Coimbatore: Country ploughs are making a comeback. This time in steel avatar.
The ploughs,
an integral part of agriculture once, had been slowly disappearing after tractors entered the market. However,
they are back in demand,
thanks to tribal farmers, who cultivate on hilly terrains. They are looking for bull ploughs because they say tractors are useless on the undulated land.
Scientists from the Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI), who visited tribal villages in Kuliyur, Palamalai, Mettupalayam and Anaikatti a few months ago to offer them tractors, saw skeptical faces smiling back at them. “They were happy when we gave them cattle, including milch cows and bullocks. But when we offered a tractor, as part of tribal sub-plan and extension initiatives, they said they want bull ploughs,” SBI scientist Rajula Shanthy said.
It was only when Shanthy and team began hunting for readily available country ploughs did they realize that the oldest symbol of agriculture had disappeared from the market. “It was not available anywhere in Coimbatore. Also, we could not find carpenters who can make them,” said SBI scientist C Jayabose.
It was after a lot of search that the team came across city-based Ramkumar Industries, a manufacturer of tractor-driven attachments in Vellakiner. The company, started in 1969, was primarily a manufacturer of wooden ploughs. “However, demand for the country ploughs began dropping once tractors entered the market. We used to manufacture about 1,000 country ploughs a year till 1995. But the numbers have dropped to less than 50 a year,” said K Karthik Ram, CEO of Ramkumar Industries.
“We had a prototype design of
the ploughs we used to manufacture. We decided to follow the same design and use steel instead of wood, because it is lighter, requires less maintenance and is more durable than wood,” Ram told TOI.
Farmers associations admitted that almost 99% of the community have moved to tractors, despite they being almost 100 times expensive. While a country plough costs Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000, a tractor costs Rs 6 lakh. “However, to use a country plough, we need to buy a cow or a bull for Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 and hire someone, who will charge Rs 9,000 a month to run the plough through the farm,” president of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association Vazhukkuparai Baalu said. “A tractor on the other hand is a one time investment, uses less fuel, can be driven by us and can plough one acre in half-an-hour compared to the plough, which does half-an-acre in three hours,” he said.
Farmers said that finding carpenters to make country ploughs has also become impossible. “Earlier, we used to have carpenters, who would use the wood of karuvelam tree and carve out the ploughs for us and even repair them. However, it is difficult to find even one in the district. Their children have moved on to other professions,” said T Senthuram, a farmer in Madukkarai.