Agricultural mechanisation: the key to success in modern farming

Ask a farmer standing at the edge of a haor on a Baishakh afternoon what worries him, and the answer rarely changes. The rice is ripe, clouds are gathering, and there is no one to cut it. The labourers who can be found cost far more than they used to. Yet a delay of a few days can send the whole season's work under a flash flood or a hailstorm. When a combine harvester rolls into such a field and, within hours, cuts, threshes and bags the crop, it becomes clear why mechanisation is called the key to success in modern farming.

Agricultural mechanisation means using modern machinery and technology at each stage of farm work. When machines take over from human and animal labour in land preparation, sowing and transplanting, irrigation, harvesting and processing, the productivity of agriculture rises. Productivity here means more crop from the same land, in the same time, for the same cost.

The familiar picture of Bangladeshi farming used to be a pair of bullocks at the plough, a sickle in the hand, and cattle treading out the rice in the courtyard. That picture has largely changed. The sound of power tillers and tractors in the villages, shallow tube wells for irrigation, and combine harvesters in the boro and wheat fields are no longer surprising. But the change has not come equally to every stage of the work, and that is where the big questions facing Bangladeshi farming lie.

A disaster played a part in this machine age. Research published in the Journal of Development Studies notes that the devastating disaster of 1988 took a heavy toll not only on human life but also on the draught animals used to prepare land. As an emergency response to that crisis, the government liberalised imports of farm machinery, power tillers above all. Low-cost small power tillers from abroad then spread from village to village.

In the decades since, the bullock plough has almost disappeared. A power tiller is a small two-wheeled cultivator that the operator walks behind. It turns in small plots, works in puddled paddy, and its engine can be unhooked to drive an irrigation pump or a thresher, or hitched to a trolley to haul goods. Because one machine does so many jobs, the power tiller has fitted into Bangladesh's small-plot farming remarkably well.

The benefits of mechanisation fall under a few headings. The reasons agricultural experts return to again and again are these:

• Higher productivity: machinery lets a farmer cultivate more land in less time, and both the yield and the quality of the crop improve.
• Lower cost: a machine does the work more cheaply than hired hands.
• Time saved: mechanised operations are finished quickly.
• Better farm incomes: as output rises, so does the farmer's return.
• Beating the weather: with machines the season's work can be completed on schedule, which limits the damage from bad weather.

Behind that list lies a big shift in the rural labour market. A 2023 analysis by the research and consulting firm LightCastle Partners notes that rural workers are moving to the cities, and that a large share of unskilled farm labourers have switched to the service sector and the garment industry. The same analysis, citing the government's labour force survey, puts agriculture's share of total employment at 45.3 percent. Farming remains the largest employer, but finding hands at the right moment in the busy season is getting harder.

Rice transplanting shows the gap. According to that analysis, planting seedlings by hand takes about 123 to 150 person-hours per hectare, while a machine needs only 9 to 11. A person-hour is one person's work for one hour. A job that takes a gang of labourers several days, a machine finishes in hours, and at the peak of the season that speed often makes the difference between profit and loss.

Timing runs deeper still. In Bangladesh, preparation for the next crop starts almost as soon as one is harvested, and much land carries two or three crops a year. If the boro harvest is late, aus or aman planting slips; if the wheat harvest is late, jute sowing slips. One delay spreads through the whole year's cropping cycle, and machines help keep that cycle on schedule.

Tractor: one of the most familiar machines for land preparation, ploughing a large area fast and well. With a plough, harrow or other implement hitched behind, one tractor can do many jobs, and it also hauls crops and goods. On Bangladesh's small fields, though, the two-wheeled power tiller is more popular, since it can work even in puddled paddy land.

Combine harvester: used to harvest the crop, it cuts, threshes and cleans in a single pass. No machine has changed the rice and wheat harvest more. In the haor wetlands, where the rice must be brought in within days because of the risk of early floods, the combine matters even more. It also cuts the losses from cut crop lying in the field.

Rice transplanter: plants rice seedlings in rows, saving both labour and time. The machine sets seedlings at a fixed spacing. The seedlings have to be raised in special trays or thin mat-like seedbeds so that the machine can pick them up in blocks. Row planting also makes weeding and fertilising easier to do between the lines.

Drip irrigation: a water-saving, efficient method in which pipes and narrow tubes deliver water drop by drop straight to the root zone. The whole field does not need soaking, so less water is used and fewer weeds grow. It suits vegetables and orchards best. In areas where the groundwater table falls in the dry season, a water-saving technology like this is especially relevant.

Drones: survey the whole field from above and spray pesticide. Aerial images show which part of a field has weak plants and where pests or disease have struck. When spraying, a drone can put a set amount of chemical on a set spot, and the person operating it is not exposed directly to the poison.

The importance of mechanisation is clearest in the haor wetlands of the north-east. For much of the year this vast low-lying area is under water, so in practice it grows one crop, boro rice. That rice ripens in Baishakh, just as the risk of early flash floods from the hills upstream begins. The haor people have seen many times how a delay of a few days can drown the only crop of the year.

That is why the government subsidises machinery more heavily in the haor than on the plains. Because a huge area ripens at once, it is hard to find enough hands to cut it all by sickle; labourers must be brought in from other districts, and costs rise. A combine harvester finishes in hours what would take days. With cutting, threshing and cleaning done together, the grain goes from the field straight into sacks, and the risk of loss to rain or flood falls.

Mechanisation is advancing quickly in Bangladesh. Government programmes and easier access to modern machines are changing the fields. But progress is uneven across the stages of work. According to LightCastle Partners, more than 90 percent of land preparation, irrigation, threshing and pesticide application is mechanised. For fertiliser application and weeding the figure is below 10 percent. For planting and harvesting it is below 2 percent.

The numbers make it plain that machines have reached least into the two jobs that need the most labour: planting and harvesting. Closing that gap is the government's main focus. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) subsidises selected machines at 70 percent in haor and coastal areas and 50 percent elsewhere. In other words, the government pays half or more of a machine's price, and the farmer or entrepreneur pays the rest.

The project known as Mechanisation of Agriculture through Integrated Management, approved in 2020, was budgeted at Tk 3,020 crore, and the DAE is implementing it in every district and upazila. According to LightCastle, the project aimed to distribute 51,300 machines of 12 types between 2020 and 2025. In the 2020-21 fiscal year alone, about 2,300 machines were distributed, including 1,762 combine harvesters, 379 reapers and 34 rice transplanters.

The reaper deserves a word of introduction. Where a combine harvester cuts, threshes and cleans all at once, a reaper only cuts the crop at the base and lays it in rows in the field. The crop is then bundled and threshed separately. A reaper costs far less, works in small fields and leaves the straw intact, which farmers value as cattle feed.

Alongside government programmes, several other trends are pushing mechanisation forward:

• Subsidy: the government subsidises farmers' purchases of modern machinery.
• The private sector: companies supply machines and train the farmers who run them.
• Smart farming: mobile apps and drones are increasingly part of the toolkit.

The machinery market is growing too. LightCastle estimates the annual market for farm machinery at about Tk 3,000 crore, although locally made small machines account for only 10 to 12 percent of it. Many young rural entrepreneurs now buy a combine harvester or a power tiller and hire it out to work other people's land. That way a farmer who cannot afford a machine still gets its benefit by paying rent.

One distinctive feature of mechanisation in Bangladesh is that most farmers are users of machines, not owners. The owners of power tillers, irrigation pumps and threshers are a few entrepreneurs in each village who work other people's land for hire during the season. By paying per bigha or per hour, even a smallholder gets land preparation, irrigation or threshing, while the owner earns back the price of the machine by working many fields a year. The study in the Journal of Development Studies also identifies these rental services as the main way smallholders gain access to machines.

The same pattern is emerging with combine harvesters and rice transplanters. A subsidised harvester may travel from one district to another within a season, since rice ripens at slightly different times in different regions. The machine works more days, the owner earns more, and many farmers harvest on time. But when demand peaks everywhere at once, hire charges rise and not everyone gets a machine in time.

Alongside large imported machines there is room for smaller ones made at home. The Farm Machinery and Postharvest Process Engineering Division of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed a range of machines suited to local soils and fields, such as a seeder that attaches to a power tiller. A policy review shows that in the second phase of the subsidy programme, from 2013 to 2018, the subsidy was raised to 50 percent on the plains and 70 percent in haor and coastal areas, with the focus on rice transplanters, power-tiller-operated seeders, reapers, mini combine harvesters and threshers.

Light engineering workshops that have grown up in various parts of the country now make parts for farm machinery and small machines. Locally made machines are cheaper, their spare parts are close at hand, and local mechanics can repair them. But experts believe the potential cannot be fully realised without better quality control and design.

Talk of mechanisation often stops at ploughing and harvesting, but processing matters just as much. Motorised threshers now work in village after village, and turning paddy into rice is done almost entirely in mills. The old scene of husking rice at home with a foot-operated wooden pounder, the dheki, is now largely a memory. That has eased women's heavy labour and made rice quality more uniform.

Drying, however, still depends mostly on the sun. Rice and wheat are spread out in courtyards or along roadsides, and in the monsoon or in long spells of cloud, wet grain grows mould, sprouts and loses quality. Mechanical drying is still limited. The less time each stage takes, from cutting and threshing to drying and storage, the less crop is lost, which is why experts want these stages included in mechanisation plans too.

For all the progress, some large obstacles remain in the way of mechanisation:

• High up-front cost: buying a machine is a large investment.
• Lack of training: many farmers are not yet skilled in operating modern equipment.
• Maintenance: facilities for repairing and servicing machines are lacking.
• Power and fuel: machines need electricity and fuel, which are not adequately available in many areas.

The first obstacle is the biggest. A combine harvester is beyond the reach of an ordinary farmer, even with a subsidy. And most Bangladeshi farmers own small, scattered plots. Buying a large machine for a few bighas does not pay, and moving a big machine across the ridges from one small field to the next is a struggle. That is why demand is growing for rental services and for smaller machines.

Training and repair are linked problems. A machine operated badly wears out quickly, and skilled mechanics and spare parts are not always available in the villages. If a machine stands idle for a few days in the busy season, the loss cannot be made up. Experts therefore keep urging that operator and mechanic training, and repair centres at upazila level, should go hand in hand with machine distribution.

Fuel and electricity matter too. Most farm machines run on diesel, so when diesel prices rise, the cost of ploughing, irrigating and harvesting rises all at once. Electric irrigation pumps need a reliable rural power supply, which not every area has. Solar-powered irrigation pumps are slowly gaining ground as an alternative.

Safety should not be overlooked either. Carelessness with threshers, power tillers or tractors causes accidents, especially when untrained people or teenagers run the machines. Loose clothing caught in moving parts, or a tractor overturning on a sloping ridge, are accidents that training and care largely prevent. Teaching safety rules is therefore as important as handing out machines.

Mechanisation can secure Bangladesh's food supply, and it will also play a large part in raising farmers' living standards and the country's economic growth. Experts point to three trends ahead:

• Robotics: more advanced robots will do more of the field work.
• Smart farming: data analytics and artificial intelligence will be put to work at every stage of farming.
• Green technology: environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies will spread.

Smart farming means making decisions by analysing information on soil, weather, crop condition and market prices together: when to irrigate, how much fertiliser to apply, which field is most at risk from pests. Getting such advice to farmers through their mobile phones has already begun. Green technology includes water-saving irrigation, solar pumps, and machines that do more work on less fuel.

The change is also opening new doors for rural youth. A young man or woman who might once have left for the city in search of work can now earn in the village as a machine operator, a mechanic or a rental-service entrepreneur. When farming is seen as less gruelling and more profitable, educated young people turn towards it too. The social benefits of mechanisation do not show up in yield figures alone.

Mechanisation is a need of the hour, one that is making agriculture modern and profitable. But machines alone do not solve every problem. The real task now is to make sure machines come within reach of small farmers, that people who can run and repair them are trained in the villages, and that machines spread into the most labour-hungry jobs, planting and harvesting.

With sound planning and training these obstacles can be overcome, and investment in mechanisation can raise the country's food production and support its economic development. The true measure of the whole effort is whether it eases the worry of that farmer at the edge of the field, looking from his ripe rice to the black clouds and waiting for labourers who may not come.

Cover photo: A combine harvester cutting wheat at Jadur Char, Roumari, Kurigram. Photo: Tanvir Rahat / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)