Custom hiring centre
Topic: Land Reforms, the Green Revolution and Farm Subsidies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A custom hiring centre is a facility that rents out farm machinery to farmers who cannot afford to buy it. Most Indian farmers have small or marginal holdings, so owning a tractor or harvester does not pay for them. Renting gives them the benefits of mechanisation at low cost. These centres are supported under the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanisation (SMAM).
Example
A 1-hectare farmer in Punjab rents a happy seeder from a nearby custom hiring centre. The machine sows wheat directly into the paddy stubble, so the farmer does not need to burn the straw.
Don't confuse with
- Cooperative farming: here farmers pool their land for joint cultivation. At a custom hiring centre, each farmer farms their own land and only rents the machines.
Related concepts
- Crop rotation
- Intercropping
- Mixed cropping
- Micro-irrigation
- Evergreen Revolution
- Second Green Revolution
- Gene Revolution
- Yield gap
- Precision farming
- Digital agriculture