Context: The Central and State governments are encouraging mechanisation of farming to increase the efficiency of farming.

• Covid-19 might accelerate farm mechanisation as farmers had to rely on machinery for works during lockdowns.

Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization

• The Central government launched ‘Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM)’ in 2014.

Aim

• To make farm machines accessible and affordable for the small and marginal farmers.
• To increase the ratio of farm power to cultivable unit area up to 2.5 kW/ha.
• There has been a significant increase in the adoption of agriculture machines over a period of time.

Benefits of mechanisation

• As of February 2021, more than 13 lakh agricultural machines have been distributed.
• The farm power availability has increased from 2.02 kw/ha in 2016-17 to 2.49 kw/ha in 2018-19.
• Mechanisation helped in the overall increase of 17.9 per cent in productivity and 14.1 per cent in seed germination.

Mechanisation also helped in saving

• Nearly one-third of the time of operations
• 11 per cent reduction in seed rate
• 26.6 per cent reduction in weed instances
• 22.4 per cent reduction in diesel consumption
• 12.7 per cent reduction in fertiliser requirements.

Concerns

• As per Census 2011, there are 263.1 million agricultural workers in the country.
• They comprise 118.8 million cultivators
• 144.3 million agricultural labourers
• The government estimates 30 per cent of the reduction in labour requirements once mechanisation gains momentum.

Key Facts

• Sugarcane is one of the least mechanised crops, especially when it comes to harvesting and threshing.
• Only 10 per cent of field operations in sugarcane planting and harvesting are mechanised.