Hand book on use and maintenance of small scale agricultural machines

Ajeigbe, H A and Adinoyi, A (2019) Hand book on use and maintenance of small scale agricultural machines. Technical Report. ICRISAT.

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Research Program : West & Central Africa

Additional Information

This hand book has been developed in alignment with the objectives of intensification, drudgery reduction through mechanization and job creation in the Sorghum commodity under the Outreach project of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program (ATASP-1) being implemented by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). It highlights some basic small and medium scale agricultural machineries used along sorghum value chain and their effective operational requirements and maintenance. We thank the Honorable Minister, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Nigeria, Chief Audu Ogbeh, the President Africa Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina who is also ICRISAT Ambassador of Goodwill for the opportunity given to us and ICRISAT to positively contribute to the development of sorghum value chain in Nigeria. This manual would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of the National Program Coordinator, ATASP-1, Engr. Haruna Akwashiki, the Outreach Project Coordinator, Dr. Gbassey Tarawali and the Outreach officers at the National and Zonal levels as well as consultants who made excellent reviews and recommendations. We acknowledge the partnership of the Director and staff, National Center for Agricultural Mechanization (NCAM) Ilorin, the Director and staff, Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bellow University, Zaria, the Managing Director, Dandago Agricultural Machinery Kano for demonstrating the performance of the various equipment at several locations to the important stakeholders. These demonstrations and subsequent discussions with the Sorghum Commodity Specialist, led to the modification of some of these machines to suit the small holder farmers, youths and women as well as processing needs of processors in the country. Observations and suggestions for enriching this manual from participants of the Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops on the Operation and Maintenance of Small Scale Agricultural Equipment and Reduction of Sorghum Post-Harvest Losses conducted in November, 2015 and subsequent step down trainings carried out in five States namely Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger from 15th October to 9th November 2016 are greatly appreciated. This acknowledgement will be incomplete without mentioning ICRISAT Management led by our Director General, Dr David Bergvinson, and the West and Central Africa Regional Director, Dr Ramadjita Tabo for their continued support and encouragement. We also appreciate our colleagues in the sorghum outreach Dr. Ignatius Angarawai, Dr. Folorunsho Akinseye, Shuaibu Abubakar Ummah, Abubakar H. Inuwa, Ayuba Kunihiya, Tukur Abdulazeez, Victoria Idenyi and Abdullahi Bashir for their support in compiling this guide. While this guide is biased towards the sorghum value chain, we hope subsequent editions will address more crops and agricultural value chains.

Abstract

Small-scale farmers are estimated to account for the cultivation of about 90% of the total cultivated land area in Nigeria, producing about 90% of the total agricultural output (CTA, 1997). This category of farmers still depends on manual labour to carry out their various farming operations. However, with labour demand at critical crop production stages, high labour cost and food demand for the teaming population of over 170 million with an annual growth rate of 2.5%, the introduction of agricultural labour saving devices to Nigeria agriculture has become indispensable. Though successive administrations in Nigeria have made concerted efforts aimed at achieving self sufficiency in food production, these efforts have failed to achieve their intended goals. There are many factors responsible for this, a major one being the lack of an integrated and appropriate labour saving agricultural tools and machines. Therefore, the need to develop and introduce more labour saving devices on Nigeria farms has never been more critical than now. Knowing fully well that increased land productivity (greater output per unit of land) generally depends on the application of higher technology and a higher level of knowledge and management ability, it is necessary to appreciate those changes in mechanization level and farm management abilities that can have a multiplier effect on output per unit of land. It is in view of the above that ICRISAT Nigeria is poise with the massive promotion of standardized small and medium scale agricultural machinery and equipment as well as promotes the production of locally designed prototypes in order to help increase the productivity of the poor agrarian community of the country...

Item Type:	Monograph (Technical Report)
Divisions:	Research Program : West & Central Africa
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Groundnut Sheller, Small Scale Agricultural Machines, Nigeria, Machines
Subjects:	Others > Nigeria Mandate crops > Groundnut Others > Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics Others > African Agriculture
Depositing User:	Mr Ramesh K
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2019 06:32
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2019 08:46
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/11252
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