Farm view: Electric tractors won’t fix a diesel crisis on farms

Hopes for electric farming took the Monarch Tractor start-up company in California to a valuation of $500m. Time magazine even named it one of 2023's best inventions, but the tractor was a total failure in real farming conditions

Battery-powered tractors in the lower power range are available on the market, but the big breakthrough is some distance away, said experts at the Agritechnica show in Germany last autumn.

Sky-high diesel prices made agricultural contractors unviable, leaving them with no option but to protest by blockading roads.

But could electric tractors get them back in action? After all, then minister for foreign affairs Micheál Martin said during his visit to Africa in 2024 that electric tractors could transform agriculture.