Impact of Power Tillers On Paddy Cultivation in Asia

About 20 years ago most of the water buffalos in Thailand and other parts Asia were retired in favor of power tillers adapted for rice paddies that were originally manufactured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and now China. Shifting to power tillers represents a major enhancement of the resources available to smallholder rice producers to manage their lands, which addresses a key issue of drudgery relief discussed on this website. It should have a major impact on rice cultivation, which may need to be quantified as a guide for other programs interested in making mechanization available to smallholders and understanding the impact of mechanization on individual fields, farms, and across smallholder communities.

One of the key issues is the impact the shift to power tillers has on paddy establishment time for an entire farm. For rain-fed areas, the time may be halved from four months to two months. It could then impact farm size, including both directly owned land and rented land. Additional impact would be the shift from transplanted to direct seeded rice and with that, the use of herbicides for weed control. It might also impact the diversification and intensification of farm enterprises, such as converting a portion of the land to aquaculture with additional poultry or piggery production on top of the fish ponds. Also, the shift to power tillers appears to have lead to contract combining with small combines originating in Japan that can operate in the one rai (1/6 th hectare) fields and has this lead to an overall increase in rice intensity from two crops per year to five crops every two years.

Finally, what impact has it had on the material well-being of the farmers in terms of motorcycles, pick-up trucks, TV's, VCRs, refrigerators, cell phones, etc.? It might also be interesting to see how much of the shift was motivated by the public sector extension effort vs. how much was more spontaneously coming from the private sector.

Power tillers are also moving into the rice schemes of Africa. This is again all self financed with no assistance from the donor community. It looks like another missed opportunity. The question is how effective will value chain enterpriese be unless they include some means of drudgery relief?

That should be sufficient to stimulate interest and the topic can easily be expanded.

Last Revised: 26 March 2010 .