EDA, Incorporated

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What is an Agricultural Engineer?

Agricultural engineers help feed the world by combining scientific and engineering knowledge to find unique solutions that make our natural resources more usable while conserving and replenishing them and protecting our environment.

Agricultural engineers apply engineering principles and biological sciences to designing systems that produce food, feed, fiber, and other useful products from renewable bioresources.   At the same time they strive to protect the environment by conserving and replenishing our natural resources.  Thus, agricultural engineers integrate the biological and environmental sciences with the engineering profession.

By virtue of their education, training, and experience, agricultural engineers are uniquely qualified to design the equipment, systems, and methods that continue the technological advancement in food and agribusiness industries.  This includes the production, processing, handling, and distribution of agricultural products throughout the entire food and agribusiness chain.

Ref. : Taken from What is an Agricultural Engineer.

The Work of Agricultural Engineers

• The agricultural, garden machinery, construction equipment sales and service trade
• Research development & teaching
• Engineers in manufacturing

The agricultural, garden machinery, construction equipment sales and service trade

Agricultural, garden machinery and construction equipment is distributed through machinery dealerships who also maintain and supply parts for the machinery throughout its working life.

Employment in a dealership is usually in five main areas: Service; Parts; Sales; Management and Administration, (including accounts).  Service engineers are usually trained through an apprenticeship in conjunction with part-time college and manufacturers courses.  They are required to work on a range of machines depending on the season.

Some of the work will be in the workshop at the dealership but much time will be spent repairing machines in the field.  Some service engineers specialize in the installation of fixed equipment on farms, such as grain storage buildings, air conditioning systems and milking equipment.

The construction equipment industry is more specialized and usually concentrated around specific manufacturers.  Parts specialists are normally trained within the company with the help of external and manufacturers courses.  They are responsible for the ordering and sale of parts to ensure that these are readily available when required.  Normally stock control systems are computerized but the parts-person has an important role to play in customer relations and needs a very good knowledge of how the machines function.

Managers within a dealership usually progress through the sales or service departments and are responsible for the profitable operation of a branch or a department.  They are normally selected on a combination of their ability to lead and their technical experience.  Administrators and accountants are normally recruited from outside the industry and their skills adapted to the trade.

Research development & teaching

Research, development and teaching in agricultural engineering is carried out in four types of organization.  These are specialist research institutes, the universities, colleges of higher education and the equipment manufacturers.

Research institutes employ graduates and technicians from many disciplines on projects of a fundamental nature.  Many are concerned with the problems of environmental protection, food safety, pollution and animal welfare.  Other projects are concerned with the introduction of new technologies such as robotics and satellite imagery to agriculture.

The research interests of the universities are very broad ranging and mostly sponsored by government, charitable trusts or industry.  Universities may also provide opportunities for academic staff to undertake consultancy work and will have a good honors degree as a minimum.  Teaching posts in colleges of further education are mainly concerned with courses at technician and craft levels orientated towards providing practical engineering skills.

Equipment manufacturers employ development and test engineers to ensure that they do not fall behind in the development of new models of proven reliability.  These engineers work in close liaison with the designers reporting back any weaknesses that are found during testing and assisting in finding solutions to any problems.  

Engineers in manufacturing

Farmers and growers need the support of a sophisticated engineering industry to produce the machines and equipment they require to ensure that the crops and livestock they grow reach the high quality standards they must attain to obtain the best market prices.

The construction industry similarly requires a specialist knowledge base to reduce expensive machine downtime.  The machinery and equipment manufacturers therefore need engineers of the highest caliber having the skill to deal with structures, mechanisms, control systems, hydraulics and electronics as well as having an interest in and appreciation of farming systems or other relevant industry sectors. 

Companies making equipment for agriculture and horticulture vary in size from the large international corporations to small companies specializing in products for a limited sector of the market.  With one notable exception construction equipment manufacturers are dominated by the larger internationally based companies. Engineers in the land based sector get involved in the following: tractors and tillage machines, harvesting equipment, crop processing, animal welfare (handling and transport), irrigation and drainage schemes, earth moving and other construction equipment, pioneer road and bridge construction, forestry machines, horticultural machines, and fish farming equipment.

Reference:  Parts of this summary were taken from Careers - The Work of the Agricultural Engineer.

For free calculations go to the Calculator page.  The calculators should be used with caution.  Most of these calculators are not verified and are only intended to provide for a starting point in performing a design calculations.  All final design calculations should  be performed using verified and validated programs or calculators that have documented evidence of the verification and validation.

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The following links have been reviewed and approved to be the best agricultural engineering information available on the internet, so please enjoy and if you have a better link of agricultural engineering information, email it to SiteManager@i-edainc.com .

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Company Profile

EDA, Incorporated provides quality-engineering services on time, on schedule and within budget.  EDA, Inc. is able to do this by performing the work correctly the first time. We accept the most challenging problems and look forward to working with the client as a team member.  EDA believes that the client should be an active participant in the work process to ensure that the product is commensurate with client expectations and is delivered within schedule and budget constraints.

EDA, Inc. belongs to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the Society of Instrument Control Engineers, Society of Professional Engineers (ISA) and the American Nuclear Society (ANS).

For more information on EDA, Incorporated services, please contact Client Service Manager at:

Client Service Manager

EDA, Inc.

6397 True Lane

Springfield, VA 22150

or email  the Client Service Manager at SiteManager@i-edainc.com .