Club of bologna proceedings

2. Certification of agricultural machinery: 
the Italian experience 
The certification of agricultural machinery 
and equipment was introduced many years 
ago in various countries; in Germany for 
example it started about 100 years ago, in 
Austria few years ago, and specialised 
Institutions were set up for this purpose. 
In Italy, a first attempt was made in the 
seventies by UMA (Agricultural Machinery 
Users). Then, in 1987, the Ministry of 
Agriculture established CONAMA to serve as 
a meeting point between manufacturers and 
users, with the main aim of starting a 
certification service for agricultural 
machinery. 
The first steps were quite difficult because the 
testing methodologies had to be prepared, to 
which end CONAMA promoted working 
groups composed of experts from universities, 
research stations, manufacturers and other 
technicians with proven experience in the 
field. 
These working groups prepared the first 
methodologies dealing with crop protection, 
soil tillage and harvesting machinery. In 1998 
the following methodologies were approved 
by the National Committee for Agricultural 
Mechanisation of the Italian Ministry of 
Agricultural Policies: 
•
crop protection; 
•
soil tillage; 
•
seeding; 
•
combined operations of soil tillage and se-
eding; 
•
irrigation; 
•
unifeed preparation; 
•
drying; 
•
fertiliser spreading; 
•
slurry spreading; 
•
tyres; 
•
chopping; 
•
mowing - and mowing conditioning; 
•
baling; 
•
milling; 
•
winching; 
•
motor sowing; 
•
log splitting cones; 
•
drive shafts; 
•
components and hydraulic systems; 
•
crop protection components: nozzles and 
anti-drip devices. 
These methodologies include detailed 
information on test conditions, procedures for 
carrying out tests and for drafting test reports 
containing the main results. 
They are based on international standards and 
are printed on test reports approved by the 
main Italian Farmers Associations (CIA, 
Coldiretti and Confagricoltura), by the Farm 
Contractors Union (UNIMA), by the 
Manufacturers Union (UNACOMA) as well 
as by the Permanent Commission of 
Agricultural Mechanisation of the Ministry of 
Agricultural Policies. 

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The second step was to set up specialised 
testing stations for the different kinds of 
machinery inside the already existing research 
stations. 
CONAMA then promoted meetings with 
manufacturers in order to inform them about 
this new service. Initially, many viewed it as 
an obstacle to free national and international 
markets, deeming the CE
 
mark sufficient for 
selling machines, and CONAMA had to 
explain that an official test could give 
significant added value to their product, and 
that farmers were beginning to request it. 
After overcoming the initial difficulties, 
CONAMA has tested and certified many 
machines for crop protection and soil tillage 
on the Italian market, providing the 
manufacturers with an official report detailing 
the real performance and certifying 
conformance to all the safety requirements. 
This has given manufacturers an opportunity 
to start co-operating with the testing stations 
in order to check their products and 
continuously improve their quality. 
As of September 1998 CONAMA had tested 
over 200 machines, 170 of which obtained 
certification; more will be certified as soon as 
testing activities on other typologies is started.