Browsing: Agricultural mechanisation

Section of model farm - Galana/Kulalu Food Security Project. Kenya has introduced mechanisation policy to help improve food productivity. www.theexchange.africa

Large-scale farmers usually own specialized and custom-built equipment and keep up with recent technological advancements. Those in the medium-scale farming system mostly hire machinery while for small-scale farmers, mechanisation is limited to a few farm operations like land preparation. Other operations are done manually. Private service providers offer mechanisation services for small scale farmers where the use of machinery is very low in relation to the medium and large-scale agricultural production systems.  

Most of Kenya’s livestock is raised in extensive systems with communal grazing and free-ranging of rain-fed rangelands. Intensive production is practised in the high rainfall areas, semi-intensive systems are found in semi-arid lands and extensively in arid areas. The use of mechanised livestock production systems is very low. However, the potential for mechanisation is high to meet the growing demand for livestock and livestock products.  …

Preparing a field for planting using a tractor. Africa should embrace mechanisation which includes irrigation systems, food processing and related technologies and equipment to increase agricultural productivity. www.theexchange.africa

With Africa’s population expected to double by 2050, the continent must embrace modern technology to increase productivity.

More than 70 per cent of Africa’s food is grown on smallholder farms with the backbreaking physical labour majorly undertaken by women. The continent’s food production involves the hoe more than it does mechanised labour leading to decreased output.

One thing to note is that mechanisation is not limited to tractors but it also includes irrigation systems, food processing and related technologies and equipment in the agricultural production chain.

Read: COVID-19: Millions of smallholder farmers facing tough times ahead

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), agricultural mechanisation is the application of mechanical technology and increased power to agriculture to enhance the productivity of human labour and often to achieve results well beyond the capacity of human labour.

This includes the use of tractors of various types as well as animal-powered and …