Farm mechanization in India: Economic issues, perspective and opportunities

Download or read book Farm mechanization in India: Economic issues, perspective and opportunities written by Ranjith Kumar P.S and published by Prem Jose. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mechanization is a process of replacing biological sources of energy involving animal and human labour to mechanized sources of energy. Farm mechanization indicates the use of machines for conducting agricultural operations replacing the traditional methods which involve human and animal labour. In the period 2004-05 to 2011-12, robust growth in the secondary and tertiary sectors led to significant job creation in agriculture sector. Tractors and power tillers have been driving the farm mechanization in India. Tractor sales have grown at a CAGR of 9.0 % in Financial Year (FY) 05-15 to around 5.5 lakh tractors in FY15 (around 2.3 lakh in FY2005) whereas sales of power tillers have grown at a CAGR of 10.6% in FY2005 to 2015 to 48,000 power tillers in FY2015 (17,841 in FY2005). Farm mechanisation is a fuel to agriculture production now days. As several studies indicate the mechanisation not only reduced the drudgery of manual labour and it enables the efficient and judicious use of resources. The increased agricultural production and productivity over the decades is coupled with the farm power availability. High labour intensive crops have turned to low labour intensive crops by replacing the mechanical power, which also reduced the cost of production and improved quality of produce led to increased farmers income share.