A group of self-help group women from Kerala is showing the way in mechanised paddy transplantation which was now initiated for the first time in a commercial way in Tirupur district this season. Expertise of members of Haritha Vanitha Labour Bank, a women self-help group at Kollangode in Palakkad district, who were trained in mechanised paddy transplantation and harvest techniques by the Kerala Government, are called for to carry out transplantation on 260 acres of various farmers’ holdings in Vellakoil and Kangayam blocks.
They are here to help the farmers improve the yield, reduce the cost of production and thereby, augment the profitability.
“We are actually new to mechanised paddy transplantation and hence, the skills of SHG women are coming in handy to re-plant the saplings, first raised in mat nurseries set up adjacent to the main fields, using mechanised transplanters”, some of the veteran paddy farmers like P. Subramanian. R. Thirunavukkarasu and R. Ulaganathan from Muthur area, told The Hindu .
M. Shobana, secretary of the Self Help Group, said the group members had come with seven machines, all given free by the Kerala Government to carry out transplantation.
“We have also been educating the farmers here benefits of mechanised transplantation in cutting down labour requirements vis-a-vis traditional manual planting, to enthuse them to continue the method in subsequent seasons too”, she said.
Since peculiar spacing pattern is used, very less quantity of seeds is required. When around 50 kg of seeds are required for a hectare when saplings are planted in a cluttered manner in traditional method, only around 10 kg of seeds are needed here, the SHG women pointed out.
Joint Director of Agriculture A. Mahendran said that the department had decided to introduce mechanised paddy transplantation this time by giving back-ended subsidies to the farmers because the methodology gives 25 per cent more yield.
“In total, around 1,300 hectares of paddy are going to be raised in the district using transplantation method for the entire fiscal,” he added.
