The President’s view

Presidents Musings

Climate, energy and change

I was interested to listen to Bill Gates predicting that the challenge of arresting global climate change would make beating the global pandemic seem easy. There is no doubt that many capable minds are now increasingly focussed on climate change and the level of challenge this presents will need a huge engineering resource; that has to be good for our community.

Increasingly eyes are turning to the option of hydrogen as a relatively high-density fuel. This, in itself, will produce massive infrastructure development if it is to be rolled out to on or off-highway vehicles even in a country of our modest scale. Jaguar Landrover’s recent announcement that all their new vehicles will be electric powered from 2025 is a further indication of the urgency of the quest for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Whilst disappointing for many the decision to cancel the LAMMA show this year was prudent. The cost of exhibiting at events like this is high and exhibitors need certainty that their investments are going to give them exposure to a good number of potential customers.

A sad farewell

I, along with many others, was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Helmut Claas, long-term MD of the Claas group. Claas and JCB, the company for which I worked for many years, have close synergy both being privately-owned, employing similar numbers of people and having similar financial turnovers. Both companies have exhibited high focus on their respective marketplaces and private ownership has given them the ability to think and act quickly which has led them both to considerable commercial success. For a while the two companies benefitted from joint distribution in some markets in the days before Claas had launched the Xerion tool carrier or acquired Renault tractors. Helmut was a massive presence in the agricultural engineering industry and will be sadly missed.

Going virtual

We will be holding both the 2020 and 2021 IAgrE AGM’s virtually this year and have set the date for April 27th. In the same vein our ‘2020 and 2021 Awards Presentations’ are being held virtually on the evening of the same day. I would urge you to log in and recognise those individuals or teams who will be receiving this year’s awards. Simply coping with the demands of 2020 was a significant challenge. To excel in that situation deserves particular recognition.

This is the fourth of my ‘President’s musings’ which must mean that I am approaching the end of my first year in office. I don’t suppose any former president has had a stranger year in which to be in the seat than this. It seems somewhat ironic that as I write this piece on Shrove Tuesday, the day when we traditionally think of what we are going to give up for Lent, minds are really focussed on the return of those things that we have been forced to give up over the past 12 months!