As a farmer, I witnessed that most of the farm activities are done using engine-driven machines. It was saddening for me to see that my neighboring farmers who have been using these machines that have high vibration consistently for many years are now suffering from Paralysis. I also realized that for one of the most critical activities, Deweeding, since there are no low-cost and effective methods, farmers have no other alternative than using herbicides. But there is a great health risk associated and also it also leads to soil infertility. Scientific studies found that the chemical causes rare kidney disease and Pancreatic cancer.
On Witnessing the pain that the women farm laborers are going through on my farm for weed removal and similar activities, reluctant to use machines, I felt the strong need to mechanize these activities in a simple, easy-to-use manner. This led to Suryanirbhar and we have the vision to empower women and farmers by building simple low-power agri-implements suitable for Indian farms.
Women farmers in India work double the hours their male counterparts put into farming. If they had access to productive and efficient resources and the right mechanization to help them, they could increase the yields by 20 to 30%.
- We don’t really have a good mechanization for inter-crop operations today
- The operational costs of existing engine driven m/c are as high as 4000 Rs. per crop cycle per acre for a crop for post-sowing activities.
- These diesel machines are bulky and women refuse to use these, 80% of Indian agri workforce being women, the efficiency of majority of workforce goes really low.
- Today Farmers have to buy different machines for different farm activities so their expenditure would go high
In 2012, a farmer had just started his tiller to prepare the soil to sow sugarcane crop on the fateful morning of December 2, when his leg got stuck in the tiller, snatching the life out of him.
IN 2019, a 15-year-old boy was killed after being caught under a tractor’s rotavator in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district
Stress and fatigue have been identified as key causes of agricultural accidents, according to researchers.
The University of Aberdeen team found that “lapses in situation awareness” related to stress and fatigue were the main contributors.