PRESENT MECHANIZATION STATUS IN SUGARCANE: A REVIEW

N. KISHORE¹*, D. GAYATHRI², J. VENKATESH³, V. RAJESWARI⁴, B. SANGEETA⁵, A. CHANDRIKA^6
1Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
²Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
³Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
⁴Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
⁵Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
⁶Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
* Corresponding Author : kishorenalabolu@gmail.com

Received : 17-04-2017     Accepted : 26-04-2017     Published : 12-05-2017
Volume : 9     Issue : 22       Pages : 4247 - 4253
Int J Agr Sci 9.22 (2017):4247-4253

Keywords : Sugarcane mechanization, Sugarcane production, Harvesting, Detrashing, Drudgery
Academic Editor : Sravan Thutturu, Apparao Chodisetti
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : Author are thankful to Department of Agricultural Engineering, Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem, 533 437, Andhra Pradesh, India
Author Contribution : All author equally contributed

The crops grown by the Indian farmers include different food crops, commercial crops, oil seeds etc.; sugarcane is one of the important commercial crops grown in India. The area under sugarcane is covering around 5.08 million hectares and with an average annual production of 350.02 million tonnes in the year 2013-14 and with an average productivity of 68 tonnes/ha. India is a second largest producer as well as consumer of the sugar in the world and during 2014-15; it produced 28 million tonnes of sugar, which was nearly 11.8 per cent of the total sugar production of the world. The major producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Though, the area under cultivation of sugarcane is more in the world as well as in the country, the extent of labour consuming is more and mechanization is less and also the energy consumption in sugarcane production is more as compared to other crops like paddy, wheat, potato, maize, etc. Since the cost of labour in country is increasing rapidly and the price of local sugar is uncompetitive with the product from mechanized international producers, India needs to change its sugarcane production methods from manual work to mechanization in order to catch up with international trends in this global industry. Use of mechanization helps in labour saving, timeliness of operations, human drudgery reduction, reduces cost of operation, helps in improving quality of work and ensures effective utilization of resources. The major operations in sugarcane cultivation right from land preparation, sugarcane planting, ratoon management, weeding, harvesting, detrashing and trash management, respectively needs mechanization effectively. Almost all of the sugarcane grown in India is still harvested and detrashed the leaves by hand. In order to summarize past experience and promote the mechanization of sugarcane production in India, this paper reviews the whole process of developing mechanization since years and describes the current state of sugarcane mechanization in India. The mechanization used in all the operations is discussed in this study

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