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Rental Service Market of Farm Machinery in Rice Cultivation: a Farm Level Investigation

A K M S Islam
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur.

M J Kabir
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

This study was undertaken to investigate the rental charge and labour cost of five major operations in rice production in the north-west region of Bangladesh. Farmers’ group discussions (FGDs) with 10-15 key informants farmers were conducted for collecting farm level data from 15 villages of both Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions. Rental charge and labour cost of rice cultivation were converted to paddy equivalent cost (PEC) for tillage, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, carrying and threshing. Farmers mostly relied on the service providers of either power tiller or tractor for tillage. They also relied on the service providers of close drum power thresher for threshing rice and other crops. However, farmers still manually carried out transplanting, weeding, harvesting and carrying of rice. Both the contractual and daily basis hired labour and family labour performed those activities. The wages of labour of harvesting and carrying was paid in cash or kind (e.g., share of harvested grain or fixed amount of grain per unit of harvest area). The average paddy equivalent cost for the five major operations was ranged between 37-47% of total paddy production cost in the study locations. The mechanized transplanting and harvesting may reduce rice production cost largely as well as would resolve the labour scarcity problems. Therefore, transplanter and harvester have the great prospect of widespread adoption. However, prospect of mechanical weeding is limited because of the availability of low cost intensive chemical control methods. Thus, providing the larger financial assistance on purchasing both the transplanter and harvester facilitates the end users to enhance the productivity and reduce the cost of rice farming.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Labour, Rental charge, Paddy equivalent charge, Profit

Location: North-west region of Bangladesh

Start Date: 00-01-2017

End Date: 00-03-2017

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Cost of production

Objectives:

To investigate the rental charge and labour cost of five major operations in rice production in the north-west region of Bangladesh.

Methodology:

A multistage sampling was applied for this study. At first, 15 districts were selected randomly from the north-west regions of Bangladesh. Thereafter, one upazila was selected randomly from each of the selected districts and a village was selected from each of the selected 15 upazilas. Finally, 10-15 key informant farmers was selected purposively for farmers group discussion (FGD) to delineate with the existing situation of farm machinery rental service. One FGD was conducted in each village to collect data on rental charge of farm machinery, labour cost of major intercultural operations of rice cultivation and farmers opinions about using farm machinery and availability of labour for farming during January-March 2017. The data were summarized in crop production stage wise and discussed in administrative division wise. Labour cost and rental charge of farm machinery in five major operations of rice cultivation were converted to paddy equivalent cost to estimate the percent of total rice production went away for those operations as the rural economy was regulated by the paddy price. The procurement price of boro paddy (Tk 2,400 per ton) was used for estimating paddy equivalent cost of production (DOF, 2017). The average yield of cleaned rice was considered as 3.17 ton per hectare (Kabir et al., 2016b) and used to calculate the rental charge and labour cost of each farming activity in the percentage of paddy production.

Source of Information: Bangladesh Rice J. 21 (1) : 35-45, 2017

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Entrepreneurship of farm machinery in particular power tiller, tractor and thresher were developed and provided service to the farmers across the north-west region of the country. Most of the farmers relied on power tiller and tractor in tillage operation and power thresher in threshing crops. However, there is obvious scarcity of farm machinery in transplanting, weeding and harvesting across the regions. Therefore, farmers relied on family and hired labour in those operations. The rental charge of tillage varied between 6-7% of total paddy production across the locations because of the soil types, number of passes, and tillage types (dry or puddling). The cost of manual transplanting ranged from 7-9% of total paddy production and the weeding cost from 8-12% of total paddy depending on the severity of weed infestation, weeding regime, and application of weedicide. The paddy equivalent wage of harvesting and carrying rice ranged between 12-13% of total paddy production. Finally, the rental charge of thresher ranged between 4-7% of total paddy the farmers produced. The findings indicated that paddy equivalent cost manual of harvesting and carrying was higher followed by manual weeding and transplanting. The cost of weeding might be reduced through increasing use of weedicide. Similarly, the adoption of power reaper or combined harvester may reduce cost of harvesting rice substantially. Thus, the development of entrepreneurship on rice transplanter and harvester has wider scope for self-employment activities.

Knowledge Management: Journal