Mechanization for the improvement of the sugarcane harvesting and transportation system in Thailand: A case study in Udon Thani province
2008
Kaewtrakulpong, K.(Tsukuba Univ., Ibaraki (Japan)) | Takigawa, T. | Koike, M. | Hasegawa, H. | Bahalayodhin, B.
In Thailand, the cost of sugarcane harvesting and transportation constitutes a significant portion of the total sugarcane production cost. In order to reduce the total cost, it is necessary to clarify the current shortcomings of the harvesting and transportation processes. A field study was conducted in Udon Thani province, in northeastern Thailand, to accumulate information for analyzing the system's current shortcomings. The accumulated information showed that mechanical harvesting is key for reducing harvesting cost by around 8 to 57 US$ per ha, when compared with manual harvesting in the case of burned and green cutting, respectively. In addition, analyses performed through the use of a simple sugarcane harvesting and transportation simulation based on data obtained by time studies of the harvesting and transportation operations indicated that the field capacity of a chopper-type mechanical sugarcane harvester depends on the condition of the field in which it works, and the number of accompanying trucks it requires. Though the sizes of the fields in this area are relatively small, the accumulated area of fields having row lengths of longer than 160 m which allows the effective usage of a chopper was 316 ha or 51% of the total field area in this region. This fact shows that chopper can work at high capacity in half of the sugarcane fields in this region. However, the limited availability of trucks significantly influences the efficiency of mechanical sugarcane harvesting and transportation. In addition, since truck allocation affects the profit distribution among the various groups engaged in sugarcane production (i.e., sugarcane factories, machinery owners, and farmers) a truck allocation plan should be devised based on input from these groups.
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