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More than 95 per cent of land preparation and 95 per cent of pesticide spraying are mechanised in the country, the highest success areas of farm mechanisation.
Benazir Alam, director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), disclosed the information in a presentation on the first day of a two-day workshop titled “Agricultural Mechanisation in Bangladesh – The Future”, which was held at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka on Monday.
He said the use of machines in threshing is 78 per cent. “There is 2 per cent mechanisation in rice seedlings and transplantation while it is 3 per cent in reaping, which is far lower compared to the use of machines in threshing and field preparation.”
Besides, he said daily wages in agriculture during the peak season had increased three and a half times in the last 10 years but the young generation is not willing to be involved in field work.
Labour is being shifted to the industrial sector due to the drudgery of agricultural work while agricultural labour accounts for about 40 per cent at present, the DAE official said.
Considering the situation, the government took up a mega mechanisation project named “Farm mechanisation through integrated management” in 2020.
The main objectives of the project are to supply and use modern agricultural machinery, prevent crop wastage by 10-15 per cent, and save 50 per cent time and 20 per cent money in crop cultivation by 2025.
Other objectives include increasing the use and efficiency of agricultural machinery by 50 per cent through synchronisation and homogeneous crop cultivation, reducing the cost of agricultural production, and increasing crop productivity.
Under the project, 51,300 machines will be given to farmers by June 2025. For this, the government will give a 70 per cent subsidy for haor areas and 50 per cent for the rest of the country.
The machines include 15,500 combined harvesters, 6,000 reapers, 3,000 transplanters, 5,000 power threshers, 5,000 dryers, 5,000 maize shellers, 3,000 potato diggers, 3,000 carrot washers, 2,000 power sprayers, 1,000 potato chips making machines, and 500 power weeders.
So far, 2,896 combined harvesters, 741 power threshers, 664 reapers, 169 maize shellers, 82 rice transplanters, and 12 dryers have been distributed, according to the presentation.
“Innovation is important for taking mechanisation to an advanced level,” said Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque while addressing the programme as the chief guest.
He urged manufacturers to produce easy and usable light machines as well as spare parts of different machines used in fields.
“Some local entrepreneurs are producing these, which is really appreciable,” he added.
The two-day workshop will review progress made with the introduction of agricultural mechanisation technologies. It will also address constraints to accelerate the pace of mechanisation as well as the required changes in government and private sector policies that will make it happen.
Participants from the country’s leading research institutes and the private sector will discuss how Bangladesh’s light engineering sector could be supported to manufacture agricultural machinery and spare parts for domestic as well as international markets.
Finally, innovative ways of financing agricultural machinery manufacturing, sales, and service provisions will be highlighted.
The workshop was organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and funded by Feed the Future Bangladesh’s Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanisation and Extension Activity (CSISA-MEA), in collaboration with Bangladesh Agricultural University.
CSISA-MEA is being implemented by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in partnership with iDE and the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.
