Agricultural and Biological Engineering Institute of the National Agriculture Research Center (NARC) has developed a mobile sugarcane crusher for crushing crops at the field level.
The new version of farm level sugarcane crusher would help the small-scale farmers to process their product at the farm level for gur and sugar making.
The crusher consists of six horizontal rollers powered by a 30-hp diesel engine and is easy to transport from one field to another.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony, Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said mechanised agriculture would reduce the labour and other costs of inputs.
He called upon the agriculture engineers to design cost effective tools and machinery to facilitate the small-scale growers across the country.
He said cost effective machinery would make the local agri-produces competitive in international markets by reducing their cost of production.
He further said the country was the 5th largest sugarcane producing country of the world, adding mobile sugarcane crusher would help the small scale grower of the rural areas.
The minister said due to significant benefits for high output and better juice recovery farmers have shown their interest in mobile sugarcane crusher.
He appreciated the efforts of engineers and urged the need for devising a mechanism to cater the needs and challenges of agri-sector of the country.
Engineering Division Director General (DG) Dr Nadeem Amjad said a major part of sugarcane was crushed at the farm level to produce gur, shakkar and brown sugar and the mobile crusher would help the farmers.
He further said the farmer could earn 57 per cent more profit by making gur than selling the sugarcane to the sugar mill.
NARC DG Dr Muhammad Azeem Khan while speaking on the occasion said sugar industry was the second largest agro-based industry in the country and comprising 86 percent sugar mills, where over 50 million tonne of sugarcane was crushed annually.
The gur-making process had been an important cottage industry of the country and it would further promote the cottage industry in the rural areas of the country, he added.
