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Agricultural Engineer
Designs farm equipment, irrigation systems, and food processing technology to improve farming.
Did you know?
Modern drip irrigation was developed in Israel by water engineer Simcha Blass, who teamed up with Kibbutz Hatzerim in 1964 to found Netafim.
How subjects help
- Biology: Design stores that keep harvested grain and fruit from rotting or sprouting too soon.
- Mathematics: Calculate how much water each field needs and design pipes to deliver it evenly.
- Physics: Design tractors and harvesters that pull heavy loads without sinking into soft soil.
- Environmental Science: Plan farming methods that stop soil washing away and keep nearby rivers clean.
A famous name
Harry Ferguson: Inventor who helped develop the modern farm tractor and its three-point hitch, still used today.
Try it yourself: Lift a load with a ruler lever
- Tape the 5 coins into a stack and put it on one end of the ruler. This is your load.
- Put the pencil under the ruler near the middle. The pencil is the pivot, called the fulcrum.
- Press down on the other end with one finger and feel how hard you have to push to lift the load.
- Move the pencil closer to the coins, then further away, and press each time. Where was lifting easiest, and where hardest?
Crane arms, digger buckets and many farm and mining machines are levers, and operators and engineers work out where the pivot and the weight go so a machine can lift safely.
Adapted from NOVA (PBS): Lever Loads.
Also try: Survey the litter on your street.
Known for it in
Israel, USA, Netherlands, Brazil, India