Combined harvester saved farmers Tk1,119 crore in last Amon season

In the Amon season last year, farmers used combined harvesters to harvest paddy of 11.22% of paddy fields across the country, which saved the harvesting cost by Tk1,119 crore thanks to a reduction in labour costs and post-harvest losses, said officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE).

According to the DAE, T-Amon (Transplanted Amon) was planted on 57,30,764 hectares of land, of which, combined harvesters were used on 6,42,870.51 hectares which are 11.22%.

Combined harvesters saved labour costs worth about Tk549.21 crore and post-harvest loss of around 2.18 lakh tonnes, with a market value of around Tk570.2 crore.

Tariq Mahmudul Islam, project director of the agricultural mechanisation project through integrated management, said that the labour cost of harvesting, threshing and cleaning of paddy of one acre is Tk11,800 in the traditional method, which is only Tk6,000 with a combined harvester. In other words, farmers can save Tk5,800 per acre.

In the case of harvesting by the combined harvester, the maximum post-harvest loss is 2-3% whereas it is 10-12% in the conventional method, he added.

The project director also said there is no alternative to modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture to ensure food security in the global economic recession. Twelve categories of machinery are being distributed with 70% in haor and coastal areas and 50% subsidy in plains through the project. 

The machines are a combined harvester, reaper and reaper binder, rice transplanter, seeder/bed planter, power thresher, maize sheller, power sprayer, power weeder, dryer, potato digger and potato chips maker.

So far, 25,165 agricultural machineries have been distributed through subsidies under the project, of which 7,256 are combined harvesters.