How to sustain your farm’s profitability in the long term
As a farmer, you are under more pressure to produce than ever before. With a constantly growing global population to feed, it is all-important to maximise yield. However, if demands are to be met in the future, you also need to take care of the environment to ensure that your main production input, your soils, stay in a good condition to produce. Here is a selection of tips and best practices for the new age of sustainable farming.
Demands are growing: What can be done?
We will need to produce more food in the next 50 years than we did in the past 10,000 years combined. This ominous prediction from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows the enormous size of the challenge facing farmers today. Against this background, it is crucial for you to maximise yield, while ensuring you look after your farm to ensure its long-term productivity. This comes down to taking a forward-looking and strategic approach to your farm – and that is where sustainable agriculture becomes an essential practice.
Fuel efficiency – a win-win for farmers
As public awareness concerning environmental issues rises, the EU has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared to levels in 1990. Agriculture plays a key role in this, and such targets and regulations are driving technological advances.
For example, new farming machinery, such as tractors and combine harvesters, are now built with variable-speed gearboxes. These allow a greater degree of adaptability to the present soil and weather conditions. No longer do you have to find a compromise between gears, but instead you can easily alter your speed to reduce RPM. Shifting to a higher gear, whilst lowering speed shows impressive results in terms of fuel efficiency – reducing fuel consumption and therefore also costs. Other techniques for maximising fuel efficiency include correct tyre inflation, using front wheel drive, and replacing fuel and air filters at the right moment, which can immediately increase engine power output by 3.5%.
Controlled traffic farming – keeping sustainability on track
Soil preservation is vital to the longevity of arable land. In addition to conventional soil conservation methods, such as crop rotation and no-till farming, controlled traffic farming (CTF) provides you with new opportunities to ensure your farm’s sustainability. CTF reduces soil compaction as farming machines only drive on permanent tracks (or ‘tramlines’) and avoid areas where crops grow. The concept relies on high-precision automatic steering technology, such as real-time kinematic (RTK) navigation. This delivers multiple benefits – both environmental and economical. For example, studies have shown that CTF protects life in the soil, leading to increased biological activity. Because the soil’s heath is better preserved, you can see a significant rise in crop quality and yield. In addition, research indicates that CTF systems could help reduce fuel consumption by up to 25–50%, depending on the type of soil.
Precision farming – the future of agriculture
Thanks to precision farming technology, you could soon have additional support for your sustainability efforts. Through a combination of yield mapping, crop sensors, and variable-rate technology, you can improve productivity and sustainability at all stages of the crop growth lifecycle. Increasing volumes of data collected in the field can provide you with timely recommendations and support for decision making, meaning you can make a decision based on facts and not have to rely on gut feeling. You can also predict possible shortages for the crop – before crop damage occurs.
While this might seem like a distant vision, precision farming is already gathering pace. According to CEMA (the European association for agricultural machinery), as much as 70–80% of new farm equipment sold today contains some form of precision farming component.
Pragmatic approach – long-lasting equipment
If you are not yet ready to invest in precision farming technology or CTF system, there are simpler ways to contribute to sustainability. For instance, by equipping your machinery with reliable components that have a longer service life, you not only reduce maintenance efforts, but also minimise waste and improve productivity.
As one example, you could switch to more robust bearings. This can potentially increase service life by up to three times compared to conventional components, cutting the environmental impact of manufacturing and disposal by up to two-thirds. In addition, proper maintenance of your machinery can prevent oil leakages, boost fuel efficiency, and keep your machines up and running with limited use of grease. Using quality, well-maintained components can improve fuel efficiency by 5–15%.
There are many more ways to increase sustainability that are not covered in this article – the possibilities are virtually limitless. However, by adopting just a few new practices and technologies, you can increase yield and profits while doing your bit for the environment. So, what do you think should be done to make farming more sustainable?
This article has been made possible by Kramp and SKF.












