Agri mechanization

Due to lack of labour and to increase yeild, few agriculturists in a village want to go for mechanization of various process involved in farming. Now they are in need of automated solutions for process like seed sowing, plantation and harvesting.

Taking the number of 4-wheel tractors as an indicator of advancement in mechanization, FAO (2008) reports the following trends over the past 40 years (Figure 2): • In Asia, tractor numbers increased fivefold between 1961 and 1970, from 120 000 to 600 000 units. Thereafter, the number increased tenfold, reaching 6 million units in 2000. Numbers have since continued to increase, especially in India, where tractors numbered 2.6 million in 2010 (FAO, 2013a), and China, where they numbered over 2 million in 2008 (FAO, 2013b). • In Latin America and the Caribbean, tractor numbers increased 1.7 times between 1961 and 1970, from 383 000 to 637 000 units, and thereafter tripled to reach 1.8 million in 2000. • In the Near East, the picture is similar to Latin America, as tractor numbers doubled from 126 000 to 260 000 between 1961 and 1970 and then increased 6.5 times to reach 1.7 million in 2000. • In sub-Saharan Africa, the trend has been rather different. In 1961, the number of tractors in use (172 000) exceeded the number both in Asia and in the Near East. They then increased slowly, peaking at 275 000 in 1990 before declining to 221 000 in 2000. Source: FAO, 2008. FIGURE 2 Tractor use by region, 1961–2000

1. Asia includes the People’s Republic of China, Japan and India as well as Oceania and Pacific countries.
2. North America includes United States, Canada, Bermuda and Greenland.
3. Sub-Saharan Africa includes all countries on the continent except North African Arab countries (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Sudan).
4. Europe includes ex-USSR up to 1990, thereafter including the Russian Federation and Ukraine and the Baltic States, ex-Asian Soviet Republics are excluded.
5. LAC includes Latin America and the Caribbean.
6. Near East includes all mid-Eastern countries and North African Arab countries.