Green Farming (with red!)

On our farm we drive red equipment, but on Wednesday of this week our family learned a bit more about going green.  Environmentally speaking :-).

Tractors, combines, sprayers, and other farm equipment are powered by diesel engines and engines create two things– basically dirt and gas.  Companies who build these tractors and such have been working hard to make engines much cleaner.  Check out the picture below.  The red box shows how much pollution was created by a tractor in 1996.  The blue box shows how much pollution is created by engines built in 2011.  The green represents the changes that will be in place just two years from now in 2014.

You can see how much progress has been made!

Of course, not everyone solves problems in the same way.  Our red equipment is made by a company called Case IH, but I bet you’ve heard of another company called John Deere.  Deere and Case both have found ways to lower the amount of pollution, but the methods are very different!  If you’d like to learn more about these methods check out this Case website and watch their video.