Abstract:
As the decreasing rural population of Sri Lanka is becoming increasingly responsible for feeding the
growing urban population, increase in productivity of agriculture has become an essential feature in stepping
towards sustainability. As younger generation avoids the cultivation, the labour shortage has become very
significant. To motivate the young people in to agriculture, mechanization plays a vital role. This paper
describes about one such mechanization, which is done on replacing manual bund making process in low land
paddy fields. Bund making is usually done in two steps using the mamotee; bund clearing and mud plastering.
Hence two separate attachments have been developed for the two steps separately.
For bund clearing, a simple cutter with a height adjusting mechanism has been developed and tested.
This attachment is designed for a two-wheel tractor as it was the most preferred tractor among Sri Lankan
farmers.
A new concept was tested for bund plastering, as a direct attachment to the tractor. A closed
rectangular channel which has a curve along its length has been suggested to convey mud towards the bund. The
flowing ability of mud was supposed to be utilized in this new concept. Mechanizing the mud plastering process
would be an entirely a new innovative concept and lot of empirical investigations are needed during the testing
of the attachments. The two attachments were fabricated with a minimum cost and field-testing was conducted
to check the proper functionality of the two attachments.
The bund clearing attachment worked successfully though several modifications were to be made. The mud
plastering concept failed during testing. Approximately about 30-fold productivity gain in terms of time
consumption is expected with the introduction of this mechanization compared to the conventional methods
currently used by the farmers.
