Can Mechanization Reduce Labour and Water Demand in Agriculture? A Case of Rice Transplanters in Andhra Pradesh.
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Date
2015-10
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Abstract
Mechanization in agricultural sector is advancing in developing countries like India. Rice is a
labour-intensive crop and requires about 80-90 labour days per acre. Timely availability of labour and water for
various activities of rice is becoming a problem. The cost of the labor among the cultivation cost also increased
from 15-18 % to 45-47% during the last decade. Water scarcity is also increasing due to climate variability in the
country. Hence, to overcome labour shortage and sustain rice production with less water, the recent phenomenon
observed in Andhra Pradesh state is the use of machine transplanters and harvesters. These are resulting in the
process of mechanization and increasing their popularity during the recent years. The machinery transplantation
was taken up in 21 farmers fields covering 0.4 ha each. The field observations from the farmers’ fields show that
machinery transplantation reduces seed by 50 % and labour by 22%. The nursery cost for the machinery
transplantation is higher compared to traditional transplantation method (by Rs 2330). The other major
observations noticed during the validation of technology was, that number of hills per sq.m and tillers in a hill
are higher compared to the manual transplantation, resist lodging during heavy floods. The effective tillers in a
hill range from 12-15 and also increase the panicle grain number. The yield of rice was found to be higher by 6-7
q/ha compared to the manual transplanting. The total variable cost with the machine transplantation does not
show any significant difference with the transplantation method. Government is also promoting machine
transplanters through subsidized policy to the farming community. However, relevant capacity building
programs on the mat nursery preparation for machine transplanting is lacking.
Description
Keywords
Machine Transplanting, Labour Utilization, Cost of Cultivation
Citation
Reddy K Gurava, Reddy Kakumanu Krishna. Can Mechanization Reduce Labour and Water Demand in Agriculture? A Case of Rice Transplanters in Andhra Pradesh. International Journal of Applied Biology and Pharmaceutical Technology. 2015 Oct-Dec; 6(4): 29-34.