Tehran - Although near a half century has passed since the Iranian farmers started utilizing agricultural machinery, mechanized agriculture mechanism is yet to find its real position.
Because of some factors such as population growth, need in foodstuff, promotion of products productivity, economization of production, and achievement of self-sufficiency, the necessity of putting the traditional agriculture aside and moving toward the modern and mechanized one has been felt since several years ago. Furthermore, 37 million hectares of fertile lands and 2.5 million farmers encourage modernization of agriculture.
However, the agriculture sector is slowly supplied with modern machinery and tools although it is using dilapidated machines at different stages of planting, caring and harvesting, leading to poor quantity and quality of agricultural crops. The farmers, who are keen to use modern machinery such as tractors and combines, face problems due to their high prices as well as great variety and usages. In the Third Development Plan (2000-2005), 70,000 out of 130,000 needed tractors were handed over to the agriculture sector.
In addition, 60 percent of the tractors and 47 percent of the combines are over 13 years old. The abovementioned issues are signs of underdeveloped and non-mechanized agricultural mechanism. Reasons of underdevelopment Although different measures have been taken to develop the agricultural mechanism in the past years, the realities indicate the inconformity between supply and demand and other shortages.
Engineer Sabbagh Torkan, head of Mechanization Development Center of the Agricultural Jihad Ministry, said, "Compared with the agricultural crops, the price of the agricultural tools and machinery has greatly grown in the past years and consequently the farmers' affordability has decreased. "The farmers have also faced problems for enjoying banking facilities. These factors prevent the agriculture sector from purchasing machinery." He believes structural and infrastructure problems of the agricultural machinery are among the factors, which limit the access to state-of-the-art technology.
Rural areas are suffering from low-level technical knowledge on maintenance and repair of modern agricultural machinery. In addition, Iran's fuel is not compatible with standards of the European agricultural machinery, which have the Euro 2 certificate. Such problems restrict the application of latest environmental and technical technology in the country. Mohammad Baqer Marandi, a Mechanization Development Center expert, believes the farmlands in Iran are small. Out of 2.5 million farmers, nearly 80 percent own under-10 ha, and the remaining 20 percent above that.
Based on the calculations, the average owned lands' area is 6-7 ha and each farmer owns five parcels. Since the majority of them are living under the poverty line, they use the cheapest agricultural tools and machinery. Shifting to quick dilapidation of agricultural machinery, he stated, "In our country, one tractor is used for each 145 ha of land. Thus, 20 users reach an agreement to use one tractor in the farming season. But in the developed countries like France, one tractor is used for each 12 ha of land. In Italy, one tractor is used for five ha and in Korea two ha."
Noting that about 7-8 million ha of the farmlands are under cultivation of grains out of which 5 million ha are harvested by using combines and the rest are traditionally harvested, Marandi said that 5,000 combines working in the agriculture sector. One combine is used for each 1,000 ha on average. The average life of a combine is 2,500 hours. In fact, a brand new combine works for 1,500 hours after one year and it is worn-out due to overuse. According to world standards, a combine's operation should not exceed 250-300 hours per year if it is to work for eight years.
© Tehran Times 2005
