Modern rice harvesters costing around P2-million per unit may require huge capital investments but the additional production resulting from minimal post-harvest losses could easily enable farmers to recover their expenses.
In this video which I took of the GPS-equipped modern harvester of Yanmar, it is shown how very minimal are the grains losses during the harvesting process.
Right after cutting the standing paddy rice, the machine automatically threshes the pannicles and stores up to 1.4-metric tons of rice in its diaphragm.
Once the storage compartment is full, the harvestet transfers the rice to a truck which proceeds to a drying facility and the the milling facility.
The Combine Harvester, which could also harvest corn, could cover 5 hectares in an 8-hour operation.
Compare that to about five-man-days for one hectare, especially now that there are fewer farm workers.
Also, the manual harvesting results in tremendous grains losses from the cutting of the standing paddy rice using a scythe, to the bundling and transporting of the harvested rice, to the inefficient mechanical threshing and the primitive way of drying it under the sun.
While the.mechanization program will certainly reduce the need for manual laborers, the Department of Agriculture and Fisherries has addressed this concern by organizing farm workers and training them to become the equipment and machineries operators and service providers.
The program is called “Makinadong Magsasaka” and this has already been started in Region XI and Region XII.
(Video of the Yanmar GPS-guided Rice Harvester was taken by me.in Nagano Prefecture in Japan on Saturday)
https://fb.watch/aG3xX6pg7C/
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