President of Haggerty AgRobotics Chuck Baresich operates a 'Burro,' which is a work-assisted robot designed to carry and tow, at the company's headquarters in Bothwell, Ont.BRETT GUNDLOCK/The Globe and Mail
Tony Neale is preparing for this year’s growing season while balancing the usual worries of most farmers: sun, rain, market prices.
But unlike most farmers, the skyrocketing cost of diesel fuel is not as pressing a worry for Mr. Neale.
Farmers across Canada are feeling the hit at the pump just as they head into their fields with their heavy machinery. But Mr. Neale, a small-scale vegetable farmer, has gone electric – as much as he can. The cost to run his battery-powered tractor is negligible.
For the six sunny months of the year, Mr. Neale’s vegetable farm in Sunderland, Ont., gets most of its power from solar panels. He has three tractors, and one of them is electric, a Solectrac eUtility.
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“I wanted to be part of a transition of our food system to one that’s local and sustainable,” Mr. Neale said. “Electric tools, electric tractors, are starting to replace, where possible, some of the jobs that used to be done by diesel, but we’re not fully there.”
He said they are quieter and do not smell as much as diesel-powered machines.
Agriculture accounts for 10 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to Statistics Canada.
Mr. Neale is an early adopter. Electric tractors haven’t caught on in a widespread way because the technology is relatively new and distribution is limited. Since tractors are so crucial to agricultural operations, many farmers, especially large-scale ones, are reluctant to take the risk.
Darrin Qualman, director of climate crisis policy and action at the National Farmers Union, said there aren’t definitive numbers on how many farmers have gone electric, but he said there are not a lot.
He added that he expects the farming sector to embrace electrification after the technology is proven in other transportation sectors such as long-haul trucking.
“If the trucking sector does not go electric, the agricultural machinery sector is not going electric,” he said.
Mr. Baresich with a FarmDroid, an autonomous seeding and weeding platform powered by solar energy.BRETT GUNDLOCK/The Globe and Mail
Chuck Baresich distributes electric tractors through his company Haggerty AgRobotics, which is based in Bothwell, Ont.
The machines range from $45,000 to $170,000 depending on the size, which is 30 per cent higher than what diesel-operated tractors cost, Mr. Baresich said.
He estimates that, at the moment, there are only about 15 electric tractors in Ontario.
Mr. Baresich said there was a lot of interest when his company offered the electric tractors two years ago, but very few farmers bought them because they’re cautious of the technology.
Nazim Cicek, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Manitoba, said an electric tractor is a tough sell for farmers who can’t take a risk it won’t meet their needs.
Dr. Cicek said electric-powered heavy machines are likely to hit the market in five to 10 years from big producers such as John Deere, but for now electric tractors can work on smaller farms.
They do, however, have other limitations.
Mr. Neale said his electric machine has a shorter run time than the diesel-powered ones. If repairs are needed, it’s harder to find shops because electric tractors are not yet mass-market.
And while the costs to run the electric tractors are far lower, farmers would still need to buy fuel when delivering their crops to market. But Mr. Neale has a solution for that: buying an electric delivery vehicle.
In the meantime, the majority of farmers who rely on diesel fuel are watching what happens in the U.S.-Iran war.
Prime Minister Mark Carney removed the federal excise tax on gas and diesel from April 20 until Labour Day.
This means the cost of gas drops 10 cents a litre and four cents a litre for diesel. But some farmers may already have been exempt from the federal excise tax on the fuel for their farm’s machinery, according to the federal government’s fuel charge relief guidelines.
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Brad Saluk, a grain farmer in Manitoba, said he is spending 35 per cent more on diesel compared with last year, and has spent $80,000 more this year just to keep the farm running.
“Everything that we do reflects around diesel,” said Mr. Saluk, who uses more than 700 litres of diesel to run his tractor for a typical day during growing season. “The diesel is the killer.”
The average price of diesel currently sits around $2 a litre across Canada, according to Natural Resources Canada.
Mr. Saluk said he stocked up on fuel a couple of months ago, but he is worried that if the Iran war continues until the fall harvest, it will hurt his bottom line more.
“This is going to be the worst year of farming history to try and make a dollar,” he said.
“Once upon a time, we looked forward to our kids wanting to take over the farm. Now, we are at the point where we are hoping they go in another direction.”