Modern machinery adversely impacts agri labourers
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, October 27 2024:
As it is often said that every invention has its own merits and demerits, introduction of modern machinery has had both positive and negative impacts on the State's agriculture sector.
With the introduction of many modern machinery, paddy cultivation is no longer labour intensive.
Even though the introduction of modern machinery has made the harvesting process (of paddy) time and labour effective, it has seriously affected the work culture associated with the traditional practice of cultivating paddy.
Talking with The Sangai Express, some farmers accepted that harvesting and threshing of paddy can now be done with little labour and within a very short time following introduction of modern machinery.
At the same time, modern machinery has curtailed a major source of income for a large number of farmers and labourers.
Before the introduction of modern machinery, farmers used to work from dawn till dusk, particularly during the harvesting season and they were able to earn substantial incomes, the farmers said.
Loumee Sinmee Apunba Lup (LOUSAL) president Laishram Kiran said that a large number of people in the rural areas used to work as agricultural labourers and earned substantial income during the harvesting season.
The money thus earned was used to meet the families' expenses including education of children.
Now these people have been left without any source of income as the entire process of harvesting paddy is now done with machines, Kiran said.
All the machines used in harvesting and threshing paddy are very costly and as such, almost all these machines are owned by a few wealthy people.
It implies that whatever income agricultural workers used to earn are now going to a few rich people, he said.
Earlier, paddy harvesting season was a happy time for farmers and agricultural workers alike as it brought them the fruits of their year long labour and opportunity to earn money.
But introduction of modern machinery has robbed this opportunity of earning some income of the poor agricultural workers, said some other farmers.
In another word, advancement of technology has proved to be a bane to the poor agricultural workers, they said.
Replacement of manual labour by machines has also negative impacts on the work culture and also the cultural aspects of paddy cultivation.
Earlier, there was a healthy practice of community service in the form of people from a locality or neighbourhood helping each other in harvesting and threshing paddy.
But this practice has now disappeared with the introduction of modern machinery.
The practice of praying and offering oblation to Goddess Phouoibi on the last day of harvesting paddy has also disappeared, thanks to the modern machinery, said the farmers.
The future generations will never see the tradition of offering prayer to Goddess Phouoibi at the time of harvesting paddy, they said.
When every farmer used to own cattle, they worried very little about Urea or its possibility of scarcity.
The farmers were able to reap plentiful organic paddy.
Laishram Kiran said.
Prayers were offered to Gods and Goddesses even at the time of tilling fields and sowing seeds.
These practices have also disappeared, he remarked.
Nowadays, farmers worry about multiple reasons.
They worry about not receiving enough rainfall or flood.
They also worry about scarcity of Urea and possible infection by pest.
As the authorities know very little about the constant worries of farmers, they (farmers) often feel depressed leading to eventual loss of work culture, Kiran said.
Taking due note of the recent calls to protect agricultural lands, the LOUSAL president said that Manipur has very little resources except for the limited number of paddy fields.
There is an urgent need to protect all agricultural lands effectively, he asserted.
He further pointed out that the younger generations have been losing their work culture as they have been swept by the all pervading current of globalization.
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