Buffaloes or Tractors? Impact of Farm Size on Farm Power Selection

Abstract

In an effort to initiate measures to revive animal druaght power as a source of power for paddy land preparation, it is vital to understand the minium size of paddy holdings below which such measures are acceptable to farmers. While animal tillage is labour and time consuming tractor tillage is laboour and time saving. This paper points out that as the size of area to be tilled increases, the cash espenditure on labour per unit area also increases if the animal draught power is used whereas it remains unchanged if the hired mechanical power is used. However the length of time available per unit area decreases with increasing size of area to be tilled. Therefore small holders are in a position to spend more labour and time than large holders. for that reason animal tillage is feasible in small holdings and therefore small holders are likely to positively respond to the measures formulated to revive the animal draught power.