Mechanization Helps China's Garlic Industry Keep Ahead

The following articles are from www.freshplaza.com, author: Anouk Sijmonsma, translated by Maria Machinery

Garlic planting is a labor-intensive industry. China used to occupy the international market rapidly by virtue of its labor resource advantages. In recent years, with the increase of labor cost and aging of labor force, industrial mechanization has become one of the solutions. Ms.Xin Li, the person in charge of Shandong Maria Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd., introduced relevant information to the global fruit and vegetable website.

"Mechanization can solve the labor problem and make the industry healthier. The traditional garlic planting mode has high requirements for manual fine operation. Since 2015, China's labor cost has been rising, which has doubled several times so far; At the same time, the reduction and aging of labor force are increasingly evident. Throughout the world, the original garlic importing countries such as India and Egypt are also rapidly developing their own garlic industry with their labor advantages. Therefore, I believe that mechanization is one of the important factors for our garlic industry to maintain its leading position in the world."

“Secondly, mechanization is also conducive to deep processing enterprises that use garlic as raw materials." According to Ms. Xin, garlic has formed a futures market. When the output decreases, the capital will manipulate the price through speculation and hoarding, which greatly affects the development of deep processing enterprises using garlic as raw material. "However, because the labor factor is relatively uncontrollable, if mechanization can be achieved, uncontrollable factors in garlic prices can be reduced accordingly, making it more likely to be in a stable range.”

"There are three important links in garlic planting: peeling and selecting garlic seeds – sowing – harvesting. If machinery can be used, China's garlic industry can be mechanized. In the past, it took more than half a month for people to peel garlic seeds on an acre of land, but only 10 minutes for machinery; The labor cost of garlic planting is about ￥2400/acre, while that of mechanical operation is about ￥ 180/acre. In addition, our planter is the same as manual planting. It sows garlic with the bud tip upward to improve the planting quality and ensure that all garlic seeds can be inserted into the ground. At present, the technology of seeder is mature and widely used. On the other hand, the harvester technology currently has two modes: "digging harvesting" and "combined harvesting", which can save labor costs from ￥4200/acre to ￥7800/acre, and the latter will be launched in small batches next year. "

Compared with foreign advanced machinery, Ms. Xin believes that the characteristics of the company's machinery are suitable for Chinese garlic planting mode. It is understood that garlic machinery produced abroad is mostly suitable for large and medium-sized farms, and the cost is high. China is dominated by small farmers, and the planting methods are different in different production areas. Therefore, the machinery produced by the company will be more cost-effective, easy to control, and can adapt to the planting patterns and users in different production areas.

Ms. Xin Li and one of the garlic harvesting machines produced by Maria Machinery

"Industrial mechanization is still being promoted, and I believe it will be popularized in 3-5 years. What is still lacking is equipment for pulling garlic sprouts, which uses more labor force, but there is no relevant equipment in China, and it is still in further research."

Maria Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. has developed machinery and equipment for the garlic industry model in China. It can serve the whole industry chain, including selecting garlic seeds, planting, harvesting, field management, sorting, deep processing, and has obtained more than 260 patents.

For more information, please contact:

辛丽女士（Lydia Xin）
山东省玛丽亚农业机械股份有限公司
Shandong Maria Machinery Co.Ltd
Tel：+86 17853798777
Email：xinlilydia77@gmail.com   
            maria@mariamachine.com
Web：www.mariamachinery.com

          www.mariamachine.com 
企业微信公众号(Enterprise wechat public number)：玛丽亚农业机械

发布日期: 2022年10月20日