Seed Cum Fertilizer Broadcaster was indigenously
fabricated by the Engineers in MAGLANDS
Creations for use as seeds broadcaster and fertilizer applicator. These
operations are seemingly simple to do manually but extremely difficult to
achieve uniform distribution of the fertilizer and seeds. The
resultant effects; neither the plant population is optimum nor the plant growth
is uniform for the crops planted on the same day and on the same farm land.
Obtaining lower yield of crops is often the consequence of Hand or manual broadcasting
of seeds and fertilizer. The indigenous Broadcaster is designed to be mounted
across the shoulder of an operator by means of a strap. A hand-crank rotates
the spreading disc. Seeds or fertilizer are placed in the hopper. The size of
the delivery aperture provided in the bottom of the hopper is adjusted to apply
the recommended quantity of the seeds or fertilizer per unit area. As the hand
crank is rotated and the person moves forward; the material is spread uniformly
over a 5-6 m radius. This machine is suitable for rice, wheat and grass/hay
productions. The performance features of the machine are application rate
ranged from 40kg/hr to 62.4kg/hr, carrying capacity from 6.5kg to 10kg, Field
capacity from 0.54 to 0.72ha/hr and Labour
requirements to 1.38 to 1.84man-hr/ha.
Serrated Weeding hoe is another indigenous innovation to assist farmers. Weed
control is an indispensable operation in the crop production system otherwise
the weeds will share the soil nutrients with your crops. Weeds are serious menace to crops as they
compete with the plants for water and light in addition to the nutrients,
harbour insects, pests, diseases and reduce the quality and yield of the crop. One
of the most widely and traditionally used methods of weed eradication in
standing crops is the use of hoes. The main advantage of using the serrated
Weeding Hoe is the elimination of back-ache usually encountered with the local
hoe. This is because of its short-handle which causes the farmer to bend in a
bent posture. Besides, less effort is required to use the improved hoe due to
superior grade of steel material used for the blade which aids in maintaining a
sharp cutting edge of the blade. Depending upon the soil, crop and weed
conditions, it was found that a person could weed a piece of farm land area
from 0.02 to 0.04 ha/hr. This the labour requirements could vary from 22 to 40 man
hrs/ha, which means that a person can weed twice or trice the same area he
could do with the traditional hoe and less drudgery.
Fabrication
of Wheel hoe is another feat targeted at small scale farmers. The wheel hoe is widely used to
effectively control weeds. The wheel hoe is essentially an inter-row
cultivator. It is used by pushing and pulling action. The stroke length is
adjusted by the operator depending upon his arm length and ease of working. The
depth of penetration is adjusted by raising or lowering the wheel with the help
of the holes provided on the frame. The work output for an average person ranged
from 0.03 to 0.05ha/hr. It is an improvement over serrated weeding hoe.
Fabrication
of Agricultural processing machineries were among the indigenous efforts to
address post harvest losses and improve the quality of agricultural produce. Rice Paddy Parboiler is one of such processing equipment. Traditional method of rice
perboiling has led to poor quality and making consumers to have preference for
the imported rice. The Parboiler is designed to soak the paddy in water, heat
and steam it over a specified period of time. This leads to partial boiling of
the grains and galvanizing of the starch in the rice. The process keeps the
quality of cooked parboiled rice better as it can be kept for longer duration
without decomposition or moulding. The Parboiler can parboil 70kg of paddy in
about 4 hours. This operation can be repeated 2 to 3 times a day which means a
paddy of 140 to 210 kg can be parboiled each day. A bigger parboiler with
higher capacity up to 2 Tons of paddy rice was also developed, The perboiler
can meet the needs of small scale rice processor with relatively small
investment.
MAGLANDS Creations is not alone in this
race of promoting indigenous and quasi - indigenous technologies for
transforming our traditional farming practices to modern and efficient ones.
Recently, Ahmadu Bello University Consultancy Company Nig Limited (ABUCONS) has
made a giant step towards this direction. ABUCONS is the business outfit of
Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. The aim of ABUCONS is to provide technical,
professional and other expert services to all tiers of government and private
sectors. This is done through the involvement of academic staff who undertake
research projects of immediate relevance to the country, thus leading to
mutually beneficial relationship between teaching, research and practice. The
firm depends mainly on the widespread talents available at the university to
execute consultancy projects. This means that ABUCONS has a pooled of
intellectual manpower with more than 2,000 academic eggheads in over 100
academic programmes of the university. In a dramatic move to provide a lasting
solution to low level of agricultural
mechanization in the country, ABUCONS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with Qicheng Engineering and Machinery Company Ltd, Hong Kong China for a
joint venture. The joint venture is aimed at manufacturing, importation and assembly
small scale, affordable and quality agricultural machineries, implements and
equipment. The venture is ensuring that the researchers and scientists of the
two companies share their expertise and experience with researchers and
academics of Ahmadu Bello University and the nation in general. The venture is likely to facilitate and
promote technology transfer, expertise in manufacturing, fabrication,
multi-purpose engineering machinery, tools and spare parts between the two countries (China and Nigeria).
Already, some of the hanging and dangling fruits of this venture are being
plugged.
Samples of the joint venture's products are
hand - held rice reaper, small scale rice milling machine, multi - crops
thresher, small scale combined rice de-stoning and milling machine, groundnut
harvester, planting/transplanting machines, and many others. These machines are
mainly for small scale farmers, targeted at Nigerian peasant farmers across the
five ecological regions of the country. As stated in the MoU, these products
have to be of high quality, affordable, available spare parts and trained
manpower for repairs and maintenance. This is certainly a good news for our
small scale farmers who have been toiling on their farms over the years with
insignificant rewards for their labour.
MAGLANDS Creations and ABUCONS are not the
only private and governmental organizations working tirelessly to promote
indigenous improved farming tools and machineries. National Centre for
Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) Ilorin, many
Engineering faculties/schools in our tertiary institution of learning and
multiple research centres across the nation have pockets of success stories on
the development and testing of farm machineries. Despite these efforts, however,
there are few insignificant impacts on our agricultural mechanization due to
some challenges.
The
first challenge to farm mechanization in Nigeria is lack of coherent and
consistent government policy on agricultural mechanization. To the best of my knowledge, there is no separate National policy on Agricultural
Mechanization, however under Agricultural policy there is narrow outline
on how Government intends to promote
Agricultural Mechanization. This must squarely be
addressed through involvement of relevant stakeholders especially, Nigerian
Institution of Agricultural Engineers (NIAE), Nigerian Agricultural Society
(NAS) and Association of Practicing farmers of Nigeria (APFAN) among others.
Another
challenge is inadequate funding for research and development, research funds in
the annual Federal government budgets are placed under capital projects, yet,
the capital projects are hardly released; in the last five years, the releases
were at best 50% of the approved budget and were never timely. In agricultural
research work, "time" is an important variable under investigation
and when untimely fund release make a researcher slow down, the research result
will certainly be affected. The next challenge is preference for imported goods
by our elites who are mostly responsible for our massive importations of all
goods and services into the country. Government has to patronize made in
Nigeria goods and its policy to promote these practices.
These are few
of the challenges militating against the successful promotion of the indigenous
farm mechanization in the country. The earlier the government lead in
addressing them, the better for our country and we may begin to see light when
government shows commitment. The road to food security for a nation has never
been a smooth one.
No comments:
Post a Comment