INDIA
Tobacco Board chairman, Raghunadha Babu Yadlapati, recently said that in order to maintain productivity in the face of increasing farm labor shortages, mechanized farming is a necessity.
Raghunadha Babu, who took over as the chairman of the Tobacco Board in July, said he wanted to encourage cost-effective tobacco cultivation practices so that the farmers could reap their benefits, adding that a device called transplanter was used on an experimental basis to boost land productivity on around 50 acres in West Godavari district, which reduced the need of farm workers by 50%.
“Tobacco cultivation requires triple the effort as compared to any other crop. In the present scenario, where getting hold of farm labor is not only difficult but also increasingly costly, there is no other alternative but to go for farm mechanization. Since I took over, I have been trying to create an environment in which tobacco farmers get more benefits, including both physical and monetary for lesser efforts” he said.
“The advantage of using a transplanter, which is attached to a tractor, is to plant tobacco saplings in a uniform manner and deeper than via manual method. This allows the soil to absorb more fertilizer and increases its aeration,” explained the Tobacco Board chief.
He also said they are encouraging micro-irrigation and supplementing required micronutrients to the soil through drip irrigation method. “It will not only improve soil productivity but also its quality. The yield per acre is likely to increase substantially,” he asserted.
Three months from the day of implementing these new cultivation methods, the crops will be harvested and based on the results the Board intends to encourage farm mechanization on a large scale and give incentives to tobacco growers to purchase transplanters, for example, as a 50% subsidy from both the State and the Centre.
Recent reports indicate that the tobacco yield looks more promising this year, as compared to 2018, thanks to the more favorable climatic conditions.