He put the company in touch with Agrointelli — a farmer-owned agricultural machinery maker in Denmark — and by January, Andrew had secured approval from Home Farm’s board of directors to introduce the new technology on the farm. The new piece of 150 horsepower kit costs around £150k versus about £120k for a conventional manned machine, and is said to be highly fuel efficient.
“I am very, very pleased and excited about it,” said Mr Wiliams.
The machine — only in operation since mid-April — was already proving its worth, he said — although he admits it has been a learning curve.
On the first day after its arrival, the team at Home Farm Nacton tried it out on a potato field. What the farmers failed to realise was that while the field had been initially mapped out using GPS, it hadn’t when the field was de-stoned or when it was planted. That meant the mapping co-ordinates no longer reflected the precise plan on the ground and the weeder went awry as a result.