Indian agriculture is traditionally a system of rainfed and dryland agriculture. 65% of the total cropped area comes under rainfed farming situation. 45% of the food grain production and 75 – 80% of pulses and oilseed production came from rainfed areas. Though the rainfed / drylands are receiving less amount of rainfall, the intensity was very high which leads to runoff results in top soil erosion and more amount of pebbles and stones are left out from the field. Over the years, the productive lands become barren / uncultivable one because of the low fertility, water holding capacity and the presence of stones and pebbles.
Development of agricultural sector is driven by innovations at all level. Farmers have come out with numerous innovations in technologies, machineries which brought them good returns and made farming sustainable practices. Since last three years, MYRADA Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Erode district actively involved in identifying and documenting of farm innovations in a farmer participatory mode.
Agriculture / Farming practices in the recent past is heavily depends on agricultural labourers and raising cost of cultivation, acute labour shortage to carry out the farming practices in time, leads to think of farmers on alternative practices for improving their farm productivity in a sustainable manner. |
Hilly regions and rainfed soils contains small pebbles and stones present in the agricultural land, hinders the farming activities such as land preparation and intercultural operations. “Huge amount of labour is engaged and its unavailability is the major problem faced by the farmers. In general, the women are engaged in the removal of pebbles stones in the dry land farming before the start of the cropping season, and they undergo serious physical stress while doing such field operations”.
Mr.K.Viswanathan, an innovative farmer turn to be a mechanic from Kullampalayam village of Gobichettipalayam Taluk, Erode District invented the stone remover which is tractor operated one to collect the small pebbles and stones from the field. He says that, from the childhood he observed the female labours engaged for removing the stones and pebbles and their sufferings made him to think for alternate device to reduce the drudgery of farm women and also to manage the shortage of the labour in farming.
Stone remover is a tractor mounted equipment requires 35 HP and above power. It consists of conveyor chains drive gearbox, PTO shaft and the bottom of the stone remover is connected with tines. Back side of the equipment is connected with tippers. While operating the stone remover equipment the conveyor chain is rotated on 12 – 16 rotation per minute. At the same time, the tines are loosening the soil and the stones and small pebbles are pulled in the conveyor chain and collected in the tipper. It picks the stone ranges from 25mm to 120mm size. It collects the stones from 15 – 25 cm depth. Field capacity of this equipment is 5 acres /day and the cost of operation come sum of Rs.1600.00 per acre. “No such machineries are available in the system and it is a new kind for the benefit of farmers in our country. In dryland farming system, the stone removing activity is essential before starting of the cropping season in order to obtain the optimum productivity from the farming. In this context this particular innovation is essential to improve productivity of the farming in dryland condition. The cost of the machine comes around sum of Rs.1,50,000.00. |
