Mechanization of agricultural production in developing countries

Mechanization of agricultural production in developing countries

Agriculture is a main source of income, employment, and livelihood of a significant proportion of the
populations of developing countries. Agricultural mechanization has now been in progress for
several decades. However, it has been mainly confined to developed countries and a small number of
developing countries. Some of the developing nations have had little or no progress in this area of
agriculture production until recent times. Particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa, where 65% of agriculture
is still carried out by manual labor, 25% by animal traction, and only 10% is mechanized
(Esdaile, 2016). This is compared with the rapidly improved situation in countries like China,Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.

Mechanization of agricultural production requires the applications of modern technologies. These
technologies, however, are generally associated with relatively well-developed economies or largescale
farms. The application of these technologies in many developing countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America are limited by factors such as the technology’s compatibility with the environment,
availability of resources to facilitate the technology’s adoption, cost of the technology, government
policies, adequacy of the technology, and appropriateness in addressing the needs of the population.
As a result, many of the available resources have been inadequately used by farmers. This has led to
low productivity and high cost of production.

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