Allied Utensils in Jute Cultivation
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Jute and mesta are very important natural fibres next to cotton. India and Bangladesh are two major jute producing countries accounting to 80% of export to outside world. Jute is mainly cultivated by small and marginal farmers of Eastern and North Eastern states like West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Odisha, Tripura, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya. About 4 million people are involved in jute production system starting from jute cultivation to industry. The most energy and cost consuming operations in jute cultivation are weeding & thinning and fibre extraction. These operations are carried out almost manually and by farm women. Due to increase in cost of agricultural inputs and labour, jute cultivation becomes a non-profit enterprise and traditional jute farmers slowly diverting to other profitable crops. In this situation mechanization of jute cultivation can play an important role in reducing production cost and drudgery while increasing jute fibre production. To reduce drudgery and to improve the work output of jute farmers, equipment/machines i.e. manual jute seeder, improved weeder, nail weeder, manual jute fibre extractor, power operated fibre extractor, have been designed and developed and discussed in the paper.