Farm Mechanization vis-a-vis Agricultural Production in Punjab

Punjab is an agriculturally progressive state with about 95% of gross cropped area under irrigation and has considerably increased agricultural production from the 4.26 M ha of cultivated area, About 15–20% of the state population is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture. Land productivity has increased from 1.79 t/ha in 1970–71 to 5.83 t/ha in 2001–02. This has been achieved through the adoption of improved seeds, fertilizer, irrigation water, mechanized farming and other chemical & mechanical inputs along with required infrastructure and facilities in the rural area. This has helped them in increasing the food grain production from 0.73 million tonnes in 1970–71 to 2.489 million tonnes in 2001–2002. The average farm holding in the state is 3.98 ha. Punjab agriculture is highly energy intensive and thus heavily depends on tractors (0.441 million), diesel engines (0.165 million) and electric motors (0.785 million). All this has resulted in contribution of 36% of rice and 58% of wheat to the central pool alone from the state. The farm power availability per unit cultivated area from all sources (animate & mechanical) has increased from 0.69 kW/ha in 1970–71 to 3.76 kW/ha in 2001–2002. This clearly shows that the rate of increase of farm power per unit cultivable land is much higher than that of per unit production.