This is old news, things have changed quite a bit...
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Harvesters for Bangladesh
There are about 15 million farm households in BD. The average cultivated area per farm in BD is less than 2 acres. Less than 5 percent of the farms cultivate areas in excess of 7.5 acres. The cultivated plots are defined by narrow walkways, called aisles. Thus negotiating the farmland in BD poses unique challenges.
Over about the last two decades, the government of BD and certain private parties have experimented with a wide range of mechanized equipment. In particular harvesters from Europe, China, Japan and Korea have been imported and demonstrated by the various Agricultural Universities and Institutes. Based on the demonstrations and trials, neither large, nor small harvesters are considered suitable for BD. A robust and simple combine harvester, capable of harvesting about one acre per hour is considered the most suitable size for BD.
AEBL is using Korean (Daedong) made harvesters with a capacity of around one acre per hour. Further details about this harvester can be found at:
http://www.daedong.co.kr/eng/products/combine_list.asp
The right combine harvester for Bangladesh
Bangladesh would require approximately 30,000 harvesters, of the size chosen, to enable all the area cultivated to be mechanically harvested. Currently BD has less than 100 harvesters, of which less than 50 are in commercial operation. The remainder are with government and research institutions.
Harvesting Rice and Wheat in Bangladesh-Mechanized
AEBL started mechanized combine harvesting in BD in Q3 2013.
AEBL Combine harvester in operation in rice field.
The rice plant is fed into the harvester and cut in the front end of the harvester, and full bags of grain collected from one side, ready for sale.
The clean grain is collected after threshing in a hopper and fed into bags.
The spent straw is ejected from the back end of the harvester and laid out neatly on the ground for further drying. The spent straw can also be chopped for plowing back into the fields.
The collected grain is very clean as compared to the manual harvesting process, which leaves empty husks and stalk pieces with the grain.
The combine harvester can harvest crops that are flattened due to weather and difficult to harvest manually.
The combine harvester can also harvest crops that have been disorganized due to weather. These crops are more labor intensive to harvest manually than standing crops.
The Combine harvester can also harvest at night, using its own lights.
Our typical Combine harvester crew consists of a Team Leader, Drivers, and helpers. We train local personnel to operate these sophisticated machines.
Expansion Plan
Bangladesh (BD) went from less than 5% mechanized plowing, to over 95% mechanized plowing in less than 15 years. Currently BD is at less than 1% mechanized harvesting. We expect that within 10 years, well over 50% of the harvesting in BD will be mechanized.
AEBL would like to capture a 10% market share in 5 years or so. AEBL is using its own resources to develop the mechanized harvesting market by operating multiple harvesters in various locations in BD. During this initial operating period, AEBL intends better understand the market, and associated operating issues, and build an organization and infrastructure, with the required customer and market knowledge to position it for rapid growth. AEBL expects to seek and review possible financing sources to enable the planned growth.
Mini Combined Harvester & sack-packager at work in Bangladesh and pretty popular nowadays. Price Tk. 7 lakh and with govt. agro-assistance, price is 50% less, which is Tk. 3,50,000 or USD 4375.
Yanmar AG-600a assembled locally by ACI Industries.
Price around Tk. 30 lakhs or USD 37,500 with 50% Govt. agro-assistance subsidy in Bangladesh.
Mechanized Rice transplanting in Bangladesh - labor shortage is acute in Bangladesh - so mechanized agriculture is making more sense nowadays...
Hand-operated transplanter
Ride-on transplanter
