National Research Centre on Equines starts a project to use donkeys, mules in agri operations to cut costsEvery donkey has his day. And in India, this humble animal will soon have a field day, quite literally. Hisar-based National Research Centre on Equines (NRCE), a body that works under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, has started a project to use donkeys for various agricultural tasks, including levelling, ploughing and chaff-cutting to help small farmers cut input costs and check pollution.As per an estimate, there are about eight lakh donkeys in India, and they are being used only as transport animal, particularly in rough terrains. “The field-level trials have begun for land-levelling and ploughing by the donkeys in Raichur in Karnataka, Naini in Uttar Pradesh and a few places in Haryana. Besides other aspects, we are focusing on compiling data regarding the quantum of work donkeys can do,” Dr SK Dwivedi, director of NRCE, told The Indian Express. He said in the project, mules would also be used in agriculture and allied activities. The NRCE project also envisages the use of donkeys for water lifting, oil spilling, wheat flour grinding and even generating electricity by dynamo charging, using different attachments on a rotary model. The rotary model and attachments part is being taken care of by the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal. “Land holdings are getting smaller by the day. It is not viable to go in for a tractor for an area less than 0.6 hectares,” said Dr Dwivedi. Asserting that donkeys can outshine cattle, he said, “Cattle are ruminants. They have four-chambered stomach and release gases, like methane, which badly affect the atmosphere. Donkeys have a single-chambered stomach and unlike cattle, they can feed on agricultural leftovers.”
