How one man’s innovation provided the missing link for 20th century agricultural revolution
There’s a lot of good stuff which comes out of Ireland. Leaving aside the wonderful music, the amazing countryside (complete with its ‘soft’ rain) and some excellent food and drink (including a drop or two of the black stuff to which I am occasionally partial). But it’s also a country which punches well above its weight in terms of ideas — it’s got a reputation for being a smart economy basing its progress on putting knowledge to work. Creating value from those ideas — innovation.
That’s something which you’ll find not only in the universities and hi-tech companies dotted across the landscape but also down on the farm. Farming’s a tough business — anyone who watches the series ‘Clarkson’s Farm,’ will recognise the multiple challenges farmers face, battling all that Nature can throw at them when she’s in a bad mood plus rising costs, increasing regulation and volatile markets. It’s a field (ouch) where innovation is not just a nice to have, it’s essential.
And in Dromara, County Down there’s a statue erected to honour a man to whom many farmers, not just in Ireland but around the world, have cause to be grateful. Harry Ferguson. His contribution to the world of agriculture was on a level with that of Steve Jobs in terms of providing the enabling platform which allowed the full impact of a technology - in his case the tractor - to be realised and to contribute to a massive upsurge in agricultural productivity,
This blogpost examines his contribution against the background of the emerging mechanization revolution and in particular his development of the dominant design solving the puzzle of how to connect new power sources to the tools which enable agricultural activity.
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