KOZHIKODE: P S Shaju, an arecanut farmer near Thottilpalam here, is now free from the worry of searching for labourers to dehusk the arecanut produced from his 4 acre areacanut farm. He has developed his own arecanut dehusking machine to overcome the labour-shortage problem.
Shaju ventured into inventing the arecanut dehusking machine two years ago when arecanut farming became a loss-making business due to the non-availability of labourers. “There were no labourers to take up the job of dehusking arecanut. Though I started dehusking the arecanut myself, it was a tedious job. So I thought about making a user-friendly equipment myself. It took about two years for me to invent this machine. Today, my five-member family alone dehusk about 15 quintal of arecanut a year,” he explained. He has even set up a manufacturing unit of the machine with the help of Nabard. “With the help of Nabard, I started a manufacturing unit two months ago. Until now, I have sold about 600 dehusking machines,” he said. Nabard allotted `1.5 lakh for Shaju to set up the manufacturing unit. With the word-of-mouth publicity, people from distant places have started approaching him for the machine, as everyone is fed up with the labour shortage problem. Shaju manufactures two types of dehusking machines - one using hand and another leg.
“The machine using leg to dehusk arecanut is more user-friendly and more arecanuts can be dehusked using it. However, both the machines have demand,” he said. The dehusking machine using hand costs `750 and the machine using leg costs about `1,000, he said.
Shaju said, with the machine, about 50 kg of arecanut can be dehusked by a person in about eight hours.