NEW STRAITS TIMES:

NEWEST TECHNOLOGY,
AgTech ! Newsletter Date
APRIL 2018

Special Interest
Articles:

•DEFINITION OF AGTECH
•HISTORY OF AGTECH
•GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Highlights:
-TYPES OF MACHINERY
-EXAMPLE OF
MACHINE
-BIOTECHNOLOGY
HELP
-ALGRICULTURE
ENGINEER
-ALGRICULTURE OF
NATURAL USE?

AL

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 DEFINITION OF AGTECH!
Agricultural
technology refers
to technology for the
production
of machines used on a
farm to help with farming.
Agricultural machines
have been designed for
practically every stage of
the agricultural process.
They include machines for
( a pulley that could
HISTORY OF AGTECH :
1) The first people to turn from
the hunting and
gathering lifestyle
to farming probably relied on
their bare hands, perhaps
aided by sticks and stones.
Once tools such as knives,
scythes, and plowswere
developed, they dominated
agriculture for thousands of
years. During this time, most
people worked in agriculture,
because each family could
3)These machines
tilling the soil, cultivating required a lot of
power, which was
planting seeds,protecting
them from pests and weeds, originally supplied
harvesting, threshing by horses or other
grain, livestock feeding, and
sorting and packaging the
domesticated
known products. People who animals. With the
are trained to design invention of steam
agricultural machinery,
equipment, and structures are
power came the
steam-
as agricultural powered tractor, a
engineers . multipurpose, mobile
and money you can spend on energy source that
your newsletter. These factors was the ground-
will help determine how
frequently you publish the
crawling cousin of the
newsletter and its length. steam locomotive.
Agricultural steam
engines took over the
heavy pulling work of
horses. They were
also equipped with
power stationary
machines via the use
of a long belt. The
barely raise enough food for steam-powered
themselves with the limited
technology of the day.
behemoths could
provide a
2)With the coming of tremendous amount
the Industrial Revolution and of power, because of
the development of more
complicated machines, both their size and
farming methods took a great their low gear ratios
leap forward. Instead of
harvesting grain by hand with
a sharp blade, wheeled
machines cut a continuous
swath.
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product or service and also can
DID YOU KNOW?
TYPES OF MACHINERY:
The Industrial
Revolution led to Combines might have taken
the harvesting job away from
advances in tractors, but tractors still do the
agricultural majority of work on a modern
technology that farm. They are used to pull
greatly increased implements that till the ground,
food production plant seed, or perform a
allowing large number of other tasks. Tillage
implements prepare
numbers of people to the soil for planting by
pursue other types of loosening the soil and
work killing weeds or competing
plants. The best-known is
the plow, the ancient
implement that was upgraded
in 1838 by a man named John
Deere. Plows are actually
used less frequently in
the United States today, with
offset disks used instead to
turn over the soil and chisels
used to gain the depth needed
to retain moisture.

Special Interest
Story Headline
40% of today’s Plus ,
global population
the most common type of seeder, relies on a great deal of
works in called a planter, spaces seeds out machinery. A variety of
equally in long rows that are engines, pumps and other
agriculture, usually two to three feet apart. specialized gear is used to
making it the Some crops are planted by drills, provide water quickly and in
which put out much more seed in high volumes to large areas of
single largest rows less than a foot apart, land. Similar types of
equipment can be used to
employer in the blanketing the field with crops . deliver fertilizers and pesticide
Transplanters fully or partially
world. s. Besides the tractor, a
automate the task of transplanting variety of vehicles have been
seedlings to the field. With the adapted for use in various
widespread use of plastic mulch, aspects of farming,
plastic mulch layers, transplanters, including trucks, airplanes,
and seeders lay down long rows and helicopters, for everything
of plastic and plant through them equipment from transporting
automatically. After planting, other crops and making mobile to
implements can be used to aerial spraying
remove weeds from between and livestock herd
rows, or to management.
spread fertilizer and pesticides. Ha
y balers can be used to tightly
package grass or alfalfa into a
storable form for the winter
months.Modern irrigation also

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Inside Story Headline
Technology: The sensing technologies looks
set to disrupt modern
system, we can make crop
production significantly
Future of practice.Twenty-first more efficient and more
century robotics and sustainable,” says Simon
Agriculture sensing technologies have Blackmore, an engineer at
the potential to solve Harper Adams University
A technological revolution problems as old as farming in Newport, UK .
in farming led by itself. “I believe, by moving
advances in robotics and to a robotic agricultural

Example of machines :
Bonirob (pictured) — a car-
sized robot originally
developed by a team of
scientists including those at
Osnabrück University of
Applied Sciences in Germany
— can measure other
indicators of soil quality using
various sensors and modules,
including a moisture sensor.

BIOTECHNOLOGY HELP

The techniques that use
living organisms to make or
modify a product.
Some conventional
biotechnologies are well-
accepted, such
as fermentation for bread or
alcohol production. Another
example is plant and animal
breeding to create varieties
with better characteristics or
increased yields.
Modern biotechnologies ch
ange the genetic code of
living organisms using a
technique called genetic
modification. These also mean new liabilities, for
technologies have been widely example if a genetically
adopted in industrial modified plant spreads to
applications such nearby farms.
as enzymeproduction. The
possibility
of patenting genetic
modifications can attract
investment in agricultural
research. But it also tends to
concentrate ownership of
resources, drive up costs,
inhibit independent research,
and undermine local farming
practices such as seed-saving
that are especially important in
developing countries. It could

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 AGRICULTURAL .
ENGINEER?

Agricultural engineers
work in the context of
agricultural production
and processing and the
management of natural
resources. Their
specialties include power
systems and machinery
design; structures
and environmentascience

How can agriculture make

HOW CAN society. AKST [Agricultural
ALGRICULTURE Knowledge Science and
better use of natural
MAKE BETTER USE Technology] to resolve NRM
exploitation issues, such as
OF NATURAL the mitigation of soil fertility
resources?
RESOURCES? through synthetic inputs and
natural processes, is often
Historically, agricultural available and well understood.
development was geared Nevertheless, the resolution of
towards increasing natural resource challenges
productivity and exploiting will demand new and creative
natural resources, but approaches by stakeholders
ignored complex with diverse backgrounds,
interactions between Capabilities for working
agricultural activities, together at multiple scales and
local ecosystems, and across different social and
physical environments are not
well developed.

“With this type of farming, chemical pesticides

or fertilizers aren’t necessary, crop diversity is
encouraged, and precipitation provides
irrigation water”

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 DID YOU KNOW?

The concept of
sustainable agriculture
embraces a wide range
of techniques,
including organic, free-
range, low-input,
holistic, and
biodynamic.
1

T

1 https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-sustainable-agriculture
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