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Abstract
Groundnut is a labour-intensive crop, especially for operations like sowing, weeding, harvesting, and
drying. But, of-late, due to timely unavailability of labour, many farmers are not able to exercise timely
operations resulting in low yield realization. The present study conducted in two major groundnut-growing
states, viz. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, has revealed that farmers employ more human labour in weeding
and harvesting operations in groundnut than in other operations. The practise of manual decortication
and stripping is followed by a larger number of farmers in Andhra Pradesh than in Gujarat, indicating less
mechanization in the former. For weeding, though, the human labour-use in weedicide + bullock intercultivation
+ hand weeding technique is almost half of that of the bullock inter-cultivation + hand weeding,
only 13 per cent of the farmers practise this labour-saving technique and hence this method should be
disseminated in both the regions to reduce human-labour demand. In Andhra Pradesh, for all the operations
in groundnut cultivation except harvesting, the cost as well as labour-use has been reduced substantially
due to use of partial/complete mechanization methods. Hence, the necessary infrastructure (labour-saving
machineries) should be created at the village or block level to reduce the human-labour demand.