The paddy thresher and zero
tillage drill – Experience from
Pakistan
Usman Mustafa and S. G. Abbas
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE)
Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC)
Format
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Pakistan, agriculture and economy
Need of the technology
Methodology
Zero tillage seed drill import, designing and manufacturing
Technical specifications of ZT drill
PT import, designing and manufacturing
Technical specifications of PT drill
The Road to Success
ZT Drill and PT Units Manufactured & Area Covered/year
(Million ha)
 Financial Impact of ZT & PT (Million Rs.)
 Technology Development Process
 Conclusion and recommendations for the Promotion of
Mechanized farming in Pakistan
Pakistan, agriculture and economy
 Principal natural resources
are arable land and water.
 About 25% of total land
area under cultivation
 Agric. accounts for about
21% of GDP and employs
about 43% of the labor
force.
 Wheat and rice are the
major crops as well as the
cropping systems of
Pakistan’s agriculture.
Need of the technology
 The Green Revolution - 1965 to 1985.
 Boost in production did not keep pace with the
population growth.
 Stagnation particularly of rice-wheat productivity
and environmental changes required - new resource
conserving production techniques
 Challenge of productivity enhancement - ensure
environmental safety and conserve natural
resources, time, money, and energy
Methodology
• The study is a review work
• Special meetings with Director, ABEI and
other engineers engaged in designing and
development of ZT drill and PT. Also with
social scientists at NARC/PARC.
• Anthers are also engaged with these
machines
Zero tillage seed drill import,
designing and manufacturing
 Land preparation for wheat in rice-wheat rotation is
an energy and cost intensive, time consuming practice
– delay in wheat sowing
 Low yield - the concept of zero-tillage sowing method
was considered
 Early 1980 New Zealand Pakistani origional agri.
Engineer brought ZT drill idea and machine
 First prototype ZT drill was imported from Aitcheson
Industries from New Zealand, during mid-1980.
 Efforts by FMI/AEBI, CIMMYT – local industries” Joint
Venture” – 1990-96
Zero Tillage Drill (ZT Drill)
Technical specifications of ZT drill
Power requirement :
35 kW (45 hp)
tractor
Field capacity:
1 acre/hour
Operating cost:
Rs.1, 350/acre
Savings:
Rs. 3,700/acre
Pedy thresher import, designing and
manufacturing
 After harvest, rice threshed with manual beating,
bullock/tractor treading and by manual cleaning.
 With this conventional system, the rice threshing
season continues for 3 to 4 months in Sindh and
Balochistan provinces
 Highly laborious, time consuming, deteriorates rice
quality and exposed to bad weather conditions.
 IRRI/PAK farm machinery project during late
seventies and early eighty
 A tractor PTO operated high capacity (throw-in
type) rice thresher was imported from Thailand
Pedy Thresher (PT)
TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHT
 Output Capacity: 1.5 t/h
 Operating Cost : Rs. 2230/t
 Savings:
Rs. 3960/t
 Manufacturers : 16
The Road to Success
 ABEI, Islamabad has designed and developed ZT
drill and PR to suit farming conditions
 ZT manufactured and marketed >35 local
manufacturers > 5,500 units available with the
farmers.
 ZT drill used on 0.325 m.ha out of 2.0 m.ha for
wheat sowing during the year 2010.
 Recently the price has been decreased to Rs 25,
000, mainly due to higher production and
improvement in design and material from the
imported Rs 2.5 million.
The Road to Success
 There are Rs 16811 million saving due to the
introduction of his machine in the rice-wheat
rotation from 2002 to 2010 .
 PT is popular in Sindh and Balochistan province
under IRRI rice cultivation.
 The net saving from one machine is Rs. 0.5
million per season. Six manufacturers are
manufacturing this machine mainly in Punjab.
The overall net saving to national exchequer due
to the adoption of ZT drill is Rs 16811 million
during 1995-2010.
ZT Drill and PT Units Manufactured &
Area Covered/year (Million ha)
Year
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
Units Manufactured/year
Area Covered/year (Million
ha)
Zero-tillage
Drill
Paddy
Thresher
Zero-tillage
Drill
Paddy
Thresher
1500
2000
0.325
0.286
1800
2200
0.3
0.286
2500
2500
0.3
0.26
3500
2800
0.275
0.208
3400
1700
0.25
0.13
Financial Impact of ZT & PT (M. Rs.)
Years
Zero-Till Drill
Paddy Thresher
1995
6.88
1996
7.55
1997
16.00
1998
93.71
1999
149.94
2000
196.60
2001
240.60
2002
287.01
3.60
2003
315.34
36.00
2004
512.01
180.00
2005
1023.50
576.00
2006
1555.80
912.00
2007
1993.40
1222.3
2008
2297.50
1247.10
2009
3623.20
1964.7
2010
4,492.6
4047.5
Total
16,810.9
10,189.2
Technology Development Process
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IARS
NARS - SSI
PARS
Farmers
M&E (SSI)
• Feed Back
• Adoption
Impact
FMI (ABEI)
Design/Febri.,
Testing
(lab/field)
Demonstration
• Farmers
• Extension/PA
RS/Projects
Demonstration
(Exp. Station &
Farmer Field)
NARS/PARS
Private Manu.
• Agreement
• Prototype
• Drawing
• Fabrication
Conclusion and Recommendations
 Development is a continue process and need close
collaboration and cooperation (International,
national, local and also among all stake holders).
 Farm mechanization is an important sub-sector for
the national economy. Farm mechanization involves
introduction of suitable farm machines and their
availability either through import or local
manufacturing.
 AEBI of NARC ,PARC played a pivotal role in
development and dissemination of local demanded
machines
Recommendations for the promotion
of farm machines
 The existing capabilities of public sector
Research and Development (R&D) institutions
be strengthened
 A national network for agricultural
mechanization needs to be established to
coordinate farm machinery R&D activities for
efficient utilization of available resources along
with new proposals to meet the farmers needs
 The scope of R&D be extended to farm level
processing for value addition to agricultural
produce
Recommendations for the promotion
of farm machines
 Print and electronic media be used for
promotion of farm mechanization technologies.
 Private sector be in particular encouraged to
contribute towards mechanization of agriculture
sector and:
- initiate in-house R&D activities
- improve quality and standard of their products
- improve their manufacturing set-ups to meet the
local demand at competitive price
- establish customer hire services for costly agricultural
machinery.
Thank you
very much