Custom Hiring Center

To perform the various agricultural operations the workforce needed is scarce as the population of draft animals is decreasing and there is labour shortage in the country due to the migration of the rural workforce to urban areas for non-agricultural work in search of earning livelihoods. Delay in timely sowing and harvesting of crops leads to low quality and quantity yield of the produce. This suggests the utilization of mechanized farm power as it plays a significant role in timely and precision operations, drudgery reduction, the safety of labours, reduced crop loss, and increased food grain productivity with better economic returns to the farmers. The farm power availability (FPA) in the country per ha in the year 2020-21 was 2.761 kW. Marginal and small farmers due to their poor socioeconomic condition are unable to afford the costly machines required for farm operations. Many such farmers still practice their old traditional methods of farming which are tedious, time-consuming, as well as produce low yields. The hiring of machinery at cost-effective prices has helped the farmers in enhancing agricultural production with efficient use of inputs, and precise farm operations. Custom Hiring Centre (CHC) is a unit consisting of a set of farm machinery, implements, and equipment that is provided to the farmers at affordable prices on a hiring basis. Custom hiring was first introduced in the country in the year 1912 in Punjab with the use of a steam thresher.

Objectives:

1. To make available various farm machinery / equipments to small and marginal farmers
2. To offset the adverse economies of scale due to high cost of individual ownership
3. To improve mechanization in places with low farm power availability
4. To provide hiring services for various agricultural machinery/implements applied for different operations.
5. To expand mechanized activities during cropping seasons in large areas especially in small and marginal holdings.
6. To provide hiring services for various high value crop specific machines applied for different operations.

Establishment of CHC:

Custom Hiring Centre (CHC) was established at KVK-Reddipalli under NICRA and RKVY-NIPHM sponsored by ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad in 2012-13. Different farm machineries are made available on hire to the farmers at nominal charge by CHC.

Machineries at CHC:

Different types of farm machineries have been made available to the farmers since 2012-13. Lists of farm machineries available at CHC are mentioned below for different agricultural operation: