Activity 25.1: While reading questions 1 for Passage 1
Passage 1
Benefits of Mechanized Agriculture
Agricultural Mechanization is an essential input not only for crop production, but it also has a crucial role to play along the entire value chain. It is applicable at all stages of production. At pre-harvesting stage, it is needed for land preparation, crop establishment, weeding, fertilization, irrigation, crop protection and harvesting. At post-harvest and storage, it is applied for drying, grading, winnowing, cleaning and storage. At the processing and marketing stage it is needed for chopping, milling, grinding, pressing, packaging and transport.
The changing agricultural sector and the challenges smallholders have faced call for farm mechanization. The demanding market has made the farming operations very tense. On the contrary, labor market situations, capacity to utilize machines, and availability of complementary technologies are not accessible for smallholders. The benefits of mechanization could be also sustained by the availability and use of other complementary inputs such as improved seeds, fertilizers and water resources.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in goal number twelve (SDG12) provides a strong case for sustainable crop production escalation that will protect natural resources while producing food for the global growing population. In order to achieve this, there is need to sharply improve labor and land productivity in the smallholder farming sector. The smallholder farming sector produces up to 80% of the food in developing countries. This would not only require improved access to essential crop production inputs including quality seed, fertilizer and irrigation water, but also would necessitate increased access to machinery.
As smallholder agriculture becomes more commercial and modern, and agricultural value chains get more intricate, there is need to promote diverse types of mechanization along these value chains. Vast mechanization opportunities for small to medium scale farmers and other entrepreneurs lie in agro-processing, transport or other off-farm activities. In identifying farm operations that should be mechanized, priority ought to be given to tasks where labor productivity is low and/or where labor drudgery is high.
Agricultural mechanization is highly capital intensive, compared to the usually manual inputs, but is very essential to agricultural production. It has also consequences on the efficiency of all other inputs used in crop productions including seeds, fertilizer, water, and time and labor. It can also have very detrimental effects on the environmental sustainability of farming. It is also much more complex and demanding in its application, requiring not only correct use, but also a service infrastructure for maintenance and repair. However, climate smart agriculture such as conservation agriculture, safe and efficient application of pesticides, precision application of fertilizers, soil compaction management, efficient harvesting, and natural resource conservation ensure sustainable and safe production.