Trends of Tractorization in Indian Agriculture

Farm mechanization in India is still in its early stages for the last two decades and only able to achieve a meagre growth rate of less than 5%. Tractors play an important role in mechanization of Indian agriculture. The status of tractorization and growth pattern in sale of tractors in India was studied in the paper. The tractor sale increased at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.39% during the last 54 years and reached a level of 493,764 units in 2015-16. The trend of increasing sale of tractors over the years indicates a rising acceptance of tractor operated agricultural machines and equipment with the Indian farmers. The current trend in sale of tractors indicated the highest share of 43% for 31-37 kW category tractors. The requirement of high power category tractors in India increased for using high capacity farm machines on custom hiring basis. Haryana state of India has the highest tractor density of 96 tractors per thousand hectares of net cropped area and followed by 79 for Punjab. The lowest tractor density of 4 was in Kerala with all Indian average of 43. Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat were the top five states in India in terms of higher sale of tractors from 199596 to 2004-05; however, Punjab and Haryana states were replaced by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra during the last decade. It was observed that there was a positive relationship between available tractor power and food grain productivity for all the major states except Assam and West Bengal. It was concluded that rainfall pattern, land holding size and government policies affected the sale of tractors in India.