00:00The soil here in Lower Saxony is desperately dry, with no rain in weeks.
00:08Farmers in the region are making increasing use of cultivators to help retain moisture.
00:14They fight weeds and loosen the ground with special blades, but only at a very shallow depth.
00:21That's crucial because otherwise the seeds won't germinate.
00:26More and more farmers are turning to this method as climate change demands new approaches.
00:33The rollers press the soil down again, so the air doesn't get into the soil and dry it out.
00:40First you loosen it, and then the rollers pack it back down.
00:49It works so effectively because of the type, number and arrangement of the blades.
00:54This cultivator, which costs around 60,000 euros, is increasingly replacing the traditional plow,
01:01an invention that has defined agriculture for centuries.
01:09This cultivator from the company Raba is called Phoenix, and is a completely new design.
01:16The creative mind behind it is an engineer who is also an active farmer.
01:21It's the company's first major innovation in years.
01:25We wanted to launch with a full system, air brakes, chassis and certification to meet German machinery standards to re-enter the market.
01:37The Raba Company has seen some turbulent times.
01:44Until the 1990s, the family-run business was a leading manufacturer of tillage equipment with a workforce of around 1,000 people.
01:54But the generational transition from the founding patriarch to younger leadership wasn't successful, and the company went bankrupt several times.
02:03Today, Raba belongs to the Chinese construction machinery giant Zoom Lion.
02:07If the Chinese hadn't stepped in here, that would have been it.
02:10A young team now runs the company.
02:13The CEO brings the energy of a start-up and doesn't act like someone managing a 120-year-old business.
02:22But what's the new owner's strategy?
02:24Are they just stripping the company before shutting it down?
02:28Zoom Lion bought Raba about five years ago.
02:33At the time, some of their people took our technical expertise straight to China.
02:38You might have thought they would have shut us down after three months.
02:41But the opposite happened.
02:43Zoom Lion is now pushing Raba, helping us develop our products, expand our markets and become competitive again.
02:52They're clearly not just here to acquire the expertise and move on.
02:57You might have to buy the strategy quickly in the home, and then it's enough.
03:00Raba's unique expertise lies in decades of experience making precision-built plowshares,
03:06which are still made manually in the forge.
03:09The company owns a number of one-of-a-kind press moulds no one else has,
03:14giving them a real advantage when working in clay or in sandy or rocky soils.
03:21These German-engineered plowshares are now being sold in China too.
03:27This video shows Zoom Lion's operations.
03:32In China, it's the largest manufacturer of construction machinery and ranks fifth worldwide.
03:38The company employs around 35,000 people and says it has filled some 17,000 patents.
03:45Zoom Lion's factories are highly automated with very few workers.
03:50Raba's head of sales recently visited Zoom Lion's factories in China.
04:00Low energy costs and high automation make them a strong partner.
04:05When it comes to production technology, they're ahead of the game.
04:10We in Europe need to stop kidding ourselves.
04:13This isn't some backward knock-off quality production set-up. Not at all.
04:19While Raba works to regain its strength with Chinese support,
04:25Zoom Lion is using Raba's distribution network to enter the European market,
04:30supplying construction equipment from its base in Germany.
04:34A team of Chinese engineers is on site, adapting the machines for the European market.
04:42Without the proper certification and German registration, they can't be sold over here.
04:49One key adjustment, the cabs have to be replaced for the European market.
04:54They need to be larger, because Europeans are generally taller than Asians.
05:00The first Chinese models are now ready for sale.
05:04Justine Lin coordinates the collaboration between Chinese staff and the Raba workforce.
05:10A demanding job, especially when it comes to reconciling the different corporate cultures.
05:16The communication between Germany and China is really important.
05:23I have to explain things to the German side, and then to the Chinese side.
05:30Sometimes we speak in English, but even then the same words can mean different things.
05:35That causes misunderstandings.
05:41So I'm constantly going back and forth.
05:43That's the main part of my job.
05:52The workforce hopes it won't be affected by geopolitical tensions or global economic disruptions.
06:02And that the successful German-Chinese cooperation in rural Lower Saxony will continue to bear fruit.
Comments