Do We Have An “Intelligent Rotavator” Invented Already? An Indian Reporter, Robin Kumar Attri Says More Or Less, “Yes.” I Frank A Hilario, Filipino Agriculturist & Journalist, Say “Not Yet”! “Rotavator X”

The rotavator (rotary cultivator) was invented by Australian Arthur Clifford Howard in 1912 (Engineering Heritage Australia, heritage.engineersaustralia.org.au), or 112 years ago. It was intelligent enough, as it replaced the moldboard plow, but I have been wanting it to be more intelligent than that!

Rotavator X. My dream rotavator is one that cultivates the soil and at the same time or simultaneously creates & distributes on the soil surface an organic mulch!

I can dream, can I?

Graduating with a BSA major in Ag Educ from UPCA (now UP Los Baños) in 1965, since then, I have been thinking of a literally “intelligent rotavator.” Today, Sunday, 13 Oct 2024 in Manila, I finished my nnth revision of a program proposal to produce “automatic intelligence in a rotavator” – one that is not described simply as “advanced.” Not simply as Indian Robin Kumar Attri describes it (“Mahindra Revolutionizes Indian Farming With Advanced Rotavator Technology... “(CMV360 Tractors, tractor.cmv360.com):

“Mahindra’s advanced rotavators enhance land preparation efficiency, offering durability, fuel savings, and smart technology. for Indian farmers. (top image from sg.images.search.yahoo.com, lower image from alibaba.com)

The rotavator I have been thinking of all these 60-plus years is more intelligent than all that!

(I will not go into details, as I have been hoping that I will submit a proposal for funding by a bank or group local or foreign.)

I have written about my personal experience with the rotavator; try “IRRI, PhilRice, The Rotavator & Lorenzo’s Secret” (27 April 2020, THiNK Journalism, blogspot.com). There I said:

I have a 55-year direct experience with the Howard rotavator in my hometown Asingan in eastern Pangasinan. That 1965, I was instructing the driver of the big tractor not to set the blades to any depth but just drive through the field, and because the Howard rotavator was heavy, it cut into the soil anyway…, which is what I wanted. My brother-in-law Lorenzo Casasus, was there at that time; in later years he copied the shallow cultivation with his Kuliglig hand tractor and rototiller (rotavator). The results? His neighbors could not match his yields even if they tried to copy all his methods – he did not tell them about the magic that his rototiller was doing.

Suffice it for me to categorically declare today that my Rotavator X must be designed so that it will automatically create that organic mulch even if a non-farmer would operate it!

Healthy thoughts – Once invented and certified to be such as the manufacturer claims, Rotavator X is meant to be multiplied and used all over the Philippines, especially by those millions of farmers who are poor. The automatic organic mulch that it creates will naturally enrich the soil and produce healthy crops that produce healthy harvests that produce healthy foods that produce healthy pockets!

That is to say, once invented, when Rotavator X is used by those millions of poor farmers, everyday will be a “Happy National Farmers’ Day”!@517