Coimbatore, Aug 8: The Indian Council of Agricultural Research, under its World Bank-funded National Agricultural Technology project, has sanctioned a Rs 68.14-lakh scheme to the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here on `mechanisation of intensive irrigated agriculture for sugarcane production'.The scheme's main objectives were to conduct multi-location trials of the equipment used in sugarcane cultivation, and to further improve the designs of existing equipment to achieve higher efficiency and more reliability, TNAU vice-chancellor, S Kannaiyan, said in a release today.The 4-year scheme, beginning this year, was also aimed at developing equipment to evaluate, adopt and develop sugarcane harvesting machinery suitable for Indian farms, and to commercialise prototype sugarcane cultivation equipment and impart training to farmers on the use of these equipment.
Sugarcane cultivation being labour intensive, shortage of labourers was experienced in the industry, especially during planting, weeding, earthing and harvesting operations. For want of sufficient labourers at reasonable wages, most of these operations were delayed or not taken up at all, resulting in low productivity, he said.
The scheme would help growers to overcome these hardships by facilitating cultivation through the use of improved farm implements and machinery, Kannaiyan added.
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