High labour costs led to mechanization of Dutch agriculture sector
Apr 21, 2015
There is a tractor in every typical Dutch farming homestead. And it is not just one tractor, but at least three or four of them. If it is one tractor, it has implements for ploughing, sowing and harvesting, plus transportation of farm produce.
By Joshua Kato
NETHERLANDS - There is a tractor in every typical Dutch farming homestead. And it is not just one tractor, but at least three or four of them. If it is one tractor, it has implements for ploughing, sowing and harvesting, plus transportation of farm produce.
Ugandas's best farmers who are visiting Netherlands were impressed by the level of mechanization on Dutch farms.
“Machines do the work here, while in Uganda men do the work,” observed farmer Patrick Iga.
As far as mechanization statistics are concerned, Dutch agriculture is 100% mechanized, compared to around 1% for Uganda.
Everything on the farm, be it animal or crop is handled by a machine. These tractors come in all kinds of sizes and shapes, from the smaller ones to the giant combine harvesters and planters.
“It is the high cost of labour that led to this,” says farmer Erik Riannie Valk, from Horstweg 21, in the north of the Netherlands.
This is why even cow shades are swept and cleaned by machines; cows are milked and fed by robots too.
Comparatively, these tractors do not come cheap. "A medium sized tractor costs as much as 100,000 Euros,” says Jim Booijint, another farmer. This cost adds up to around sh320m in Uganda.
The Dutch farmers say that they are able to afford these heavy machines because they produce a lot.
“When we use tractors, the work is eased and in the long run, the production goes up which helps us get money to maintain them,” Jim says.
In Uganda, very few farmers realize that the more mechanized a farm is, the higher the production.
Incidentally, the average acreage for a Dutch commercial farmer is around 20 acres, which is almost the same as in Uganda.