Farm mechanization in sugarcane cultivation to enhance the income of smallholder farmers

Abstract

Sugarcane, an important cash crop of the country, is cultivated in about 5 million ha with average productivity of approximately 70 tonnes per ha. It is an energy and labour intensive crop. Sustainability of sugar production is being hampered due to increasing cost of production of sugarcane. Mechanization of different cultural operations of sugarcane is an effective way for reducing the cost of operation. Indian agriculture is characterized with small holding farms and sugarcane is no exception. Most ofthe sugarcane growers are small holding farmers. ICAR-Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow (IISR) has developed tractor operated machineries for realizing the benefit of mechanization of sugarcane farming to small holding farms. Developed machineries includes culti-harrow a combination secondary tillage machine for seed bed preparation; sugarcane cutter planters (ridger type- flat planting, deep furrower type- furrow planting, trench planting- paired furrow planning) for performing all the unit operations involved in planting including sett cutting simultaneously in single pass; companion crop planters (sugarcane planter-cum-raised bed seeder- planting of sugarcane along with simultaneous sowing of intercrops on the raised beds, sugarcane-potato planters- planting of sugarcane in furrows along with simultaneous planting of potato on the ridges; sugarcane manager for interculturing and sowing of intercrops in ratoon field; ratoon management device for stubble shaving, off barring, fertilizer application simultaneously during initiation of ratoon after harvesting. These machineries have been field tested at IISR and other locations including farmers field. Most of the developed machineries have been found very useful in saving labour, cost and time of operation. There is need for adoptions of these machineries for bringing cost efficiency in sugarcane production system.