Serbian farmer boosts his production with a new combine harvester

A Serbian farmer invested in a new energy-efficient harvesting combiner and substantially reduced his maintenance costs and increased his productivity.

For years Mr Radanov has been harvesting his crops grown on an agricultural plot of 250 hectares with a combine harvester and has also been providing harvesting services to nearby farmers. To speed up the process of harvesting and make the activity more efficient, he decided to replace his 25 year old combiner with a new energy-efficient machine.

The GEFF team performed the project analysis, assessed the potential of energy savings, financial-technical parameters and risks.

The farmer invested €210,000 into a new combine harvester that helped him reduce energy consumption by around 42 MWh per year, a decrease of annual CO2 emissions by over 10 tones. These energy savings translate into substantial financial saving of € 30,780 per year.

The new machinery not only enabled reduction in costs but also helped increase profits. The combine harvester allows Mr Radanov to harvest his crops faster and support more local farmers with harvesting their crops. This means higher profit for the farmer and greater agricultural output for the local community.

This facility was developed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and is supported by the EU and the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF).