Agricultural productivity gains are the reason why famine and starvation are rare in the modern world. As agricultural economists like to say, problems with malnourishment are much more problems of income today than the supply of food. It is no surprise, then, that agricultural economists have devoted an enormous amount of time to understanding productivity gains in agriculture around the globe. Most of the attention, rightfully so, is placed on genetic gains in crop yields and livestock production. I am fascinated by less splashy changes in production technology that add up over time to significant gains in productivity.
A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law sent me this picture and it provides a great example of the march of “unsung” ag productivity gains. The picture shows the very same Donahue “slide” trailer that we used to transport our eight-row corn and soybean planter when I was in junior high and high school back in the early 70s.
We had an eight-row planter at the time, and it is shown in the picture below. To transport the planter from field to field, you had to follow these steps:
1. Lock the trailer wheels and then use a pickup truck to pull the trailer to slide it off the wheels to a flat position for loading.
2. Pull the planter onto the trailer and unhitch it from the tractor.
3. Hitch the tractor to the trailer
4. Drive to the next field and reverse the entire process.
The process sounds simple enough. The problem with the trailer was that the wheels often slipped so that it was hard to slide the thing to the ground, and quite frankly, it was more than a little dangerous to do this when it was loaded with a heavy piece of farm equipment. When it landed on the ground it often did with a sudden thud.
Compare this entire slow, laborious, and slightly dangerous process with how modern planters are simply folded into a transportation position in a few minutes. The picture below shows one going down the road. Check out this video of a Kinze planter being moved into a transportation position. This system essentially makes the Donahue trailer a part of the planter itself. Pure genius.
Despite my dad’s best efforts to turn us into a NASCAR pit crew in terms of transporting the planter using the Donahue trailer, I am sure that it added at least half an hour to moving our planter from field to field compared to modern fold-and-go planters. Now think about that 30-minute gain every time a farmer has to move a planter between fields. Across all farmers in the Corn Belt. Every year. That adds up. Not only can farmers use that extra time to farm more acres, but they can also do so in a more timely manner. And timely planting is very important to corn yields. That is truly the march of productivity.
Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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