Chhattisgarh is among seven States in the country to have made good progress in the field of farm mechanisation by utilising the allocated fund, Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh has said.
The Minister said that during the last three years, more than Rs 3,088 crore have been allocated to the State Governments for farm mechanisation under various schemes of the department. During the current year 2017-18, the allocation for SMAM has been increased more than two times as compared to the previous year (Rs 577 crore).
Singh said agricultural mechanisation is one of the important factors for sustainable development of the agricultural sector which helps in increasing production through agricultural works, reducing the deficit, reducing the cost of various agricultural works through the better management of costly inputs, increasing the productivity of natural resources and
help reduce the difficulties related to various agricultural activities.
He was delivering address at the the Inter Session Meeting of the Consultative Committee held at the Sher-e-Kashmir International Conference Center in Srinagar on Monday. The subject chosen for discussion during this meeting was ‘Farm Mechanisation’. On this occasion, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Sudarshan Bhagat, and members of
the Consultative Committee were also present.
Singh said that in the last few years there has been a shift has been towards the use of mechanical and electrical sources of power. While in 1960-61, about 92.30% farm power was coming from animate sources, in 2014-15 the contribution of animate sources of power reduced to about 9.46% and that of mechanical and electrical sources of power increased from 7.70% in 1960-61 to about 90.54% in 2014-15.
He said that the degree of farm mechanisation is expressed as a ratio of mechanical power to cultivable unit area, which in India during last 43 years has increased at a very slow pace from 0.48 kW/ha in 1975-76 to 1.84 kW/ha in 2013-14. However, from the year 2014-15 to 2016-17, it has been increased to 2.02 kW/ha which is mainly due to concentrated efforts for promotion of agricultural mechanisation through various schemes of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare.
Singh said that there has been a record production of food grain this year. However, the demand for food grain is increasing and it has been estimated that by 2025 we have to produce more than 300 million tonnes.
According to the 2011 census, 263 million people (54.6%) are engaged in the agriculture sector, which is likely to declined to 190 million (33%) by 2020.
He said that these figures show that during important seasons such as sowing and harvesting there will be a decrease in the work force and it will have an adverse effect on production.
Thus, the additional demand of energy for various agricultural works need to be completed through the medium and for this, the agricultural mechanisation sector needs to grow rapidly.
The Minister said that due to continuous shrinkage in the average size of the agricultural lands, more lands will fall in the adverse category, which will make individual ownership of agricultural machinery gradually and more informal.
Therefore, ensuring availability of sufficient farm power for small farms will be a big
challenge.
The other challenges in the field of agricultural mechanisation are how to overcome skill barriers to provide adequate support to modern technology.
In future, it is necessary to establish a link between the possibility of sustainable development of agricultural mechanisation without neglecting the lack of energy and environmental degradation due to low availability of fossil fuels and its high cost.