Cummins Partners To Lead Decarbonization Effort in Agriculture

Global power leader Cummins Inc. is teaming up with a leading tractor manufacturer to integrate Cummins’ 15-liter hydrogen engines into farm equipment to lead the decarbonization of the agriculture market.

Buhler Industries Inc. has a longstanding reputation for excellence in tractors under the Versatile brand. Buehler and Cummins have signed a letter of intent on the initiative.  

“Our companies share a commitment to technology, quality and dependability for our customers,” said Ann Schmelzer, General Manager – Cummins Global Agriculture Business. “Cummins is excited to be working with Versatile as we leverage our respective strengths to create new opportunities for both companies.”

Since 1967, Versatile has used Cummins engines exclusively in all four-wheel drive tractors. For decades, both Versatile and Cummins have been leaders in technology innovation and delivering reliable performance to farmers across the globe. Each company is uniquely positioned to build on their exceptional histories in agriculture as they step forward into new powertrain technologies.

“While diesel engines continue to be the flexible power of choice for the foreseeable future in agriculture, such a collaboration enables both companies to develop low and zero carbon solutions that are ideally suited to farming,” said Adam Reid, Versatile’s Vice-President of Sales and Marketing.

“Cummins has recently announced its plan to leverage existing platforms and expertise in spark ignited technology to build hydrogen engines. The high commonality among engine components between diesel and hydrogen leverages scale advantages for OEMs, while delivering the reliability that farmers need,” added Schmelzer.

Hydrogen fueled internal combustion engines will provide a cost effective, lower carbon solution for high load factor and high utilization applications. Key benefits of using this technology include enabling a more-timely solution to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing productivity.

Hydrogen engines minimize the impact on machine design for manufacturers, allowing common parts and components across platforms to drive scale advantages, reducing costs. When integrated in farm equipment, farmers will have a solution that is dependable, as well as easy to service and maintain.