Morung Express News
Kohima | August 4
As Nagaland’s agricultural landscape evolves, the synergy between modern techniques and machinery, government support is poised to unlock new opportunities for rural farmers.
Looking at this year’s rice transplanting season, the busiest for the farmers, Abei from Chedema village said he gained newer experience in farm mechanisation by introducing a Paddy transplanter in his field and neighbouring paddy fields.
The machine was provided on trial basis by the State Agriculture department.
“I quickly learned to use it as it was manually operated and simple,” he shared, adding that it simplified work extensively, saving time and labour.
“The paddy was transplanted within 2 hours, which usually takes about 10 people to transplant the whole day,” the farmer maintained.
“I also prepared the seedlings from home which was ready in about 20 days with local rice seeds. I used only 3 kgs unlike traditional practice of sowing 10 kgs,” Abei added.
Like Abei, other farmers are making use such machineries and tools.
Posanii, aged about 50 years, shared that when a paddy transplanter was brought to her field in Kezoma village, she was asked to try operating the machine.
Initially hesitant, she found the transplanter to be very light, easy to operate, and easy to carry.
Power tillers, tractors, rice mill machines, weeders, grass cutters, paddy threshers etc are being used presently for farming.
SMAM scheme
Many of those machines are rarely acquired personally, but enabled mostly through government programmes and schemes.
In this regard, Advisor for Agriculture Mhathung Yanthan opined that new machines introduced in the farming sector are first bought for trial and once it is observed to be feasible, it is augmented through government schemes.
A former officer in the department, Yanthan, who has been serving as an agriculture Advisor for two consecutive terms highlighted existing centrally sponsored schemes called Sub-mission on Agriculture Mechanisation (SMAM), where tools and machineries are provided to farmers free of cost or at subsidy.
“Much of the machineries being used in Nagaland so far relates to the farming system prevailing in the state, topography and which are user friendly, suitable for all genders and terrain friendly given the fact that our region is mostly mountainous and hilly and at the same time suited to small scale farmers,” he noted.
Machineries which can be easily carried and maneuvered are prioritised.
The Advisor mentioned that through the government, commonly distributed machines include tractors with higher horsepower (over 45 HP) for foothill areas and power tillers of various capacities, recommended based on the size of the fields.
“Mechanised or motor operated paddy thrasher have been introduced observing the fact that the process of paddy trashing is also tedious and time consuming. Other machines to aid agriculture farming are water pumpers or brush cutters to clean weeds or weeders,” he added.
Regarding new machinery, Yanthan mentioned that the government is evaluating which machines might be suitable for the state by considering Chinese models due to their similarities with the local terrain. He added that they are awaiting reviews of the paddy transplanters acquired for trial last year.
One challenge is the cost of automatic machines which are very high to that of manually operated machines which tend to be difficult and time consuming, he said.
Advantages and concerns
Speaking of the need for mechanisation, Dr Liza Kiba, Research Associate, Department of Agricultural Engineering, School Of Agricultural Sciences, Nagaland University said it is important to meet present situation and unpredictable calamities or “in case of occurrences of flood, drought, and other natural disasters, mechanisation is the only option that can handle problems for land preparation, crop establishment, harvesting, threshing, and drying of different crops timely.”
She also noted that the rural workforce is shifting from agriculture to the industrial and service sectors, resulting in a severe shortage of agricultural labour during peak planting and harvesting periods.
This shortage serves as main constraint on successful crop production, she added,
From a practical perspective, farmers like Abei consider both cost and labour when evaluating the advantages of machinery, especially since much of it is subsidised by the government.
“Rates of labour keeps increasing very year and in this type of farming, only our local farmers can be engaged,” he stressed, further observing that more expenses are accrued during transplanting or harvesting season.
However, due to help of machines, even uncultivated lands are being utilised again, he added.
Meanwhile, Advisor Yanthan maintained when machines are provided, it automatically promotes economy of the farmers and output of the agriculture produces.
“In a village that I recently visited, they are practicing not only double but triple cropping which is every encouraging and impressive,” he claimed.
Despite its advantages, Dr. Kiba cited scattered land holdings or small farm sizes and grossly insufficient facilities for fabricating and repairing farm implements as constraints that hinder large-scale mechanisation from being conducive or economical.
He also highlighted concerns about the long-term displacement of the labour force, land degradation due to extensive excavation, and environmental pollution.
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