Assessment of battery operated of battery-operated onion detopper machine for reducing drudgery of the farm women

Abstract

Onion is a vital vegetable crop in India, crucial for both domestic consumption and export, and cultivated extensively across different regions and seasons. Detopping is an on-farm processing procedure that involves removing the onion's leaves after harvest. Onion harvesting and detopping by hand are extremely hard and time-consuming, adding to the physical strain that is sometimes referred to as "drudgery" for farm women, who make up a sizable share of the agricultural labor force. To reduce the drudgery in onion detopping a battery opeated onion detopper was demonstrated in katarki and nageshnalli villages of koppal district. The findings showed that battery operated detopping machine reduces manual effort, providing better ergonomics and potential long-term health benefits for operators. Further adoption of this machine reduced labour and time requiement by 26.6 and 41.04 percent respectively.