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Farm mechanization: Farming is the cultivation of land and rearing of animals. It involves the preparation of land, planting of plants, harvesting, storage and utilization or consumption.
Types of Farming
1.Arable Farming
This is the cultivation of crops.
2. Pastoral Farming
This involves the rearing of animals. Animals are kept in a confined environment and are fed with grasses. Other times the are taken for grazing, that’s movement from one place to another in search of food.
3. Mixed Farming
This involves the cultivation of both crops and animals.
4. Subsistence farming
This is the type of farming whereby a farmer grows food for his immediate farming. It involves small scale farming. The farmer might be left with little or nothing to sell after family consumption.
5. Commercial Farming
This is the production of farm produce for the purpose of selling them in the market. This method is tedious as it requires external labor to assist human labor for better yield.
What is Farm Mechanization?
Farm Mechanization involves the use of other sources of power (energy) to support human labor.
Other sources of energy here include animals (beast of burden) and machineries.
Some Equipment use in Farm Mechanization
Tractor
Crop thresher
Combine harvester
Disc plough
Seed planter
Mower
Fertilizer spreader
Etc.
Importance of Farm Mechanization
Farm Mechanization encourages large scale production of farm produce
It helps to boast work rate and help farmers to meet up with concurrent deadline in food supplies by hastening production.
It improves livelihood by reducing fatigue.
Stages of crop production and Mechanization use.
1. Land clearing
This involves cutting down of unwanted trees, grasses and clearing and raking of entire site for plantation. Machines such as tractor can be used at this stage .
2. Ploughing and Tilling
Tilling of the land prepares the land for seed or stem planting,
Tilling is the act of softening the land. Disc plough and Disc Ridge can be used.
3. Planting and Weeding
To plant the crops, follow required procedure and observe required spacing as the case maybe. The next stage is weeding.
Weeding is the removal of unwanted crops from the farm. This discourages competition between crops and weeds of the available nutrients. Fertilizers may be applied at this stage. Some machines are also used here.
4.Harvesting
Crops are harvested after the might have matured. Different crops are harvested at different intervals. Most crops mature within 3 to 6 months. Combine harvester is used in harvesting especially in commercial farming.
Others include
Transporting of goods to where the are needed.
Processing: crops are process from their raw state and prepare for selling and consumption.
Consumption: Crops get to the consumers .
Mechanization in farming can be seen to be environmental friendly and therefore it enable less human power.
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