The Hindu Business Line : Combine harvesters usher change in foodgrains marketing

TOOLS OF CHANGE: A harvester combine being taken along the national highway in Amritsar. A combine operator typically travels from Madhya Pradesh to Jammu, providing harvesting services on custom hiring basis to farmers on the way. — Kamal Narang

Ludhiana , April 26

IF there is one thing that has fundamentally transformed the way in which wheat and paddy is marketed in the country today, it is the use of combine harvesters.

There was a time, when harvesting of wheat — which, in Punjab and Haryana, traditionally begins in mid-April after Baisakhi — would usually stretch right up to mid-July. The wheat used to be harvested using sickles, after which threshing (separation of grain from the straw) was done by bullock treading and manual winnowing. Given the sheer time involved, a good part of the crop would suffer damage on account of monsoon rains.

The situation improved in the 1970s with the introduction of power threshers, which could cover one hectare (2.47 acres) in about 12 hours. The thresher, used in conjunction with manual sickle harvesting, is estimated to have reduced the total labour/animal requirement per hectare from about 37 man-days and seven bullock-pair days to slightly over 30 man-days.

But it is with the advent of harvester combines from the 1980s that the real change has taken place. A combine can harvest, thresh and clean a hectare of wheat — all at one go — in just about an hour. "If it is a tractor-driven combine, one can cover 1.2-1.5 acres in an hour. If it is self-propelled, you can do 2-2.5 acres", says Dr S.S. Ahuja, Head of the Department of Farm Power and Engineering at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here.

According to his estimates — made a couple of seasons ago — about 82 per cent of the paddy and over 72 per cent of the wheat grown in Punjab is harvested using combines. What this has translated to in real terms is that if someone were to visit Punjab after April 25 in the hope of witnessing harvesting operations, he would be sorely disappointed. "Harvesting is now a matter of hardly 10 days," Dr Ahuja points out.

The bulk of harvesting is done on a custom-hiring basis. Given that a self-propelled combine costs upwards of Rs 10 lakh, it is more economical for farmers to hire rather than own one. In fact, there exists today a virtual industry of mobile combine operators, who offer the services of their machine to farmers, right from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh all the way to Jammu.

"They begin by harvesting wheat in MP, which matures towards end-February. The combine is then taken to Haryana, Punjab and Jammu, which get covered by mid-May. After that, they start afresh in September by harvesting soyabean in MP and then paddy in the northern region," Dr Ahuja explains. A typical combine operates for about 500 hours, with the usage rising to 700 hours for newer branded machines.

Combine hiring charges in Punjab are around Rs 1,300 a hectare for wheat, against Rs 5,000 a hectare incurred in manual harvesting and threshing. But the problem with combines is poor recovery and quality of straw. As they operate 30-40 cm above the ground, the combines leave behind long stalks, salvaging which costs an additional Rs 1,400 a hectare. Even here, the straw recovery is only 45-50 per cent, unlike 90 per cent or more in normal threshing. The cost of lost wheat straw would be another Rs 1,800 a hectare.

"The real savings in using combines is not in costs as much as in time and labour," notes Mr Kartar Singh Gill, a farmer from village Sultanpur of Samrala tehsil here.

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