Availability and status of different farm power sources and mechanization in Odisha state

Abstract

The status of farm mechanization, farm power availability, farm machinery sales are addressed in this study. The total farm power availability in Odisha agriculture is 2.93 kW/ha in 2016-17. This paper discusses the trend of mechanization status in Odisha. It has been found that there a large scope of mechanization in the state as there is minimum share of machine labour in the total cost of cultivating the principle crops.There is high need of adoption of suitable small machines and low cost especially for tillage, transplanting, weeding, harvesting and threshing operations. Massive awareness programme need to be carried out among the farmers of Odisha for popularizing the need based and crop specific machinery, available at the various research organizations of the state and the country for enhancing mechanization. Farm mechanization in India : Mechanization of agriculture enhances productivity, besides reducing human drudgery and cost of cultivation. Mechanization also helps in improving utilization efficiency of other inputs like safety and comfort of the agricultural worker. Total farm mechanization in India has been lower at 40-45% compared to other countries such as USA (95%), Brazil (75%) and China (57%). Government has decided to enhance farm power availability from 2.02 kW/ha (2016-17) to 4.0 kW/ha by the end of 2030 to cope up with increasing demand for food grains. Farm mechanization market in India has been growing at a CAGR of 7.53 per cent during 2016-2020 due to thrust given by various government policies