A Study About the Level of Farm Mechanization in Etawah District of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Agricultural system all over the world has undergone changes in terms of cropping system, the type of power sources used and the application of inputs to achieve high level of productivity. Even in India, the mechanization of agriculture has advanced considerably. In a certain regions, the level of mechanization has gone far ahead of the average level in the country. Human and animal power sources are no longer the predominant sources on Indian farms. The shortage of laborers and high labor wages are the factors which strongly propel mechanization. Consequently, the more labourer-intensive operations, such as pumping of irrigation water, land preparation and threshing are the first operations, which are mechanized. Large amount laborer or draft power, which can be replaced through machines, provides a strong incentive to mechanize. The three stages sampling technique was done for the selection of Blocks, Villages and farmers. All the 08 Blocks of Etawah District, 40 Villages (05 Villages from each Block) and 160 farmers (04 farmers from each Villages) were selected purposively. Data were collected / recorded on structured schedule & questionnaires by the personal interview method after then data were tabulated and analysed for the purpose. The findings of the study were revealed that the mechanization level of farmers regarding the milling and water lifting tubewell (ranked first) was highest followed by carrying/transporting, threshing, seedbed preparation / tillage (ranked second), digging (ranked third), shelling (ranked fourth), hauling, planting (ranked fifth) and crushing, winnowing /cleaning/grading (ranked six). The highest cost of farm machinery/equipment was the most important constraint followed by small size and fragmented land holdings, lack of appropriate farm machineries/equipments suited to small and marginal farmers and lack of interest in rural youths as agricultural entrepreneurs.