Benchmarking the Status of Agricultural Mechanization in Ethiopia

Rice Mechanization in Ethiopia: Trends, and Prospects

“…However, there is a challenge in developing and deploying land-leveling technology for rice production (Getnet et al, 2019). A household survey in the Gurafarda and Fogera plains reported that nearly insignificant farmers possess modern mechanized technology other than traditional farm tools as shown in Table Sources: A household survey (Deribe et al, 2019).…”

“…Tractors are used for initial ploughing before rain when soils are hard and animal traction for the second and third times (Ayele, 2021). Draft power users cultivate 0.81 hectares per household (Deribe et al, 2019). Rice weeding requires 175 work days and 66% of all effort for various activities, making it a laborintensive process.…”

“…Women contribute to farm work in other ways as well; 75% of first-time weeding is done by women. The majority of the labor used on farms is hired labor, with male labor playing the dominant role and most farm households relying on family members (Deribe et al, 2019). Research advances have been also made in manual 4-row rice transplanters, hand-pulled 8-row IRRI seeders, and animal-drawn four-row seeders (Getnet et al, 2019).In this regard, the rotary and push-pull type weeders were tested and demonstrated by NRRTC in collaboration with the Africa Rice project, with the rotary weeders alone increasing the grain yield of rice by 10.9%.…”

“…As shown in Table 3, the total labor and cost used by rice farmers during harvesting, primarily in the Gurafarda and Fogera plains, were 27.66 labor days per season, respectively, with 42% of households relying on shared labor to accomplish it (Deribe et al, 2019). Harvesting with a sickle has a working capacity of only 0.01 ha/h, which is why labor shortages during crop harvesting are a regular problem in Ethiopia (Islam, 2009).…”

“…Rice processing is a critical stage in the rice value chain, with farmers taking their paddy to urban commercial rice processors. Farmers are responsible for most of the pre-milling operations, but only a limited number of farmers are aware of the rice polishing practice (Deribe et al, 2019). Due to limited knowledge of the drying process, a significant amount of rice breakage occurs during the milling process (Kebede et al, 2019).…”