Cost-Economic Evaluation of Leafy Vegetable Harvester versus Conventional Harvesting: A Comparative Study
Ramineni Harsha Nag *
Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
P. K. Sharma
Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
Indra Mani
Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Maharashtra, 431401, India.
H. L. Kushwaha
Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
R. K. Yadav
Division of Vegetable Science, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
Debashish Chakraborty
Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
Susheel Kumar Sarkar
Division of Agricultural Statistics, ICAR-IASRI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
Ajay Kushwah
Division of Agricultural Engineering, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, 110012, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The process of harvesting green vegetables is labor-intensive and costly, demanding a substantial workforce. To address the challenges associated with manual harvesting, mechanization is essential for reducing costs, saving time, and improving worker comfort. By precise and comprehensive evaluations of ownership and operational expenses, farmers can acquire valuable information. This knowledge empowers them to make well-informed decisions about purchasing new machinery, optimizing existing equipment, or even exploring alternative methods to enhance their farm's productivity and financial outcomes. Therefore, a battery-operated leafy vegetable harvester is compared with manual harvesting in terms of cost economics. The present results reveal that the ownership and operating costs of the developed harvester are 76.86 Rs/h and 83.702 Rs/h. Compared to traditional methods, it saves an impressive 85.71% of the time and reduces costs by 54.12% during harvesting. The study determined that using battery-operated leafy vegetable harvesters is not only more cost-effective than manual harvesting but also environmentally friendly when compared to fuel-operated harvesting methods.
Keywords: Break-even point, cost economics, operating cost, ownership cost, payback period