Mechanisation of sugar cane harvesting

Abstract

Sugar cane, traditionally a labour-intensive crop, has, in parallel with many other crops, been subjected to the pressures of progressive mechanisation. These operate most intensively on cutting and loading, two operations demanding high standards of execution if subsequent factory processing is to proceed unimpeded and achieve a high extraction rate. Progress with mechanisation has been recorded in various countries but there are still a large number of problems to be solved.