Selective Mechanization of Castor crop in Andhra Pradesh to reduce the Cost of cultivation: A case study

Castor crop is grown in wider area under rainfed conditions in which the productivity is very low because of adverse whether conditions in addition to limited resources with poor soils. Hence the resource management and timeliness of operations play a wider role to increase the productivity under dryland conditions. The costs of all the crop production operations are increasing year by year because of high input costs and labour scarcity. To solve these problems, the critical operations like sowing, intercultivation and shelling are mechanized to study their impact on productivity and economics of the castor crop production. The study revealed that the productivity is increased by 25% with 65% saving on cost of cultivation with the mechanization when compared to the conventional practice.