Farm mechanisation moves from grain to straw

For farmers in Punjab and Haryana, mechanisation is a veritable obsession.

It started with tractors in the early Green Revolution period from the 1960s through 1970s, followed by harvester combines in the subsequent two decades.

The combines replaced not just sickle-harvesting, which required five men working the entire day to cover an acre, but also power-threshing that took up another 3.5-4 hours. Farmers can now harvest and thresh one acre of paddy or wheat in just over half an hour.

The latest machines doing the fields are rakes and balers – for handling not the grain, but the 14-15 inch stalks remaining after the combines have completed their job.

Till recently, farmers used mechanical reapers to cut these, either to recover the straw for wheat or simply burn as in the case of paddy.

“We spent Rs 350 an acre on reaping paddy straw only to make it easier to burn and clear the fields,” said Balkaran Singh Brar, a 70-acre farmer from Tarkhanwala village in Malout Tehsil of Muktsar district.

Entrepreneur model

But now, there are entrepreneurs – just as combine-harvester operators – who reap and collect straw from the fields of many farmers.

Rajinder Singh Gharu has bought a New Holland baler and rake costing Rs 9.3 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh respectively, apart from a reaper for Rs 40,000.

The rake, powered by a 35 horsepower tractor, has arms or spring tines that pick the already-reaped straw and arrange these in neat lines at around three feet distance from one another.

The baler – which requires a heavier 55 HP tractor – then compresses the straw into compact 25-30 kg rectangular bundles and simultaneously binds them with twines. It takes typically 35-40 minutes to cover an acre giving 25-27 quintals of straw.

An average entrepreneur working 10 hours daily would be able to bale about 400 quintals or 20,000 quintal over a 50-day season.

The baled straw is supplied to biomass-based power plants.

“They pay Rs 122 a quintal for delivery at the plant. From this, I need to deduct Rs 30 towards transport, Rs 50 on operational expenses (diesel, labour, twines, etc.) and Rs 10 for maintenance, leaving a profit of Rs 30-32,” said Gharu.

“An entrepreneur who bales 20,000 quintals can, thus, make a profit of roughly Rs 6 lakh that will recover half of his investment in the baler, rake and reaper.

“It all depends how many hours you work.

“There are some who do 700 quintals daily by working from six in the morning to nine at night. I myself did 29,000 quintals last year,” he said.

Also, the rakes/balers can be used for baling of cane trash during the sugar season from mid-November that follows paddy harvesting.

biomass benefits

Crucial to all this is the biomass power plant. “We buy paddy straw within a 15-20 km radius.

“Beyond that, the cost of transport would go up for the entrepreneur, who anyway bears it,” said Ratan Goel of Dee Development Engineers, which operates an 8 mega-watt unit at Gaddadhob in Abohar Tehsil of Fazilka district.

“Baling has really made aggregation and supply of paddy straw a feasible proposition. I see it meeting more and more of my fuel requirement.

“Right now, we are using all sorts of fuels from cotton sticks, cane trash and dry leaves to mustard and guar husk, degraded wheat straw and cow dung,” he said.

For farmers, the main benefit is the saving on reaping cost, which the entrepreneur is now bearing.

“He is doing me a favour by clearing my field. And there is no burning,” said Brar.

“We have been working on biomass solutions in paddy straw and cane trash through the entrepreneur model.

“And it seems to be clicking,” said Rakesh Malhotra, Managing Director of New Holland Fiat India.

The company, the market leader in the segment, sold nearly 50 balers and 20 rakes in 2012.

That is expected to double this year.

damodaran.h@thehindu.co.in

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