Mechanisation of Harvesting and threshing operations in rainfed crops Issues and Strategies

Transcription

1 Indian J. Dryland Agric. Res. & Dev (1), Mechanisation of Harvesting and threshing operations in rainfed crops Issues and Strategies SJK. Annamalai Principal Scientist & Head, Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering Regional Centre, Coimbatore ABSTRACT : Mechanisation of operations for dry land crops in general and harvesting and threshing operations in dry farming in particular, requires a special attention for achieving higher productivity to meet the future demands and challenges of food security. Appropriate and selective mechanization of the harvesting and threshing operations in dry farming through custom hiring services is needed to enhance productivity through reduced field losses: and to reduce the human drudgery and thus improving the quality of working environment for the agricultural labour. Mechanisation of these farm operations will reduce drudgery and encourage farmers to adopt these practices for increased income. The equipments developed for mechanizing harvesting and threshing of dry farming crops are enumerated in this paper. Most of these equipments are beyond the affordability of the dry land farmers. The major constraints and issues in mechanizing the dryland farms and the strategies required for overcoming the constraints are discussed. Key words: Harvesting and threshing equipment dryland farming, custom hiring, contract farming. About 65 per cent of the 144 million ha of the total arable land in India depends entirely on rainfall for cultivation of crops contributing about 44 per cent to the nation s food basket. It is estimated that, even after complete exploitation of the full irrigation potential in India, nearly 70 million ha of the net sown area will continue to depend upon monsoon. Significantly rainfed areas contribute nearly 90 per cent of coarse cereals, 90 per cent of pulses and 80 per cent of oilseeds and 65 per of cent cotton produced in India. The aberrations in weather conditions have seriously affected agricultural production causing decline in area, production and productivity under various crops in rainfed agriculture. The yield levels have been very low under rainfed conditions as compared to irrigated areas, due to moisture stress, low level of fertilizer use, weed infestation and low energy inputs for various field operations. Though the country achieved self sufficiency in food grain production the slow rate of growth in productivity in agriculture is cause of serious concern. It has been projected that by 2020, India will have a population of 1.40 billion and per capita land availability may shrink by 50 per cent. At the same time food grain requirement will gallop to 300 million tones. To catch up with the increasing demand for food and with no additional area available for cultivation and with decline in the rainfall, the productivity per se from the dry lands will have to be increased by 2.5 times from the present level of 0.8 t ha -1. Modernisation of dry farming with improved seeds, soil moisture conservation with appropriate techniques, rainwater harvesting and mechanisation of important operations like sowing, harvesting and threshing

2 Mechanisation of Harvesting and threshing operations in rainfed crops Issues and Strategies 25 are some of the critical interventions to improve productivity from dry lands. Mechnisation of dry farming operation has been very slow and it requires a boost to usher in the second green revolution. Farm Mechanisation Need and growth Agricultural labour is becoming increasingly costlier with labour efficiency going down. Turnover of work and duration of working hours are deplorably deteriorating resulting in poor crop management, increasing the cost of cultivation and reduced income to the farmers. Necessiating the need to mechanise critical farm operations. Mechanisation is not in itself the key to better the yields of crops as is often thought or implied in development projects. Mechanisation is to achieve field capacities that assure timelines in seed bed preparation and to bring precision in metering seed, fertilizer, pesticides, irrigation and harvesting which helps in increasing productivity with reduced losses, unit cost of production and drudgery to the agricultural labour. It also helps in conserving the produce and by-products, promote agroprocessing and value addition and generating additional income and employment. The principal advantages of mechanized agriculture are that it reduces the demand for labour and allows operations to be carried out faster and in time. Mechanisation is needed to get over some of the major constraints to enhance productivity and to make farming less arduous and attractive enough to enable educated youth to adopt willingly agriculture as a means of livelihood. Mechanisation also aims at increasing land labour efficiency by improving the safety and comfort of agricultural labour and to protect the environment by allowing precision operations and increasing the overall income. The deployment of tractors, farm machinery and equipments in our country is increasing gradually. Mechanisation not only means tractorisation, but also making available adequate other matching equipments and implements to the farmer to reduce the human effort and improve the working efficiency. With the spread of irrigation facilities, farm mechanization has also improved considerably in irrigated area. The level of mechanization can be assessed with the availability of power and numbers of machinery in the farms. (Table 1 & 2). The multi fold increases in number of tractors and other farm equipments in the past 50 years explain by itself the increasing trend of mechanization. However, these trends are evident in irrigated agriculture than in rainfed areas. The focus hereafter should be on mechanizing the dry farming operations to cope up with the irrigated agriculture and by that obtain higher productivity. It can be seen from Table 3 that the animate power contributes (manual & animal) about 41.5 million kw and the average power availability from all sources is 0.51 kw ha -1. For a desirable level of agricultural productivity, the farm power required is kw ha -1. The present total energy requirement has increased additionally by 40 million KW power, which means that the available energy has to be increased by 50 per cent. This additional requirement has to be made up by electro mechanical sources of power, coupled with measures to enhance draft ability of farm animals. The future of farm mechanization technology package has to be both eco-and user friendly, facilitating the strenuous and hazardous farming operations to be safe and comfortable increasing the area and productivity and promoting custom hiring / contract farming of farm equipments and machinery.

3 26 SJK. Annamalai Table 1: Availability farm power in India Year Tractors Oil engines Pumpsets/tubewells Power consumption (per min/ha (per min ha) per mln ha (kw ha -1 ) NA Source: Survey of Indian Agriculture, 1996 Table.2 Deployment of Farm machinery in India Name of the Tractors Power tillers NA NA Irrigation Pumps Plant protection NA Equipment Power thresher NA Seed drill NA Iron plough (animal drawn) Source: Survey of Indian Agriculture, 1997 Table 3 Farm power availability to Indian Agriculture Source Number kw/unit Total kw kw ha -1 % of Total (Million) kw/unit (Million) Male Female Animal Tractor Power tiller Electric Motors Diesel engines Total Source: Survey of Indian Agriculture, 1997

4 Mechanisation of Harvesting and threshing operations in rainfed crops Issues and Strategies 27 Mechanization of Dryland Farming Prospects and constraints Mechanization of dry farming operations has become all the more relevant to ensure timelines of operations for achieving higher productivity. It is misconceived that only farmers having large acreage could reap benefits of mechanization. The major requirements for achieving high productivity, namely better soil preparation, timely sowing and proper placement of seeds, fertilizers, better water, pest and fertilizer management, reduced harvesting and threshing losses and timelines of other field operations, can be achieved only by mechanization of some critical though not all operations. Studies have revealed that tractor powered farms have increased cropping intensity by 11 per cent and crop production by 4 times as compared to bullock powered farms. The level of mechanization, however, is very low in dry farming crops. Unlike irrigated agriculture, rainfed farming is a farming system involving livestock husbandry. Draught animal and human power will continue to be used, but these are inadequate to ensure timelines of farm operations. Therefore improved machinery to suit different agro-ecological situations and economic diversity will have to be introduced. Farmers have accepted the importance of farm mechanization to increase production but the high cost of investment involved is a major constraint and appropriate policies and methodologies would have to be developed for promoting dry farming mechanization. Low purchasing power, low literacy and resistance to change from traditional system, inadequate credit facilities and poor risk bearing ability, are some of the socio economic and infrastructure constraints in mechanization of dryland agriculture Harvesting and Threshing Equipments for Dry Farming to enhance productivity Harvesting and threshing operations form a major activity in dry land agriculture which requires greater manpower. Traditional methods of harvesting and threshing involve high labour costs with low efficiency and higher field losses. The untapped yield reservoir is quite high in the dry farming systems; reduction in the cost of cultivation and reduction of the field losses through mechanization of harvesting and threshing operations would increase the net revenue and the net yield recovered. The human drudgery to accomplish these operations is also higher forcing the agricultural labour to shy away from these jobs or to demand higher wages. The non-availability of labour during the peak season of harvest is also another factor causing delayed harvest resulting in greater field losses. The delayed harvesting also increases the turn around time and delays the field operations for the subsequent crops. While equipment and machinery for tillage and sowing dry land crops have been widely adopted by the farmers to a reasonable level. The mechanization harvesting and threshing operations still remain at a very low level. Some of the promising and proven harvesting and threshing equipments which can be adopted for dry lands are furnished in Table 4. Mechanisation Strategies Three sets of foundation are necessary for mechanizing dry land farming to promote agricultural growth Technology, Policy and Institutions. They represent the three spokes of the wheel and unless all the 3 spokes of the wheel are strong, the wheel cannot move forward with desired speed. The technologies available for mechanizing harvesting and threshing have been discussed above. If policies and institutions

5 Table 4 Harvesting and Threshing Equipments designed and developed for Dryland Agriculture in India Equipments Developed Power H.P Suitability Field Labour Field Cost of Price By source coverage, requirement losses, operation Rs ha/h man-h/ha %,Rs/ha Harvesting tools and machinery 1. Improves sickle grasses & CIAE* Manual - Wheat, Rice, thin stalk crops 2. Animal drawn digger CIAE Pair of - Groundnut & 0.05 to to to 3,500 bullocks Potato Self propelled reaper CIAE Diesel engine 6 Cereals & Pulses 0.23 to < , Self propelled multi crop CIAE Diesel 5.4 Safflower, ,000 harvester engine Wheat & Sorghum 5. Power tiller operated CIAE Power 8-10 Soybean 0.09 to ,000 soyabean reaper soybean reaper 6. Fodder sorghum TNAU** Diesel 5.4 Sorghum ,000 harvester engine 7. Tractor mounted CIAE Tractor 35 Rice & Wheat ,000 vertical conveyor reaper 8. Side mounted reaper CIAE Tractor 25 Wheat, gram, Soybean ,000 and other crops 9. Tractor operated TNAU Tractor 35 Groundnut ,000 groundnut harvester Threshing Equipments 1. Multi crop CIAE Electric 5 Wheat Maize, gram, 200 to to ,000 Thresher motor pigeion pea,soybean (without Mustard, Safflower & linseed motor) 2. Semi axial CIAE Electric 7.5 Wheat, Soybean 350 to to to ,000 flow multi motor Sorghum, Maize, Pigeon pea, crop thresher rice, sunflower and Safflower 3. High CIAE Electric Wheat, Maize 533 to ,000 capacity multi motor soybean, gram, Sorghum, crop thresher Pigeon pea, sunflower 4. Groundnut TNAU Tractor Freshly harvested ,000 thresher PTO groundnut crop 5. Groundnut CIAE Manual Groundnut & cum caster decorticator Castor Combine Harvesters 1. Self propelled ESCORTSDiesel engine 58 Rice combine crop Tiger 2. Rice & Wheat SIFANG Diesel engine 18.5 Paddy & wheat - 2 combine harvester 3. Tractor mounted STANDARD Tractor ,50,000 combines with pneumatic wheels * Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal, ** Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore 28 SJK. Annamalai

6 Mechanisation of Harvesting and threshing operations in rainfed crops Issues and Strategies 29 are not conducive, adoption of these new technologies may render them useless. Some important aspects to formulate appropriate policy for successful mechanization are discussed below. 1. Rapid mechanization through custom hiring and contract farming The level of farm mechanization in the country, as a whole, is still very low. The investment in the agricultural machinery vis-à-vis their utilization or small farms is quite high. However, in the present circumstances, when labour wages are increasing and their availability at peak times of sowing, harvesting and threshing is decreasing, the farmers are now more inclined towards the use of agricultural machinery. Custom hiring of tractors for tillage, transport, irrigation and combine harvesting is already in vogue in many parts of the country and will be further accelerated. Mechanisation of agriculture through group farming and contract farming will ensure modernization of agriculture and production of quality farm produce. Efforts must be diverted at attracting capital investment in agriculture by encouraging contract and corporate farming. With flow of private capital, introduction of mechanization technology would be quicker. To encourage this, the ceiling on land holding in dry lands and wastelands must be revised. 2. Liberalisation of credit policies The centrally sponsored scheme namely Comprehensive modernization of agriculture through mechanisation is being implemented for providing financial assistance for the purchase of self propelled specially machines with the basic objective of providing adequate financial support to the small farmers, may be extended to the dry land farmers also through group loans, custom hiring service agencies, self employment scheme for rural youth and subsidies. Banks may liberalize their credit policy for farm mechanization in dry land areas. 3. Farm Machinery Clinics in Villages Farm machinery clinics, if established in rural centers for promoting the custom hiring of farm equipment by the small farmers, would provide a viable solution to the problem of the non-affordability of the costly machine by individual dry land farmers. These clinics will also act as service centers for the machinery to carry out repairs and preventive maintenance. The village youth may be encouraged for self employment by starting the farm machinery clinics. These farm machinery clinics would play a critical role in generating jobs and in providing sustainable lively hoods in rural areas. Government and developmental agencies should come forward to promote the establishment of these clinics in a viable manner. These clinics can form a part of entrepreneurship development programmes for manufacturing, marketing and custom hiring of the machinery, which will be the vital link for achieving the goal of farm mechanization in dryland areas. 4. Participatory Extension services Promotion of Agricultural Technology Management Agencies (ATMA) would help in the process of grass root level adoption of the mechanization technology. These agencies may help in corporatisation of custom hiring services of the farm equipment. Self Help Groups in villages also may be encouraged to own and manage these farm equipments. 5. Alternative employment to Rural Labour For agriculture to remain competitive despite being largely a smallholder operation, use of factors like manual labour would have to be optimized. Selective mechanisation of

7 30 SJK. Annamalai agriculture is one option that would merit consideration. Directing public effort at weaning rural people, particularly labour, from exclusive dependence on agriculture and providing them with accessible opportunities to earn dependable higher income from alternate employment would go a long way in mitigating rural poverty and promoting agricultural growth. Widening the scope of non-farm employment in rural sector by attracting the capital flow to the rural sector through different programmes would help in a big way for the adoption of mechanization. 6. Training and Education To achieve the goal of higher farm production efficiency, efforts may be made for the skill development of rural people through education and training. Capacity building at the village level through appropriate training and development should form and important component of efforts to promote farm mechanization in future years. Conclusions Mechanisation of agriculture has profound effect on the socio- economic conditions in the rural areas. It will be a powerful tool to check migration of rural labour. Mechanisation of harvesting and threshing equipments in the dry farming could go a long way not only in enhancing the productivity but also in improving the quality of work of the rural labour force. Many technologies for mechanization of harvesting and threshing operations have been developed and they have to be introduced appropriately in the dry farming sector together with appropriate policy and implementing institutions for successful adoption. Mechanisation technology clubbed with workable custom hiring service system would help in achieving the goal of higher productivity in dry land areas. The mechanization strategies and policies to promote corporate and contract farming, establishment of farm machinery clinics, liberalization of institutional credit and active involvement of extension services through self help groups in the villages would play major role in realizing the targets to meet the challenges of dryland agriculture and usher in rural prosperity through agricultural growth and adoption of viable farming systems. References Anonymous, Survey of Indian Agriculture The Hindu, Chennai. Page No.209 Anonymous, Product catalogue 2002, Central Institute of agricultural Engineering Bhopal. Manian. R, Kathirvel. K, and Balashankai, 2002.Farm Mechanisation Emerging Trends. New Dimensions and Approaches for Sustainable Agriculture. Director of Extension Education, TNAU, Coimbator. Page No. : Salokhe. V.M and N. Ramalingam Agricultural Mechanisation in South and South East Asia. International Conference of Philippines. Society of Agricultural Engineers, Las Banos. Phillipines Annamalai. SJK Harvesting and threshing equipments to enhance productivity in Dryland crops Emerging Trends and prospective. Lead Paper Presented in National Seminar on Revival of Green Revolution through Mechanisation of Dry land Agriculture th May 2003, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.