The UK's agricultural machinery journalists spent a fascinating day at Claas UK's Saxham, Suffolk, headquarters recently to hear all about the company's new Easy - Efficient Agriculture Systems - initiative that brings the firm's precision farming tools under one marketing banner.
    One of the most interesting features of the day was the discussion about Claas' Telematics system, which will be extended to most of the company's combine's, Jaguar foragers and Xerion and Axion tractors from Spring next year.
    For a not-inconsiderable investment you can have electronics fitted to your machine that record all the settings, operating parameters and even location, and uploads them to a central server from where the data can be interrogated from your office computer via the internet.
    The system is undoubtedly extremely valuable and has already helped businesses make substantial efficiency savings in their harvesting operations, however the topic reminded me of a visit I made many years ago to a livestock feed company in Bristol where I was introduced to the concept of quality control and traceability of feedstuffs. The company was in the early stages of taking samples of every load that left its mills and wanted to get the message out to farmers about what a good idea this was for protecting the food chain.
    I can't recall now if it struck me immediately, or a day or so later, but very soon the whole concept had been turned on its head in my brain and rather than benefiting farmers I got the distinct feeling that the sampling system was really an arse-covering process for the operator. If the farmer had a problem with the feed, the manufacturer could simply test its sample and say "there was nothing wrong with it when it left here, it must be your fault".
    So how does this relate to Claas and its Telematics system? Well, as masses of data is collected on everything that a combine (and soon other machines too) does and how it's set up to do it, the question came up at Saxham whether Claas, in a warranty claim situation, would use the data to get out of paying for repairs if it found the machine had not been set up correctly.
    The answer, supplied by a senior Claas UK executive was clear. No, the company would not use the data for that purpose and, in fact, the adjustments available to combine operators don't have the scope to allow damage to be done to the machine.
    So, you can set up the combine incorrectly and harvest inefficiently, but you can't actually break anything.
    The Telematics discussion also provided a warning for operators that might be tempted to supplement their winter fuel supplies with red diesel from today's generously-sized combine fuel tanks. If the Telematics screen on your boss' PC shows the diesel tank was filled at 9.00am, yet was half empty at 10.00am, before harvesting had even started, the system can track back the movements of the combine to identify exactly where the fuel was lost!

Graeme Kirk
Managing editor