultural grants.
• In theory, bio-fuels have the dual attraction of reducing European carbon footprints and freeing us from the whims of external oil producing counties. But for this to become reality, we need to rethink our agricultural strategies, to allow us to grow bio-fuels efficiently without damaging the environment or reducing our capacity for growing our own food. Robo-tractor farming offer a viable solution.
• The hedge margins used by the robo-tractors could form the basis for a European network of separated horse riding, off-road cycling and walking tracks. This would generate new tourism businesses in rural areas. (One lesson we learned from the 2001, UK Foot and Mouth outbreak was that tourism generated more rural income than farming.)
• Many GPs and health authorities now see regular country walking as an answer to our growing obesity, cardio-vascular disease and clinical depression.
• A comprehensive network of hedges across lowland Europe would create migration corridors, assisting small animals, insects and some plants to move in response to climate change.
• The bare earth cleared and kept exposed by foot, horse and cycle traffic will provide good foraging areas for birds. (BTO News, July-August 2007, p 14. CLICK TO SEE A COPY)
• On steep hillsides, where conventional tractors would be unstable, low centre of gravity robo-tractors could be used, for thrashing bracken, to increase grazing pasture and reduce the risk of Lyme’s disease from ticks that hide in bracken.
• The basic robotics problems have already been solved to meet manufacturing, smart automobile, space research and military needs.

Qualifications required by the operator
Some of today’s computer games players will become tomorrow’s farmers, so we should have no difficulty recruiting skilled human robo-tractor team leaders.

One viable outcome of a European flood reduction farming system
would be a network of paths, horse riding trails and safe cycling routes that will link together the peoples of Europe "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic."

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