Drudgery Reduction Equipment’s.

Farmers need to work on the field, sometimes the work is very exhaustive, important and urgent too. this kind of exhaustive work is called as drudgery, so currently I am trying to find out multiple areas where drudgery is unavoidable in current scenario. Currently our target is to talk with at least 15-20 farmers and list out the work they need to do but they feel the same work exhaustive, unsafe and time consuming.

Empathy

We have started to talk with different farmers and found out some of the issues I have listed below, Further I try to meet and discuss about more issues faced by farmers at least 10-15 in 1-2nd week of May 2022.

1. Issue of cutting grass for livestock:
   1. As per discussion with Ramesh Mali, Solapur. he have 4 cows and 2 buffalos , feeding them is not quite easy task, he spends daily 1 hour to cut the feed and carry by himself to home from around 200 meters, currently he feels that its his daily and mandatory job, currently he can do the work but he worries about getting sick as his wife needs to do the same job but then it will take more then 2 hours and very hard work.
2. Operating a water pump from a remote place:
   1. Ganesh have a water pump installed at river around 2-2.5 km from his home, it is very difficult for him to reach out starter because he need to travel to this place and surroundings are not so friendly there he worries about snakes, scorpions and dogs.
3. Observations related with harvesting of lady finger:
   1. Discussion with Dr. Arun DIxit and Dr. Yogesh Kulkarni it was stated that this jobs are tedious and required protective equipment otherwise it will make small injuries to fingers.
   2. one person can pluck 50 kg of ladyfinger from 2 guntha land in 2.5-3 hours just by using gloves and full sleeve shirt. 16 Kg/hour.
4. Observations related with harvesting of cluster bean:
   1. Cluster beans needs to be picked one by one as we need only matured beans, otherwise we may affect our next pick.
   2. one person can pluck 12-15 kg of cluster beans in a day or can say in 6 hours. 2-2.5 kg/hour.
5. Observations related to kitchen drudgery.
   1. Making chapatis consumes approx. 90 mins to make 100 chapatis with 2 experienced personals.
   2. Onion cutting will be task for most of the days for different curries.
   3. cutting different vegetables like ladyfinger, cluster beans also consumes time.

Discussions:

• Discussion with Hiren Panchal working on agree hand tools (05/05/2022)
  • Harvesting paddy rice, wheat is laborious job for farmers in hilly areas where they cant take tractor.
  • Using sickle personals need to sit on their knees very long time for harvesting.
  • Soon we will be talking again with other issues too.
• 2nd round of discussion with Hiren Panchal.(21/05/2022)
  • Mango picking is a job of skillful worker but currently no one cares.
  • Mango Spraying.
  • Weeding is again challenging job.
    Time consuming, Expensive,
  • Motorcycle operated crane.
  • Mud making tool for rice .

Just some of the rough calculations:

Farmer need to pay ₹ 200-300 per worker working for 6-8 hours.

From above data cluster beans to be very costly for harvesting compared with lady finger, as the complication of the process of plucking.

What we found ???

• We did not found very much work done on plucking cluster beans and lady finger Reasons might be:
  • Complexity of task it includes going through all the shrub and find out the locations where cluster beans or ladyfinger are situated, then picking only those which are matured and living behind those which are unmatured.
  • Plant should not harmed in the process of cultivating.
• Most of the work in farm demands bending from lower back, knees for long duration of time.
• If data is available of different requirements of vegetables during last few years we may give prediction to farmers which farm produce to make during the different season.
• Managing different crops is the biggest issue, as farmers did not get enough price for their cultivation but on other hand there will be very high demand of something else.
• interesting site to visit for different farm produce cultivation report.
• Click here for cluster bean cultivation guide.
  31,000/- net profit for farmers in 120 +45 = 165 days per acre.

Work done previously Reference links

• A Case study of Health Hazard in okra Picking And Mitigating Measures | DESIGN INNOVATION CENTER (vigyanashram.blog)
• Harvesting Gloves | DESIGN INNOVATION CENTER (vigyanashram.blog)

Discussion with Ranjeet sir and Arun sir: (21/05/2022)

• Problem of carrying heavy items from one place to another and removing weed needs to give attention.
• We will consider to work on wheat/ rice cutting machine but above case will be the priority.
• Find more specification about load carrying supplement tools projects here.
• Find more specification about weeding tools projects here.