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Farm mechanisation is inevitable for any country and India is not an exception in this regard. However farm mechanisation in the Indian context is fraught with many challenges.
Farm mechanisation is inevitable for any country and India is not an exception in this regard. However farm mechanisation in the Indian context is fraught with many challenges.
Farm Mechanisation:
- It refers to the development and use of machines that can take the place of human and animal power in agricultural processes with the end objective to enhance the overall productivity and production with the lowest cost of production.
Its extent:
- Farm mechanisation in India stands at about 40- 45% with states such as UP, Haryana and Punjab having very high mechanisation levels but north eastern states having negligible mechanisation.
- However, it has been lower in India compared to other countries such as the USA (95 per cent), Brazil (75 per cent) and China (57 per cent). • Farm mechanization m
Inevitability due to its advantages:
- Input savings: Seeds (approximately 15-20 percent) o Fertilizers (approximately 15-20 percent) Increase in efficiency: can help reduce time by approximately 15-20 percent thus increasing the efficiency of farm labour and reducing drudgery and workloads.
- It helps in improving the harvest and reducing the post-harvest losses and improving the quality of cultivation.
- Improvement in the safety of farm practices.
- Helps in encouraging the youth to join farming and attract more people to work and live in rural areas.
- Dealing with increasing cost of labour: Farm mechanization is the way to reduce labour cost and can reduce the cost of farming by 20 per cent.
- Farm mechanization provides optimal utilization of land and water resources that can influence the environmental footprint of agriculture lea
Challenges:
- India has very small average land holding size (2.66 acres as per Agri Census, 2015-16) and that too is scattered over different places in small parcels.
- Low income level of Indian Farmers hinders huge investment needed for mechanisation of agriculture.
- The level of farm mechanization behaves inversely with the population engaged in agriculture. 70 percent of India’s rural households still depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood. Unless and until, there is a lucrative alternate option for livelihood, promotion of farm mechanization will not be successful.
- Farmers are not aware about the kinds of machinery and implements and methods of using them.
- Power availability varies highly from one state to the other as well as according to the agro-climatic regions.
Conclusion:
- Therefore the government should diligently implement the schemes and programmes meant for addressing this lacunae for reaping huge benefits.
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