Tradition Meets Innovation: Agriculture Then and Now at Stampede

From the horse-pulled plow built by blacksmiths to the tractor to the robotics in autonomous equipment, the Calgary Stampede captures the rapid technological and innovation evolution of what we have seen across the agriculture sector over the past 200 years.    

This technological evolution is on full display for everyone to enjoy in the blacksmith area in Draft Horse Town, the vintage tractor area in the Agriculture Barns, and the robotics displays in the BMO Centre.

For as long as there have been iron agricultural tools, there have been blacksmiths, building everything from shoes for the chore horses, single-bottom plows and pitchforks for lifting hay. 

“You went to the blacksmith for everything,” says Sean Burrige with the Blacksmithing subcommittee, which is part of the Western Agricultural Heritage Committee. 

Burrige says blacksmiths created the first machining process, building the foundation for the next evolution, allowing for mass production.

Mass production of steel ushered in an era of bigger machines and equipment on the farm, leading to the first steam-powered tractors, which led to an increase in food production.

Grant Dunand, Farm Equipment Committee, says tractors became a universal tool on farms. 

“It did your plowing, discing, seeding and your combining. It did everything, even snow plowing in the winter as well,” says Dunand.

In the last 100 years, those tractors and the farm equipment it pulls have become bigger, more powerful and faster. Speeding up things like crop planting, harvesting and spraying.

It is now at the point where there are autonomous tractors driving themselves.  

Youth Initiatives Committee Member, Alex Williamson, which is behind the Robot Rodeo, says going from human-operated tractors to autonomous tractors has created smarter equipment and tools to produce food.

“It advances things further and further, and it just makes our lives easier so we can focus on doing bigger and better things."

That technology advancement is not just limited to the ground, as we are now seeing drones are starting to be used for planting, spraying and keeping a watchful eye on cattle, amongst other jobs on the farm. 

"As a drone pilot, I can see that they're definitely going to get a lot bigger and a lot more advanced,” says Eric Jones with the Youth Initiatives Committee.

Check out blacksmiths and the vintage tractor display in Draft Horse Town and the Robotics display in the BMO Centre to experience and hear firsthand about the evolution in agriculture.

Article courtesy of Craig Lester, Agriculture and Western Events Media Committee volunteer.