Published Paper Details:

In an agricultural country like India, the average land holding is very small and its population is steadily increasing without any possibility of increase in land area. The income from cropping for an average farmer is hardly sufficient to sustain his family. The tribal farmer has to be assured of a regular income, needed for a reasonable standard of living and the use of agriculture technology Mini Tractor, help them in improving their income which has been evident from this study. The Mini Tractor has been making a major impact on the social and economic life of tribal farmer in Surat district, Gujarat. Mini Tractors are mostly used for multipurpose activities such as ploughing, threshing, land levelling and transportation of goods from farms to market, etc.Mini Tractor is economically very cheaper than big tractor, so it is more convenient to small farmers. Big tractors are very costly and only big farmers can afford it and smaller farmers cannot afford big tractor. Since small farmers have smaller fields, so this kind of Mini Tractor is very useful for them. Mini Tractor is affordable for small and marginal tribal farmers and it can also be used in the field, when crops are grown, for various purposes like making small irrigation cannel, eradicating unwanted crops/weeds grown between two rows of crops, and putting fertilizers in the field, etc. It is not only low budget tractor but also low maintenance and operational cost due to low fuel consumption. The Government of India has been encouraging small and marginal farmers to use Mini Tractor in the country by making subsidy available to them. It is indigenously developed tractor and for promotion of its multipurpose use.