Technology Missions in Agriculture

The Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM) was launched in 2014-15 with the objective of increasing the reach of farm mechanization to marginal and small farmers and also to areas with low power availability.
It involves creating hubs for hi-tech and high value farm equipment, creating awareness among stakeholder through demonstration and capacity building and ensuring performance testing and certification of agricultural machines at designated testing centres all over the country.
The performance of SMAM scheme so far

• During 2014-15 to 2020-21, a sum of more that Rs. 4500 crores of funds have been released under the scheme to the States and other implementing institutions.
• More than 13 lakh agricultural machines have been distributed and more than 27 thousand custom hiring institutions have been established
• There has been progressive increase in the availability of farm power per unit area (from 2.02 kw/ha in 2016-17 to 2.49 kw/ha in 2018-19).
• Financial assistance is being provided to the agricultural institutes as well as Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs) to promote the use of drones.
• There has been a significant increase in adoption of agriculture machines resulting in expansion of cropped area, cropping intensity and the country’s agricultural production.

Challenges in its implementation:

• Shortage of skilled workers: Village craftsmen are the main source of supply, repair and maintenance of machinery.
• Selection of wrong machinery: There is a lack of adequate information and awareness amongst farmers about the technology and the management of machinery.
• Inadequate R&D: There is also lack of versatile equipment that can be used in multiple crops suited to Indian conditions.
• High capital cost: Farm machinery is expensive and inadequate agricultural credit facilities at low interest rates make it difficult to uptake mechanisation.
• Inadequate farm power: It hampers timely farm operations resulting in decreased production and productivity.
• Marginalisation of land: Increasing fragmentation makes it difficult to undertake mechanisation as it is best utilised at a certain scale.

Measures to overcome the challenges:

• Setting up of Agriculture Machine Banks at district level to house cost intensive machines like combine harvesters etc. as well as high level maintenance and repair facilities to allow small and marginal farmers access to powered machines, without the need to own the asset themselves.
• Establish indigenous R&D to roll out farmer friendly, location specific and easy to manage agricultural machinery. Further, highly energy efficient equipment needs to be developed.
• Training young farmers on how to select, operate and service farm machinery through Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Industrial Training institutes etc.
• Front-line demonstration of farm machinery should be strengthened to encourage the extension and adoption of farm power.

Agriculture mechanization is the future and India needs to leverage its capacity and make it sustainable and accessible to increase productivity and decrease the cost of cultivation. Moreover, going forward, farm machinery, a $100-plus billion global industry, has enormous potential to reduce import dependence and utilise Indian made machinery in agriculture.