The Hindu Business Line : Competition sees combine harvester charges static

Recently in Karnal (Haryana) Mr Sunil Kumar is young but enterprising. He has at least 25 acres of agricultural land in which he grows wheat and rice. Not satisfied with that income, he owns a couple of combine harvesters, machine that combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning of grain, to supplement his income.

The use of the combine harvesters has become so popular that these days, it is impossible to think of grains harvest without it. Since the advent of the machine, harvest of wheat gets over in a matter of two weeks or mostly before April-end.

Returns

The problem for Mr Kumar is returns for his combine harvesters. Despite rise in minimum support price of wheat by over 50 per cent in the last three years, charges for the machine to harvest wheat have remained dormant.

“We are getting the same rate for harvesting wheat through our combine as last year. This is because competition has increased among combine harvesters. More such machines are available these days,” he says.

To harvest an acre of wheat, an owner of combine harvester charges not more than Rs 700. “There are people who are ready to do the job at Rs 500,” Mr Kumar says.

Charges

In fact, across the border in Punjab, the combine harvesters have been charging only Rs 450 an acre.

“But if the crops were to fall due to rain or hailstorm as it happened this year, we have to pay more,” says Mr Sukhdev Singh of Dagru village near Moga in Punjab. “I had to pay Rs 500 an acre this year because my crop was hit by hailstorm,” he says.

This is because it is difficult for a harvester to cut the crop in a field where it has fallen. In contrast, it is easy to cut a mature standing crop.

Combine harvesters are mainly based in Punjab and Haryana but they travel as far as Madhya Pradesh to harvest.

“We have finished harvesting wheat in Madhya Pradesh in the first week of April. It was a good crop and farmers got Rs 1,160 a quintal,” says Mr Kumar.

Every year, the number of combine harvester gets added. There should be at least 25,000 harvesters in Haryana and of these, 2,000 could have been added this year, says Mr Kumar.

In fact, on the National Highway from New Delhi to Ludhiana, it would be surprising if one does not find a harvester every km.

Intense competition

Input costs such as diesel and labour for the combine harvesters are increasing but the owners have no choice but to bear it. “The competition is so intense that we cannot simply increase the charges,” says another combine harvest owner.

“Charges for combine harvests were raised a couple of years ago from Rs 350 an acre in Punjab,” says Mr Sukhdev Singh.

With availability of labour being a problem this year, the combine harvesters are a boon besides saving time. The problem with using the machine, however, is lower straw recovery by 8-10 quintals an acre compared with manual harvesting.

Every year, a combine harvester typically begins its work by harvesting wheat in Madhya Pradesh during February-end, then move over to Haryana, Punjab and Jammu for wheat harvest until mid-day before idling till September. Once kharif arrivals begin, the machine is back at work harvesting soyabean in Madhya Pradesh before moving North again to harvest paddy in Punjab and Haryana.