I’m very fond of my Ford Ranger ute. It’s the second one I’ve owned and it’s never complained about my poor driving. 

I have a habit of hitting things when I’m trying to park – the latest being misjudging the size of the vehicle in a supermarket car park and ignoring the beeping to hit a pole hidden from view. 

Heads up to the bloke who walked up to the passenger side window shaking his head. Thanks mate, but too late.

Why am I talking cars? 

Because a report has concluded that electrification of farm machinery is the best option to make serious savings on fuel. 

Don’t we all know about that, with the current fuel crisis due to the war with Iran? 

Hopefully by the time this goes to print, the peace deal is still in place. 

If nothing else the crisis has forced a rethink on our reliability on fossil fuels.

The report, Energy Sovereignty for Regional Australia was commissioned by Farmers for Climate Action. 

I spoke on Country Today to report author Professor Ray Wills, managing director of future smart strategies and adjunct professor with the University of Western Australia.

So let’s work through some of the key issues. 

Firstly, as farmers, why not use biofuel such as canola oil as is used widely in Europe and North America?

“If we’re going to make an effort to change from diesel, then we can do a couple of things,” Professor Wills said.

“We can actually obviously head to biofuels. And if we head to biofuels, then we’re still burning stuff … but we’re also still burning stuff at about the same price. 

“You’re actually just trading one liquid fuel for another liquid fuel, which is more or less the same cost. And even if it’s a bit cheaper, it’s still the same cost on the farm.” 

With more farmers going solar for powering homes and the likes of woolsheds, it’s proving its worth. 

But how do you source enough electricity for large scale farm machinery. Why, build your own solar farm of course!

“A large tractor that might tow your seeder and across the paddock, if you use that for 35 days to do a seeding program on a 6000-hectare property you’ll use about 30,000 litres of fuel,” Professor Wills said.

“But that 30,000 litres of fuel used each day is the equivalent of about 3.1 megawatts of energy. 

“And that’s the amount of energy that you need to stick into a tractor each day if it’s electric. To generate that amount of energy on a farm, you can install a hectare of solar panels, you can have two and a half megs of batteries just sitting there, and that can recharge the tractor in that time.”

As for replacing my beloved ute, there is one electric ute model on the market already but not one I’d fancy. 

I’m keeping an eye on the Toyota HiLux Bev heading to Australia in the not too distant future. Just might be a bit expensive, but I’ll have a gander. 

The entire June 24, 2026 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire June 24, 2026 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!