Mobile Groundnut Thresher

Nileshbhaiis a farmer and also ran a small business of trading of plastic items and Pankajbhai is his fabricator friend. Hailing from Boria village in Rajkot, Nileshbhai Dobariya was born into a family of farmers. Though he learnt the techniques of farming from a young age, he had to switch to trading plastic items to earn a living. His mind was however always engaged in exploring and solving different problems he saw around himself. Though formally he has only studied until the 10th grade, his enterprising spirit led him to develop an automatic battery-operated floor-cleaning device, which has been put to use at the Swaminarayan temple in his village.

To overcome this problem, Nilesh along with his friend Pankaj started working on a solution, which could move around the field and pick up the heaps of harvested and dried groundnut stalks on its own. They developed their first prototype in 2015 and then set out to improve it.

They developed a modified tractor mounted PTO powered mobile automatic thresher, which consists of an endless chain for collecting pods and stalk, a threshing unit, a separation unit for groundnut pods and stalks and a separate chamber for storage of groundnut pods and stalk. It consumes 2 liter of diesel to cover 1 to 1.5 acres of land in 1 hour with a capacity to store 600kg of groundnut and 800kg of stalk. It has been successfully used for threshing groundnut with an efficiency of 90%. Its cost of operation is only Rs 280 to 300 per hectare. It can also be used for harvesting soya bean and pigeon pea. The cost of the mobile groundnut thresher is Rs 500,000 only. He has got an award for Best innovative work in the field of agriculture development, 15th FGI Awards for excellence, 2018. His innovation got financial support for marketing and prototype development under MVIF from GIAN and SIDBI.

Salient Features:

• It has a conveyor belt for picking the harvested groundnut pods while moving on the field. 

• Storage system for storing fodder and crop separately while moving the machine.

•  Hydraulic system to ensure that the product and by-product (fodder) is dumped on the field where the farmer intends.

• The entire operation requires a driver who operates the machine. No extra labour required.

•  this product has potential to improve the livelihood of farmers as well as community.

• Reduction in drudgery and fast lead time in threshing 

• Reduction in wastage of crop due to unattended condition long time 

• Saving in by product 

• No or very minimal loss in the next crop which was occurring prior because some nuts remain in soil. Timely threshing leads to quality nuts and, proper prices 

Challenges:

Nileshbhai observed that farmers faced scarcity of labor at the time of groundnut harvesting. The use of conventional threshers, requires adequate labor to collect the harvested/dug groundnut stalk. Delay in collection of harvested stalks, which is allowed for drying after digging, results in loss of groundnut.

Overcoming the Challenges:

To overcome this problem, Nilesh along with his friend Pankaj started working on a solution, which could move around the field and pick up the heaps of harvested and dried groundnut stalks on its own. They developed their first prototype in 2015 and then set out to improve it.

They developed a modified tractor mounted PTO powered mobile automatic thresher, which consists of an endless chain for collecting pods and stalk, a threshing unit, a separation unit for groundnut pods and stalks and a separate chamber for storage of groundnut pods and stalk.

Future aspirations: To expand the application of this machine to other crops

Awards and Honours: 

• Innovative Farmer Award, Dhanuka Agritech Limited, 2020 

• 10th National Grassroots Innovation Awards, 2019

• Sardar Patel Krushi Sanshodhan Puraskar, 2019

• Krishi Yantrikaran Samman, Mahindra Samriddhia, 2018

• Best innovative work in field of agriculture development, 15th FGI Awards for excellence, 201

• Certificate form district agriculture officer Rajkot, 2017

Media Coverage:

1. https://www.youtube.com/c/DhartiAgro/videos 

Help is needed on: Market expansion, Technology upgradation for other crops

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