Professor Gajendra Singh - "Agricultural Mechanization in Asia: Trends, Patterns and Prospects"
Professor Gajendra Singh, Chair of the ASMC Science Committee, presented at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department's I4 Seminar on Friday, April 16th, 2021.
Abstract: The Asian region has made great progress over the past six decades in transforming farm power situation from over 90% from animate sources in 1960s to over 60% from mechanical sources by now. Four main types of mechanical power sources are popular: i) 2Wheel-Single Axle tractors for wet tillage, transportation, water pumping and threshing; ii) 4Wheel-Two Axle tractors for dry tillage, transportation, planting and seeding, inter-culture, spraying, harvesting and threshing; iii) Electrical motors and Diesel engines for irrigation pump sets and many postharvest processing operations; and iv) Self-propelled machines like combine harvesters and transplanters. Average farm holding size is about 1 ha. More than 85% of 500 million small farm holdings in the world below 2 ha are in Asia. Increased utilization of machines available with farmers through custom hiring to neighbor farmers and or through larger operational holdings makes ownership of machines economic and profitable.