The unfinished job of farm mechanisation

Drudgery mitigation is not the prime objective of agriculture mechanisation, though it certainly is one of the much-needed and sought-after outcomes of it. The use of machines seems imperative to improve precision and efficiency of farm operations, reduce costs, and enhance the productivity and profitability of farming. The growing scarcity of farm labour and the steady rise in wage rates in many states are also spurring the use of machines. However, the current level of farm mechanisation in India, reckoned officially at 47 per cent, is far lower than the 60 per cent in China and 75 per cent in Brazil. In agriculturally advanced countries, where land holdings are large and the proportion of the population engaged in farming is rather meagre, more than 95 per cent of farm work is carried out mechanically. In India, of course, mechanisation of that level is neither necessary nor desirable. But the present extent of farm mechanisation is, indisputably, below par and needs to be scaled up.

The application of engineering and technology is, indeed, farm size-neutral and can be as advantageous in small farms as in larger ones. This fact has been underscored even by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture in its report presented last July. The panel not only endorsed greater use of machines on small, marginal, and fragmented land holdings that abound in India but went on to commend the deployment of tiny robots and artificial intelligence (AI) in these farms. Noting that nearly 86 per cent of the country’s farm holdings are of less than 2 hectares in size and belong to the category of small and marginal farms, the committee recommended that concerted efforts were required to develop and promote AI, robots, and mechanical equipment devised specifically for use on small fields.

Going by this report, the benefits of farm mechanisation are aplenty and far-reaching. Besides reducing the labour requirement by 20-30 per cent, mechanised sowing can bring down the use of seeds by 15-20 per cent and boost seed germination by 7-25 per cent. Similarly, the use of proper tools can slash the cost of weed removal by 20-40 per cent. And more importantly, mechanisation can facilitate a 5-20 per cent increase in cropping intensity, thereby enhancing the overall crop yields by 13-23 per cent. This panel has, therefore, called upon the government to strive to achieve the goal of raising farm mechanisation level to 75 per cent much earlier than in the stipulated 25 years.

Farmers’ decision to mechanise routine farm chores is guided by several factors apart from the availability and cost of agricultural labour. The notable ones among them are the economic status of the farmer, cropping pattern, availability of water for irrigation, agro-ecological conditions, and, most significantly, the access to credit and subsidies for purchasing or hiring farm equipment. That explains why the mechanisation level is very high in areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, and some southern states, but almost negligible in the Northeastern region.

According to an assessment by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), seedbed preparation is the most mechanised of operations for crops like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, and millets, and commercial crops such as cotton and sugarcane. The average level of mechanisation in their case is more than 70 per cent. Wheat sowing is mechanised to the extent of 65 per cent though transplanting paddy is still done manually on nearly 80 per cent of the area. However, the level of mechanisation of harvesting operations is about the same, around 65 per cent, for both wheat and rice. Cotton harvesting, which involves multiple pickings, is done mostly manually.

That said, the truth also is that the possession of farm machinery has become a status symbol for farm households in many agriculturally progressive areas. This has resulted in farmers acquiring tractors and other machines of far larger size and capacity than is justified by the area of their landholdings. This amounts to needlessly blocking large sums of borrowed money in farm equipment used only for a limited period in a year. Such wasteful investment can be avoided by improving farmers’ access to farm machines through common facilities like custom-hiring centres and farm-machinery banks, which can lend such equipment to them when needed. No doubt, facilitating the setting up of such centres has been one of the key objectives of the government-sponsored “sub-mission on agricultural mechanisation”, but, as pointed out in the Parliamentary Committee’s report, the progress on this front is not up to the mark. Only around 38,000 custom-hiring centres and 17,700-odd farm-machinery banks have come up in the country till now. These are grossly inadequate. There is also a need to encourage designing small and simple machines which can be manufactured by small and medium enterprises for use on tiny holdings. This would help accelerate the pace of agricultural mechanisation in the country.

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