A SURVEY ON THE UTILIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY

This study was carried out in order to find out an effective machinery utilization strategy by conducting a survey on utilization and maintenance of agricultural machinery. The survey showed that the no. of utilization hours for power tiller in a year was 190.2hrs, 208.6hrs for tractor, 59.1hrs for rice transplanter, 74.0 hrs for combine, 44.6 cultivator and 254.4hrs for 4.4hrs for grain dryer. The period covered the time the machine was until it became unserviceable. The results are as follows: 10.0yrs for power tiller, 7.5yrs for tractor, 7.4yrs for rice transplanter and 5.4yrs for combine. This indicate that the actual period of use for power tiller and rice transplanter was longer than the expected period of duration years so there is a need for adjustment. The factors considered by the farmers for purchasing agricultural machine were: farm size(32%), machine operation (26.0%), performance(l4.0%) and post or after sales service(12.6%), according to the survey. It showed that repair cost rate in a year was classified into major agricultural machine; 4.8% for combine; 3.9% for tractor; 3.5% for rice transplanter; 2.0% for power tiller; 1.6% for grain dryer; and 1.2% for cultivator. The reasons for poor maintenance were insufficient after sales service(25%) and difficulty in buying parts(75%) because of the unavailability of parts in local shops(55%), imported models(30%) and outmoded model(15%).