World Creativity and Innovation Day 2026 a special day to celebrate the Ferguson System, a global revolution.
The 21st April, 2026 is World Creativity and Innovation Day and a day to once more showcase how Northern Ireland often punches well above its size and weight as part of the UK for creativity and innovation.
One of the best examples of this, the Ferguson System also marks a special anniversary in its story today. Today is the 90th anniversary of the arrival of the first production Ferguson System tractor in Northern Ireland. Often referred to as the Ferguson “Ulster” tractor, the Ferguson-Brown Type A was part of Harry Ferguson’s vision of a completely new way to farm that had such an impact on the world of agriculture. Developed from his famous Ferguson Master Patent of 1925 that invented the modern tractor with quickly interchangeable implements this little grey Fergie tractor as part of Ferguson Farm Machinery in 1936 changed agriculture for the better on a global scale.
The first production tractor and plough as part of the Ferguson System arrived in Northern Ireland on the 21st April, 1936 and would go to Thomas MacGregor Greer on whose lands the Ferguson System and four initial implements were perfected by the autumn of 1935 in County Tyrone.
Harry Ferguson as well as a genius was also a great showman and the 21st of April was carefully selected by him to ship the first tractor to Northern Ireland. It was the anniversary of when Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Orsted in 1820 effectively discovered electromagnetism and which later made the electric motor to power machinery possible. Interestingly in Harry Ferguson's first diagram of his Ferguson Master Patent from 1925 the use of an electric powered tractor and implement lift was shown and described.
The first production little grey Fergie and implements that was part of Ferguson Farm Machinery were manufactured by David Brown for Harry Ferguson Ltd., at the David Brown factory at Huddersfield, England.
The Ferguson System would be the industrial revolution applied to farming. A system of farm mechanisation and modernisation through the famous three point hydraulic linkage and implements acting as a single unit that is now a standard fitment to every tractor.
The Ferguson System is a great Northern Ireland success story that has changed not just agriculture but all our lives for the better, reducing hunger and poverty on a global scale. An invention that has saved countless billions of lives over the last 90 years and why Harry Ferguson as the father of the modern tractor is also recognised as a great innovator whose system still helps feed the world.
Stevan Patterson, Castlederg, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.