Labour shortage over the years has made the task of plucking coconut and arecanut difficult for farmers.
However, a retired sales tax official from Kerala has manufactured an instrument that can climb the tree and pluck individual nut of your choice or remove the coconut bunch itself, if you want.
Prakashan Tattari from Kozhikode in Kerala demonstrated the equipment, what he calls ‘Wonder Climber’, to pluck coconut and arecanut from trees.
He was one of the innovative farmers whose stall was a highlight in the agri machinery fair in Puttur of Dakshina Kannada district recently. The fair was jointly organised by Campco, Arecanut Research and Development Foundation, and Vivekananda College of Engineering and Technology, Puttur.
For plucking coconut from trees, he has developed remote-controlled and manually-controlled versions. While the manually operated version costs Rs 5,000 a piece, the remote control version costs around Rs 25,000, he said.
H.S. Srinivas, convenor of the agri machinery fair, said there were more than 150 stalls at the fair. Of them, 39 belong to innovators and 22 to students, he said.