India lags far behind other nations like Japan in farm mechanisation and efforts are being made to promote use of agricultural machineries to address labour crisis, a senior government official said today.

“In farm mechanisation, we have not achieved much so far as compared to other major countries. Only 10—15 per cent of sugarcane crop is harvested with machines. Big intervention is required in this area,” said V N Kali, Additional Commissioner in the Agriculture Ministry at an event organised by Sugar Technologies Association of India (STAI).

In India, 15—16 tractors are used in 1,000 hectare, against 88 tractors in the UK and 461 in Japan. The use of farm machines is largely confined to Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu, he said.

The adoption of farm machineries is slow due to small land holdings. Also, banks are not willing to lend farmers to buy costilier machines due to low credit worthiness, he added.

Noting that individual ownership of farm machineries is not economical for small and marginal farmers, Kali said a ’submission on farm mechnisation’ will soon be launched with focus on such farmers during 12th Five Year Plan (2012—17).

That apart, efforts are also being made to set up a separate ‘credit guarantee fund’ and ‘venture capital fund’ to support entrepreneurs and farmers for purchase of machineries.

Besides government’s intervention, Sugar Technologies Association of India (STAI) Vice President R L Tamak suggested global farm machineries makers John Deere and New Holland to customise agri—machineries with local needs.

“Farm machanisation is only 10 per cent in India. Farmers have small land holdings and mechanisation should meet farm needs. This is a big challenge before manufacturers,” he said.

John Deere and New Holland, which have good presence in India, should develop localised sugarcane harvesters that have low capital and maintenance cost, user friendly and fuel efficient and operable in variable row geometry, he said.

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