Abstract
THE recent trends in research and development which characterize farming to-day are discussed in an article contributed to the Electrical Review of September 15 by A. G. H. Dent. The types of farming in Great Britain are now very varied; there are few large fields of wheat and barley; but the average farm produces dairy produce, poultry, market gardening and livestock and a certain amount of grain for consumption by the livestock. The electrical authorities giving a supply to some areas have little difficulty in showing farmers that they can get an economic return by using electricity, but in other areas the problem is a difficult one. The cost of giving facilities to a farm at some distance from the supply may be high, and there may be little evidence of an annual return which would justify the authorities in giving these facilities. Notwithstanding drawbacks, the development of rural electrical supply in Great Britain has reached a position comparable with that in any other country. We are glad that the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association is now examining the standardization problem of supply to isolated farms and is putting into action schemes of experiment and research applied to various farm processes. These schemes cover both agricultural and horticultural experimental work. The plans of research are both technical and economic in character. They aim at establishing the best and most practical technique of doing a farming operation, the most suitable apparatus for the job and the proper method of application. On the economic side, the aim is to find the exact cost of the electrical method in comparison with other methods and to find out what modifications of practice are desirable to obtain the maximum efficiency from the electrical method.
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Farm Electrification. Nature 144, 663 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144663c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144663c0