The Centre is encouraging farm mechanisation through different policy interventions, including subsidies for power tillers. A dedicated sub-mission on agricultural mechanisation has been initiated with a focus on spreading farm mechanisation to small and marginal farmers and regions that have low farm power availability.
“The joint efforts made by the government and the farm equipment industry have led to such progress in mechanisation over the years,” said Jasmeet Singh, head, agriculture, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The objective is to focus on innovation in farm machinery sector to drive the next phase of agricultural growth in the country.
“The role offarm mechanisation has now gone beyond tractorisation, with more emphasis on increasing productivity on land and labour and increasing work output per unit time,” said Singh, who was in Bengaluru for the road show of the fifth edition of EIMA AgriMachIndia, which is slated to be held in New Delhi between December7 and 9,2017.
Rajesh Lingampalli, divisional manager, John Deere, said, “There is a huge business opportunity for farm machinery in India.The government should set up custom hiring centres for farmers to have access to advanced equipment.”
In addition, it will also have food processing organisations and agro start-ups to double farm income. It already has identified 177 such companies in Uttar Pradesh and 113 in Madhya Pradesh.
Chipping in with his expertise from an educational perspective was DrNR Gangadharappa, director, research, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bengaluru, who said, “Agriculture is critical for India’s growth and farm mechanisationis much wanted to offset labour shortage.”
Giving a perspective on the power tiller industry was BCS Iyengar, secretary, Power Tillers’ Association of India, who said, “Karnataka is the largest user of this agri implement. The state government’s subsidy has enabled us to encourage even small and marginal farmers to have access to these power tillers.”