RHASS has a historic reputation for recognising and rewarding excellence. Technical Innovation is pivotal to the future of Scotland’s key industries, whether in keeping with the industry, improving the environment, promoting best practice or ensuring operator safety and comfort.

And this has never been so important as it is in today’s rapidly-changing agriculture. The Technical Innovation Awards, which are presented every year at the Royal Highland Show in June, aim to acknowledge the individuals, or businesses that are striving towards improving efficiencies in the rural sectors.

Last year Kverneland Group won the Gold Technical Innovation Award with its Kverneland Exacta TL GEOSPREAD, a fertiliser spreader that automatically adjusts the working width to suit the overlap and coverage. The company also markets a wide range of additional products that aim to increase efficiencies including forage harvesting and feeding equipment, ploughing equipment, soil cultivation equipment, seeding systems, fertiliser spreaders and precision farming technology.

“In recent years Kverneland has launched more new and innovative products than ever before,” says Beth. “Efforts are constantly under way to ensure ongoing renewal of the existing product range and creation of new and improved products. The development of new, innovative products is the key to success of future product generations, and to ensure future competitiveness and profitability of both Kverneland and our customers.

“With the advancement of precision farming technology Kverneland has introduced more iM Farming and GEO products into the range. For example, the 2500 i-plough, which was launched in 2016, uses Furrow Control technology to automatically straighten furrows. Additionally, the Kverneland spreaders with GEOSPREAD technology automatically adjust the working width to suit the overlap and coverage using GPS positioning and automatically adjust the application rate.

“At the beginning of the 21st century, Kverneland applied for a patent on an invention that made ISOBUS possible. ISOBUS enables standardised communication between tractors and machinery. After releasing the patent in 2001, ISOBUS grew to become the international standard for data communication in agricultural equipment. Thanks to the ISOBUS technology, farmers can connect tractors, machines and terminals on a ‘plug & play’ basis.

“Kverneland has a competence centre in Holland, known as Mechatronics, and it is the team there that are responsible for the ISOBUS invention, as well as the continued development of advanced precision farming solutions. The R&D team has over thirty employees developing software and hardware, product design and prototyping. The precision farming technology contributes to lower costs, less use of raw materials, easier work and higher yields as well as lower environmental impact and higher profitability for farmers and contractors.

“It’s vital to our company that we work with our customers to offer solutions. Dealers across the UK host Kverneland Know How events, where our specialists share their knowledge with groups of farmers to enable them to improve their farming processes. We encourage our customers to take an active role in value co-creation. By providing us with valuable feedback about their farming processes, the challenges they have, and the solutions they require, Kverneland is able to make improvements to products and develop new ones.

“In the UK we plan to focus even more on precision farming technology, not only on product development but also ensuring our dealers are fully up to speed and able to pass the required knowledge onto farmers. Knowledge transfer is a concept that we have found is increasingly important and we will continue to facilitate this with our Kverneland Know How events.

“The Royal Highland Show also offers us a platform to meet with our customers. For Kverneland, the Royal Highland Show is always one of the busiest shows for us and it’s excellent for increasing brand awareness and discussing the latest developments from Kverneland. We look forward to returning this year and seeing what new and innovative solutions win the awards.”

To apply for the 2018 Technical Innovation awards please visit https://www.royalhighlandshow.org/exhibitors/trade-exhibitor for details.