Engineers at the International Rice Research Institute, in the Philippines,
have designed a new lightweight machine for transplanting rice. Hand-operated
machines have been around for about 10 years, but they are heavy and cumbersome.
Made of a combination of steel, aluminium and wood, the institute’s
transplanter weighs about 13 kilograms – half the weight of previous models.
A detachable bicycle wheel at the front allows farmers to push it like a
wheel barrow while wooden skis prevent the device from sinking into the
mud of a paddy field. The machine can do the work of five people, transplanting
up to 0.25 hectares of rice a day.
Graeme Quick, head of the institute’s agricultural engineering division,
said that women have traditionally transplanted the crop. ‘This work is
tedious and back-breaking . . . Manual transplanting is thought to contribute
to high rates of bad backs, miscarriages and other health disorders in female
agricultural workers.’
