Abstract
Agricultural mechanization and it is impact on agricultural productivity was studied by many authors in different areas in the world. Irrigated agriculture in the Sudan, have played a significant role in expanding agricultural mechanization, and the major mechanized operation is the land preparation, operations such as planting, spraying, fertilizer application, mechanical weeding and harvesting are still largely carried out manually. A baseline survey on mechanization status was implemented in River Nile State, focuses on mechanization status for production of wheat as strategic crop, legumes as food crops, onion and alfalfa as cash crops in smallholder farms. The analysis of respondents answers show that tillage operation has the high percent (90.5-93.3%) of mechanical power among other operations for production of the selected crops, where wheat has considerable percent of using mechanical power in sowing and harvesting operations compare to the three rest crops. For legumes and alfalfa broadcasting of seeds for sowing and cutting and binding at harvest operations, still manual activity prevailing, where for onion transplanting are 100% carried out manually.The mechanization level range between 0.2-0.58, which reflect the less number of tractors to the cultivated areas in the state. Concerning the mechanization index as the ratio of mechanical power to the total power input in term of MJ/ha for each crop range from 0.03- 0.07, shows that manual and animal power still exerted to produce such crops.
Highlights
The status of agricultural mechanization and its impact in increasing the agricultural and labour productivity were studied by some authors, Adnan et al (2017) study mechanization index and it is impact on productivity with socio-economic factors, Olaoye and Adekanye (2014) investigated mechanization index in some settlement schemes in Nigeria, Patrick and Tapela (2002) concluded from their reviewed of agricultural mechanization in Botswana, animal draft power is still use with greatest intervention in mechanization by the government, Krishnasreni and Thongsawatwong (2004) concluded that agricultural mechanization has important role in improving production during economic crisis faced Thailand
Irrigated agriculture in Sudan, as the large scale irrigation scheme such as the Gezira, initiated in 1925 over 0.9 million hectares, with the irrigation system is the highest levels of irrigation in the region, that since the 1940s have to play a significant role in expanding agricultural mechanization, till that time the major full mechanized operation is the land preparation, with low level of mechanization for other secondary operations (Figure 1)
The analysis of respondents answers show that the mechanical plowing for tillage using tractor with 3bottom disk plow has the range of 88.2-93.3% of mechanized operation among other operations for production of the selected crops, where wheat has considerable percent about 7.1% and 21.8% of using mechanical power in sowing and direct harvesting operations respectively, compare to the three rest crops (Table 1)
Summary
The status of agricultural mechanization and its impact in increasing the agricultural and labour productivity were studied by some authors, Adnan et al (2017) study mechanization index and it is impact on productivity with socio-economic factors, Olaoye and Adekanye (2014) investigated mechanization index in some settlement schemes in Nigeria, Patrick and Tapela (2002) concluded from their reviewed of agricultural mechanization in Botswana, animal draft power is still use with greatest intervention in mechanization by the government, Krishnasreni and Thongsawatwong (2004) concluded that agricultural mechanization has important role in improving production during economic crisis faced Thailand. Zeren (1991) express that agricultural mechanization has not direct effect on increasing farm yield, but it helps to use modern technologies in agriculture, eases working conditions in farms and spare manpower to other activities in other sectors, but Singh (2001) for analysis of data from 1950-1997, shows that the yield is positively related to power available in both time and space, and Chen, Yu, Chang, and Hsu (2008) revealed that mechanization utilization has caused to agricultural productivity growth during 1990-2003. In most the new other irrigation schemes in the other parts of the Sudan, operations such as planting, spraying, fertilizer application, mechanical weeding and harvesting are still largely carried out manually. This show that farm power in the Sudan irrigated agriculture relies to some extent on human muscle power that depend on the traditional hoe and other hand tools for farm operations, and to tractors in land preparation and threshing
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