Garibsons Consortium organized two demonstrations, attended by over 400 farmers in Gharo (Thatta) and Golarchi (Badin), to demonstrate their newly imported rice nursery sowing and transplanting machines.
Garibsons Consortium led by Garibsons Pvt. Ltd., Conwill Pakistan, RB International and INB along with Jaffer Agro Services Pvt. Ltd., has procured the required machinery and trained personnel to provide mechanical nursery sowing and transplanting services to rice farmers for the first time in Sindh during the rice season 2019.
During the demonstration, the farmers were greatly impressed by the speed of transplanter machines, which can transplant one acre of rice seedlings in less than hour compared to by-hand transplantation, which requires 10-15 men about 4 hours to transplant one acre. The plant population during mechanical transplantation is also higher at about 100,000 plants/acre compared to 45,000 plants/acre achieved during manual transplantation, which translates to a yield increase of about 25-30% for mechanical sowing and transplantation.
After successful demonstration, all farmers shared that farm labor was not only hard to find during manual transplantation and harvesting periods but also less efficiency so they look forward to using these machines to increase their productivity and profitability.
