KERALA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY is the primary and the principal instrumentality of the Kerala State in providing human resources, and skills and technology, required for the sustainable development of its agriculture, defined broadly encompassing all production activities based on land and water, including crop production (agriculture), animal husbandry, forestry and fishery through conducting, interfacing and integrating education, research and extension in these spheres of economic endeavour.
KCAET, TAVANUR ,named after " Kerala Gandhi " Sri K. Kelappan, is the seat of the erstwhile Rural Institute established by the Government on India in the year 1963.This institute was taken over by Kerala Agricultural University in 1975.In 1985,this became the headquarters of the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering .With the initiation of B-Tech (Ag.Engg) programs in all area of agricultural engineering. The 100 acre campus on the banks of the river Nila is the witness to education ,research, and extension activities in agricultural engineering. This college is the major stakeholder in policy advocacy in agricultural mechanization for the entire state.
Farm Machinery Testing Center was inaugurated by Dr.P.Rajendran, Vice-Chancellor, Kerala Agricultural University on October 21, 2013 at Kelappaji College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, Tavanur, Malappuram, Kerala. Farm Machinery Testing Centre serves the purpose of testing and evaluation of various agricultural machineries to provide performance and issuing test reports to the farm machinery manufacturers that would facilitate further improvement in agricultural machinery and also help farmers and Govt. agencies to select quality machines for subsidy purpose. .
Objectives
- To test agricultural machinery manufactured within the country or imported, with a view to assess their functional suitability and performance reliability so that it will help farmers and other prospective users in determining the comparative performance of machines available in the market
- To provide material to engineers and extension workers for guiding the users in proper selection of equipment from the basis of standard specification to be used by the manufacturers and distributors.
- To provide performance and test reports to the farm machinery manufacturers that would facilitate further improvement in agricultural machinery and also help farmers and Government agencies to select good quality machines for subsidy purpose.
- To recommend good quality machines to Govt, agencies for subsidy purpose
- To assist Bureau of Indian Standards in formulation of standards for testing agricultural machines covered under the scope of Certification Marks Scheme.
Anticipated Benefits
To the Manufacturers
- To evaluate their product both for modification and production
- To get the advice of the testing institution based on the performance reports and thus continuously improve their products.
- To get an authentic data on the performance of similar machines of other manufactur¬ers to improve their product.
- To improve technical literature like service manual, performance data sheets etc.
- To provide independent evidences to support their claims for their machine performance
To the User/Farmer
- To get guidelines for taking decision on the type of machine to be used for a certain operation.
- To select a particular machine according to individual requirements based on the qua¬lity of products where a choice of different brand exists.
- To keep farmers upto date by subscribing the test reports
To the Extension/ Financing Agencies
- Agencies dealing with popularization/financing of implements will find it convenient to take decisions on the basis of test reports and give feed back to the test Institutes
