Farm Power and Machinery Availability on Indian Farms

Farm mechanization has been helpful to bring about a significant improvement in agricultural productivity. Thus, there is strong need for mechanization of agricultural operations. The timeliness of operations has assumed greater significant in obtaining optimal yields from different crops, which has been possible by way of mechanization. The quality and precision of the operations are equally significant for realizing higher yields. The various operations such as land levelling, irrigation, sowing and planting, use of fertilizers, plant protection, harvesting and threshing need a high degree of precision to increase the efficiency of the inputs and reduce the losses. With the increase in intensity of cropping the turnaround time is drastically reduced and it is not possible to harvest and thresh the standing crop, on one hand, and prepare seed bed and do timely sowing operations of subsequent crop, on the other hand, in the limited time available, unless adequate farm power and matching implement is available. As such there is a strong need for more authentic figures relating to the items pertaining to agricultural implements and machinery. In the changing scenario, it has become more important to have projection estimates of total number of agricultural machinery and implements. An attempt has been made to use available yearly data and make the projected population of agricultural machinery and implements.