aSchool of Agricultural Economics & Horti-Business Management
bCollege of Agricultural Engineering, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar-190025, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir
Online published on 5 December, 2018.
The level of farm mechanization in Jammu & Kashmir is hampered by terraced, small and irregular fields, undulating topography, lack of skilled manpower, as well as poor facilities for repair, maintenance and manufacture of implements. The state could not reap benefits out of technological breakthroughs of mechanization from R&D institutes due to differences in crop mix as well as topography to that of plains. Growing labour scarcity and increasing wage rates in the state is further pushing farmers towards the wall. The state had to come with its own solutions for farm mechanization problems. It was in this backdrop that the machines were designed and fabricated by the SKUAST-Kashmir to meet the mechanized solutions for some of major fruit crops. The designed machines viz., Motorized Walnut Dehuller, Motorised Almond Dehuller, Manual Almond Dehuller and Apricot Harvester were evaluated at field conditions and found cost effective with high output efficiency. The potential cost minimization on part of the designed machines was significant (Rs.557 million at state level) thereby, increasing farmers’ income by Rs 5430/ha. The farmer groups may own and operate these machines on collective basis and may also provide them on custom hiring basis to other farmers. There lies an ample scope for entrepreneurship development in the mechanized farm service sector of the state, wherein, these newly designed machines may be owned by entrepreneurs to provide these to farmers on custom hiring basis or act as service provider company for harvest and post-harvest operations in temperate fruit crops.
