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Rice is a labour-intensive crop which requires a work-concentrated harvest.
Farm mechanization is one of the important ways to overcome this situation. Paddy
cultivation needs appropriate mechanisation to cope with the increased cost of
cultivation due to high wages and scarcity of labourers. The mechanization through
group farming approach, resulted in retention of paddy area and the cultivation of
some barren land various regions. Through the group farming approach the authorities
were successful in identifying production constraints in various areas and regions and
developing separate productivity-boosting packages.
Over the past ten years, there has been a major emphasis on mechanization of
paddy cultivation in the villages across Kerala, including Palakkad. An institutional
arrangement based on collective organisation has overcomed the twin problems of
labour shortage and lack of capital investment in machinery faced by small farmers.
These collective ventures based on partnerships of farmers and labourers had the full
support of the State government. Local governments are also providing financial
support to purchase various machines as part of the mechanization drive in paddy
cultivation. All these efforts have resulted in various socio-economic benefits to the
paddy cultivators in Kerala. Hitherto few attempts has been made in the State to
assess the socio-economic impact of rice mechanisation on farming community and
hence the present study is attempted.
The current study entitled “Socio-economic impact of mechanisation in paddy
group farming” was conducted in Palakkad district which was selected purposively as
it has its maximum area under rice cultivation in Kerala and also owing to the
presence of different types of successful group farm mechanisation interventions in
paddy. Data were collected among 120 farmers and 40 farm labourers randomly from
the Padasekhara Samithies /labour banks where mechanization is practiced, to
constitute a total sample size of 160 respondents. Respondents has been selected by
multistage sampling method among the two blocks i.e Alathur and Chittur which
representing maximum area of paddy cultivation and where different rice
mechanization programs implemented
The study results showed that majority of the farmers (85.8%) belonged to the
old age category (>55 years) while majority (87.5%) of the labourers belonged to the
middle aged category (35-55 years). A large proportion of the farmers is having high
school education, while majority of the labourers is having secondary education. The
study results showed that the average size of area under paddy cultivation is 2.97
acres. The group dynamics effectiveness index of farmers and labourers following the
Bhatt (2009) scale was also computed. The results showed that, the group leadership
holds the highest percentage score (51.41%) for the farmers, while group
cohesiveness holds the highest score among the labourers (51.34%). The decision
making process is found to have an higher weightage since that the decision is to be
followed by all the members in the group.
Perceived Socio-economic impact Index of mechanisation in paddy group
farming for each individual has been obtained. It could be concluded that majority of
the paddy farmers (69%) had a medium impact due to mechanization while 18 percent
of them had only low impact. While majority (57.5%) of the farm labourers perceived
medium impact due to mechanization, 22.5 percent of them perceived a higher
impact. Among the farmers the highest percentage score (66.73) was gained for the
impact on time spent on farming. From the results it could be concluded that impact
on drudgery reduction and employment gained were perceived as the major impacts
of paddy mechanization among the labourers.
The profile charecteristics of farmers and labourers was analysed using the
spearman correlation. The results inferred that, there exists a positive significant
relationship between annual income, extension contact, innovativeness, area under
paddy cultivation with the perceived socio-economic impact index. Age is found to
have a negative and significant correlations with the perceived impact index. The
independent variables viz. training received, annual income, extension contact,
scientific orientation and attitude towards collectivism had positive and significant
correlation with perceived impact index in case of labourers. A significant and
positive correlation between GDI and Perceived Socio-economic impact index
indicates that better group dynamics among the members of Padasekharam as well as
labourer groups play a critical role in paddy mechanization
The challenges faced by the farmers and labourers for mechanisation in paddy
group farming was analysed using garrett ranking. Eventhough the mechanisation is
adopted in almost every Padasekharams, Lack of timely and local availability of
skilled labour at cheaper rate to operate the machines available with Padasekhara
Samithi. Higher cost of spare parts of machines for repair and maintenance is the
major challenges among labourers. Majority of the labourers still needs to improve
their skills in repair and maintenance of machines.