Centre encouraging ryots to adopt mechanisation: ICAR official

: The Centre has been encouraging farmers to buy farm implements and machines at a subsidy of upto 80 per cent, deputy director general of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Dr K Alagusundaram said Friday.

In his address at the farm machinery mela organised at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here, Alagusundaram said the encouragement was given through the department of agricultural cooperative centres and customer hiring centres.

There were around 3,000 such hiring centres set up in Punjab and Haryana alone, he said.

Agriculture in the country was 48 per cent mechanised and it would take another 20 years to increase mechanisation to 70 per cent, he said while asking farmers to knock at the door of scientific institutions for technological knowhow on farm technologies.

In his address at the one-day mela, TNAU vice-chancellor Dr N Kumar highlighted the growing importance of agricultural equipment for achieving higher work efficiency.

He suggested a 'customer feedback approach' towards farm machines as was being done by car-manufacturers in order to fine-tune the efficiency of the farm machines so as to have wider acceptance.

Later, three farmers - Saravanan of Namakkal, Sugavanam Sivaprakasam of Sandhiyur and S Duraisamy of Karur - were presented with the best beneficiary farmers award.

Twenty appreciation certificates were presented to farmers who have adopted machine technology on a large-scale.

About 800 farmers across Tamil Nadu visited the mela that was coordinated by 21 Krishi Vigyan Kendras which are agricultural extension centres.

The centres serve as a link between ICAR and farmers, and aim at applying agricultural research in a practical, localised setting.