Sweet potato mechanical harvesting is highly efficient, making vine removal, digging and harvesting simple and labor-saving
Traditional sweet potato harvesting is extremely labor-intensive, and imported sweet potato harvesters have many drawbacks. The Taoyuan District Agricultural Improvement Station developed the "vine removal and harvesting combined operation machine." The model is smaller than imported sweet potato harvesters, costs less than half as much, and is 60 to 80 times faster than manual harvesting. It has already been transferred through non-exclusive licensing to manufacturers for production and sales.
According to statistics from the Council of Agriculture, in 2017 (ROC year 106) the sweet potato planting area reached 10,310 hectares, with production areas concentrated in Yunlin County, Changhua County and Tainan City. Planting or harvesting sweet potatoes in the traditional way is very wasteful of manpower, including manual cuttings, and farmers also have to carry hoes to remove vines before harvesting can proceed.
The level of sweet potato mechanization across Taiwan is not high
Associate researcher Qiu Yinzhen of the Taoyuan Station said that because sweet potatoes in Taiwan are mostly not grown on a large scale, sweet potatoes do not keep well in storage, storage after large-scale harvesting may cause sprouting, and machines are too expensive, it is unfavorable for promoting mechanized cultivation. It is estimated that the level of mechanized sweet potato planting in the country is less than 50 percent, with most still relying on manual labor.
The vine removal and harvesting combined operation machine is fast
Qiu Yinzhen said that imported sweet potato harvesters have actually existed for a long time. Apart from being relatively expensive, they also bruise the skin of sweet potatoes during harvesting, affecting the selling price; they are very slow; and the equipment is large and not easy to move in and out of farmland. They also require manual vine removal before operation. The vine removal and harvesting combined operation machine developed by the Taoyuan Station combines the two processes of vine removal and harvesting, and is at least 30 times faster than imported harvesters. He described it as "like a rabbit and a snail."
