When sugarcane harvesters were launched in India few years ago there were doubts on whether there existed a market for them when cheap labour was in abundance. After selling a handful of units for the first couple of years, the industry is now seeing some traction as sales have picked up. With a little help from government subsidies and a labour shortage, there are takers for these machines. Companies now see a viable market for the sugarcane harvesters in the country and have started making investments to tap the growth.
New Holland Fiat (India), the first to launch the sugarcane harvesters, started with imports and then the company started assembling it in India. With volumes growing, New Holland is all set to manufacture sugarcane harvesters in India. John Deere India followed New Holland and launched their machines specially made for India and the company is figuring out what works for the Indian market. It is importing these machines from the US. An Indian manufacturer based in Rajkot, Tirth Agro Technology, is taking on these global farm mechanization giants with its indigenously manufactured sugarcane harvester at lower price points.
New Holland Agriculture is setting up a manufacturing plant in India to make these harvesters here. “We have acquired 70 acres of land in Chakan and will start work on the factory,” Seema Singh, GM, New Holland said. Labour shortage is a reality and these machines are going to be needed, she said.
The company has sold 450 units so far with 300 of them sold in Maharashtra alone. It currently assembles these CKD kits at Chakan for the 4,000 series and the 8,000 series in the R1.25 to R1.50 crore and will add a mid-range when full fledged manufacturing starts at Chakan in 2016.
The John Deere harvester CH330 198 HP was launched around a year ago with a price tag of R1.4 crore. The company had set a target to sell upto 20 units a year to start with banking on higher labour costs to push harvester usage. The company has sold them to sugar factories in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. These completely built units are imported from the US.
Challenging these global giants is Rajkot’s Tirth Agro Technology, a R550 crore turnover agri equipment company. Their Shaktiman is a known brand as they are among the largest manufacturer of rotavators in the country. The company has got into the next level of agri equipment with this sugarcane harvester making it the first Indian manufacturer in this segment, says Abhay Gupta, DGM, Tirth Agro.
Tirth’s Shaktiman 3737 sugar harvester is designed and made keeping in mind Indian conditions and at a lower cost of around Rs 85 lakhs. According to Gupta the company has made innovations like bringing in a smaller 174 HP engine, putting a GPS tracking device to track its performance and maintenance, adding autocleaning systems for easier maintenance dusty Indian conditions and bigger tyres for easier repairing so that downtime is minimum. Tirth expects to sell around 12 to 15 units this year and targets selling around 100 to 120 units a year across the country.
Driving the early adopters are the generous subsidy from the state governments of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for sugarcane harvesters. Punjab government is considering it. But even after subsidies, these harvesters are unaffordable for smaller farmers. It remains an unknown commodity for many.