With rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, labourers earn more in industry, causing shortages in agriculture every year, especially at planting and harvesting. Rice sometimes lies in the field for lack of labour. To protect agriculture from this crisis, the government has launched farm mechanisation, and the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) recently held a demonstration and field day for a machine called the "rice transplanter" in Dhanbari upazila, Tangail, inaugurated by Agriculture Minister Dr. Abdur Razzaque.

• It plants seedlings in six rows at once and carries 12 trays.
• It plants 0.35 hectares an hour using 700 grams of fuel an hour.
• It saves 20 labourers per hectare; traditional planting of one bigha needs at least four labourers.
• Planting costs can be cut by 50 to 75 percent, and straight rows make weeding, fertiliser and pesticide application and harvesting easier.

Operators said planting 50 decimals takes about an hour, using 10 to 12 ml of fuel per decimal, cutting costs by 80 percent: planting 33 decimals by hand costs about Tk 1,000, and by transplanter only Tk 200.

Local farmer Golam Sarwar said planting that costs Tk 600 in labour would cost Tk 150 by machine. Hazrat Ali of Paiska village, Dhanbari, said severe labour shortages this year left him with losses on two bighas, and the machine would help farmers profit, though it is expensive.

Abdur Razzak, deputy director of DAE Tangail, said the transplanter costs several lakh taka, but the government provides financial support; while not all marginal farmers can buy one, better-off farmers who buy them can rent them to others. The work has begun on a trial basis and will later become a project. Agriculture Minister Dr. Abdur Razzaque told Dhaka Tribune that labour costs mean farmers are not profiting, so the government has decided that planting and harvesting will both be done by machine, with a 50 percent subsidy, and two-thirds in coastal and haor areas; Tk 4,000 crore in subsidies for machines would be given to farmers this year.

Source: Dhaka Tribune. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.