Efficient utilization of energy with an improved farming system for selected semi-arid tropics. Agric. Ecosystems Environ., 24: 381-394. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India, has developed an improved technology for the management of Vertisols. The results of testing of this technology in farmers' fields in India have shown that substantially higher yields can be achieved by an efficient application of available energy resources along with other high-value inputs. The technology does not depend upon a tractorized form of energy and improves the productivity of farm labor.
This study evaluates the dynamic consequences of machine threshing in the Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT) of Peninsular India. We rely on a panel of 30 cultivator and 10 landless labour households to monitor, over five cropping years from 1975/76 to 1979/80, the impact of mechanical threshing on the village economy. Machine threshing did not significantly reduce costs, increase cropping intensity, or greatly harm labour. These results are strongly conditioned by the ecological features of the SAT. Their implications for public-sector investment in research on selective threshing mechanisation are drawn.Recently in this journal, Ghodake, Ryan, and Sarin assessed how improved cropping technologies changed the seasonality of labour demand, and concluded that labour bottlenecks 'could adversely effect the timeliness of operations critical to the success of prospective double-cropping and/or intercropping technology aiming at greatly increased food production ' [1981:43]. They expected 'to see increased demand by farmers for selective mechanisation operations such as threshing, where the major bottlenecks would seem to arise ' [44].When economists graph the seasonal demand for labour required by prospective technologies, agricultural engineers are usually quick to interpret 'the peaks' as signalling or reinforcing the need for research on selective mechanisation, in this case on the evaluation and design of threshing technologies for the Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT) of India [Singhal and Thierstein, 1979:2]. 1 Whether public sector resources should be allocated for research on selective mechanisation depends largely on two criteria -comparative advantage 2 and consequences. In this study, we focus on consequences and measure the impact of machine threshing on cost, employment and cropping intensity in a dryland village economy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.