Threshing

Over the last week and a half I've spent several days at a local farm testing threshing machines and talking with Parmeshwar, the farmer. It's been good fun getting out of the office and spending time on the farm, which is located along a windy road passing through groves of rubber trees and rice fields.

View over some of the large paddy fields next to Parmeshwar's farm

Threshing is the process of removing rice grains called “paddy” from the straw stalks. Traditionally, farm labourers will beat bundles of straw called “sudis” over a wooden board, causing the paddy to fall off. This is a slow and labour intensive process which is becoming increasingly expensive due to a labour shortage in the area, as young people move from rural areas into large cities like Bangalore. In order to introduce farmers in the area to threshing machines, Selco has recently bought two different types of machine and it was our job to test the machines in order to measure their performance and gather farmer feedback.

In the background women thresh using the traditional beating method, while another farm worker threshes on one of the machines. This mechanical thresher can be used by two people and is about three times as fast as the hand method. After some practice threshing, we ran several controlled tests to measure the performance of each machine. Several local farmers dropped by to take a look at the machines and they seemed quite interested

While we were working at the farm, Parmeshwar's wife cooked up meals of rice and curry for the farm workers and offered us lunch too! Parmeshwar would pile massive servings of boiled rice with two types of vegetable curry onto our banana leaf plates. I'm still getting used to eating with my right hand, much to the amusement of the farm workers. Most days one curry was cucumber in a watery coconut sauce, while the other had a thicker spicier sauce containing chunks of a local gourd. We were also offered boiling hot cups of sweet, milky Indian tea, and once had a really tasty cream of wheat containing dates and nuts.

Parmeshwar crossing a stream carrying the second threshing machine to his crop. After rain that afternoon we had to rush back before the water level rose.

The second threshing machine was powered by Parmeshwar's 28 year old tiller

 

Stopping threshing for a snack of freshly cut cucumber with salt

In general both machines worked well, and Parmeshwar said he may be interested in investing in one of the machines. We found that threshing performance varied significantly depending on the rice variety being threshed, so will be investigating this further at different farms over the next few weeks.

In India it is normal to work a six day week, so last Sunday a group of us hiked up a nearby granite hill called Gadaikallu. At the top there is a fort called Jamalabad, which was built by Tipu Sultan who ruled the area around 1790.

The view of Gadaikallu from a distance protruding up from the surrounding farmland.

Tipu Sultan built a steep staircase up the lower slopes. Here we are climbing up the steep & slippery steps cut into the granite rock near the top.

At the summit!