The story of MC Elettronica began in the mid-Eighties in Fiesso Umbertiano, a small town near Rovigo, the brainchild of founder Claudio Mantovani: a young man who was just 21, driven by the will to help his father Mario optimise the work of the family-run farm.
At the time, one of the most common problems of corn seed drills was irregular sowing, caused by the different soil features, as well as by mechanical and pneumatic factors. This obliged operators to get off the tractor to monitor work and sow the same point several times, wasting time and seeds.
At the time Claudio had just completed his studies in electronics and with a lot of passion he tried to resolve the problem by designing optical sensors to count the single seeds and check if there were any leaks on the seed drill. Thanks to various attempts and a lot of dedication, he created the first sowing controller with a monitor and photocells called MC 6000 in a 6-row version.
Between 1984 and 1985, this product attracted great interest and was requested by the farmers in the provinces of Rovigo and Padua.
Another product that became very popular at the time was the controller for sprayer nozzles, which could be applied on low-volume sprayers. The aim of the product was to check if a sprayer nozzle was not operating correctly and report any faults with an optical and audible alarm. This system was adopted as a standard solution by a local company called Agrotecnica.
After just two years, Claudio and his future wife Antonella Liboni decided to start fulfilling their dream, structure their business both from an administrative and a production point of view, and create the MC Elettronica brand, an acronym that stands for the name ‘Mantovani Claudio’. The company’s logo featured an ear of wheat, representing the farming sector that MC Elettronica was specialising in.
Another important project began in 1989 for Bartt, a company belonging to the Canadian group Superior Machine, which at the time worked with the Canadian government, requesting the development of various seed drills.
This was a control system with a monitor and optical seed-counting sensors used to sow cultivations of pine trees and fir trees (even with small seeds) directly in woods with cultivation residues. The developed seed drill was then patented, reporting the names of its inventors, Peter Boaretto the president of Bartt and Claudio Mantovani for MC Elettronica.
The Nineties. Expansion on a national scale.
In the early Nineties, thanks to the development of new products, MC Elettronica received a series of important awards, including the gold medal for the MCS 12000 system at the agricultural show in Verona; monitors for 12-row precision seed drills that calculate the exact number of seeds per hectare or square metre.
Another key success, once again awarded with a gold metal, was the Sodosem tool, designed to sow soy from the second harvest on hard ground, developed by both Claudio and his cousin Loris and friend Fausto, who then decided to set up Sodotech S.a.s. together.
Thanks to these important awards, MC Elettronica became increasingly popular among operators. So already from the mid-Nineties, the company started providing supplies to all national retailers.
This growth led to the need for new investments, which were made by the Mantovani family with difficulty, allowing for the expansion of MC Elettronica in the current 2,500 sqm headquarters across an area of 5,300 sqm, including an R&D area, test lab, production and sales offices. Moreover, the company obtained the ISO 9001 certification in 1994.
The 2000s. Constant technical evolution.
The success of MC Elettronica also attracted the interest of OEMs of farming tools, who started requesting the development of customised products, both from the point of view of HW and SW for new systems. This enabled MC Elettronica to become a strategic supplier of some of the most important OEMs at a national and international level, and work towards their success.
In these years, whilst precision sowing remained MC Elettronica’s core business, the company increasingly expanded its transversal expertise in the field of electronics applied to farming tools. Nowadays, MC Elettronica’s technical expertise ranges from combine harvester sensors to computers for roundbalers and balers, and systems for sprayers , up to customised products for tractors and industrial mobile applications.
This expansion would have not occurred without MC’s constant commitment to testing its products, not just in the lab, but also on the field, relying on the crucial support of local operators, who have always set up MC Elettronica systems on their farming machines. Testing the actual reliability of MC products on the field has always been a vantage point that has allowed the company to stand out.
MC Elettronica has always focused on introducing young people into the world of technology applied to farming. Indeed, thanks to partnerships with the local Farming and IT Universities, it welcomes students in the MC Academy, where they can attend training courses and traineeships. The company has been part of the Ministry of education, university and research in Italy since the early 2000s.
The company’s future. MC Elettronica: Precision farming solutions.
OMC Elettronica now has 45 employees with a turnover of about 9 million euros reporting strong growth, selling its products not just in Europe, but also in non-EEC countries.
MC Elettronica’s management, currently represented by Claudio and his daughter Sabrina – who will be soon joined by Marco, a young engineering management student – and their team of engineers, is constantly seeking innovative solutions to retain their leadership on the market, with the support of the Marketing&Sales area, and production inside the plant, guaranteeing complete service to its customers, who will always be the exclusive focus. If MC Elettronica achieves its goals, this is above all thanks to the trust that customers have always placed in its team.
MC Elettronica also strongly believes in partnerships with companies operating in the same field, providing them with components if needed to complete and expand their product portfolio in order to establish longterm partnerships.
The company’s new payoff (precision farming solutions) fully reflects the idea of where the company increasingly intends to specialise: offering products and services to support precision farming.
“Life is a choice and at MC Elettronica we have the utmost respect for our customers, in the belief that respect fosters respect and good fosters good. We are ready to face the challenges of the future with peace of mind. Our thanks go to our Customers, Suppliers, employees, consultants and collaborators for contributing to MC Elettronica’s growth.”
