Equipment Engineering for Plants

Engineering of equipment and systems to produce plants, including equipment design, manufacture, and use to establish plants, protect plants, harvest plant products, and transportation of agricultural produce. Engineering of components and systems for improved productivity, efficiency, and sustainability.

Mission:

The mission of Section III is to promote the advance of the engineering science in the area of plant production.  The Section will act as an umbrella organization for all national committees to promote, organize, coordinate and co-organize international activities, such as conferences, workshops, or networks, in the area of agricultural mechanization and automation.

Objectives:

Section III promotes activities on agricultural mechanization and automation, specifically the following:

• Enhancement of networks among scientists and engineers worldwide working on agricultural mechanization and automation; 
• Improvement of knowledge leading to more effective plant production via mechanization and automation;
• Search for new technologies suitable for mechanized or automated specialty plant production;  
• Promotion of applicable technologies for agricultural mechanization and automation for different regions of the world;
• Make available a professional leadership development platform for international agricultural mechanization and automation research, development and education community; and
• Assessment of social and economic impacts of using new technologies on plant production and rural communities.

Scope:

Considering the objectives defined as above, the scope of CIGR-Section III refers to the following main subject areas:

• Agricultural machinery technologies for field and facilitated plant production;
• Mechanization and automation for specialty plant production;
• Reduced-till, no-till and controlled traffic tillage technologies for grain production;
• Application technologies (variable-rate application and drift control) for precision plant production;
• Plant products mechanical harvesting technologies;
• Ground and aerial agricultural robotics (UGVs and UAVs); and
• Mobile agricultural power sources.

Activities:

Section III organized the 5th CIGR Agricultural Mechanization Next Leaders events, which was held 12-19 July, 2017 in the USA. A total of 25 delegates from 14 countries participated in this 5-day event. The group visited two leading agricultural equipment manufacturers (John Deere, and CNH), toured Washington modern (mechanization-ready) orchards, and Washington State University Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems. In addition to the technical visits, the group attended the 2017 ASABE International Meeting in Spokane, Washington.
Section III compiled and published a booklet entitled “CIGR Agricultural Mechanization Next Leaders” in 2016.  It collected short biographies and contact information of all the participants of the five Next Leaders Events, and has been distributed to the CIGR headquarters, leading agricultural manufacturers around the world, relevant national committees, research centers, and academic institutions, as well as among the participants in the events.
In terms of conference organization, Section III has co-organized both the 4th CIGR International Conference of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR-AgEng2016) held in Aarhus, Denmark (26-29 June, 2016) and the XIX CIGR World Congress held in Antalya, Turkey (22-26 April, 2018).  In addition, Section III has co-sponsored the 5th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation for Agriculture (AgriControl 2016) in Seattle, USA (4-17 August, 2016).