Anders Ivarsson is awarded the Silver seed drill for 2024

METSJÖ, Sweden (11 Juni 2024)

The silver seed drill (Silverbillen), the Swedish Agricultural Technology Association's award for outstanding efforts regarding the development of technology in Swedish agriculture, is awarded this year to Anders Ivarsson as Innovator and CEO of Ivarssons i Metsjö AB.

“It is a great honor and I humbly thank you for this fine award says Anders Ivarsson. We at Metsjö work a lot with product development every day and this award motivates us in our work. One of the reasons why we are getting the award now is that a study from RISE (research institutes of Sweden) funded by Agtech has shown a fully loaded MetaQ 75 grain trailer with twice the load still has approx. 50% lower soil pressure compared to a conventional trailer. That is, almost a quarter of the soil compaction per loaded weight. A fully loaded MetaQ 75 had no permanent soil compaction effect on the sub-soil layer during the study's trials. The study also shows that our MetaFlex hook lifts do not have a measurably higher ground compaction than our MetaQ wagons. It is an important technical milestone because the hook lift was previously considered by many farmers to have too high a soil compaction to be used in the fields due to its high unladen weight. Our low soil compaction is due, among other things, to how our communicating vessel technology is working and our ability to take a high load with a low dead weight.

The justification from the Jury that the silver seed drill should be awarded to Anders and Metsjö is as follows:

"For many years, the company has carried out extensive and innovative development work in terms of both transport capacity, safety and systems that significantly reduce the harmful effects of soil compaction. This work is particularly urgent in light of the fact that the ongoing structural rationalization in agriculture is placing greater demands on efficient logistics systems."

The study is called:

Algerbo & Gilbertsson (2023). New transport solutions for reduced land impact. RISE, Agtech 2030.