Understanding the concept of Farm Transportation - Part 1
Hello Everyone!!! I hope you are having a great time over there? It's really nice to see you visit my blog today and I must say I'm really happy to have a great personality like you visiting my blog today 😊. Thank you once again 💕😊.
Today I'll be sharing with you an important aspect that has to do with Farm Transportation which I learnt from a great lecturer known as Engr Babalola. I really find this course more interesting and educating and I'm definitely sure you are also going to feel the same way while reading through this post. I think it's time we let the cat out of the bag 😊.
**What is Farm Transportation?**
Farm transportation can simply be defined as the art and science of moving or conveying agricultural tools and equipments, agricultural goods and products, human and animals from one location or place to another.
I guess you can also observe the great difference between your normal day to day transportation and that of farm transportation. Farm transportation involves conveyance or movement related to agricultural products and equipments for the sole sake of Agricultural practices while your normal day - to - day transportation may not necessarily involve agricultural operations.
**Types of Farm Transportation and their differences**
There are two major types of farm transportation as stated by Engr Babalola and these are "On Farm Transportation" and "Off Farm Transportation".
On farm transportation is a form of transportation in which the conveyance or movement of agricultural product is happening or occurring within the farm premises while *Off Farm transportation is a form of transportation in which the conveyance or movement of agricultural products isn't occurring within the farm premises (just the opposite of on farm transportation) 😜.
As we can simply see both On Farm and Off Farm tends to possess some similarities since they both require "movement or conveyance of agricultural goods" and "movement or conveyance of people/animals". The fact that they are similar also gives rise to some crucial difference between these two types of transportation system and these are explained below in terms of these activities;
DISTANCE TRAVELLED When we consider the distance travelled in both On farm and Off farm transportation, we will definitely observe that there's more or increasing distance in Off farm transportation than On farm transportation. This is because most of the agricultural products are being transported for mostly sales and distribution unlike On farm transportation which requires processing and other agricultural practices within the farm premises.
ACTIVITIES REQUIRING MOVEMENT Another important difference is the activities requiring the movement of agricultural products. There's actually no doubt that they tend to be more activities or work done in On farm transportation when compared to Off farm transportation.
Some of the activities requiring movement in On farm transportation include fertilizer application, ploughing, threshing, sowing and other agricultural practices done on the farm while Off farm transportation is majorly concerned about the conveyance of agricultural products to places where needed.
- MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION The means of transportation connotes the type of medium in which agricultural goods are been conveyed. The means of transportation can be in form of animals or vehicles.
When we consider On farm transportation, there's high tendency of using animals, vehicles, tractors and heavy duty machines as means of transportation for agricultural activities on the farm while Trucks and container drawn by means of tractor or animals are used for the transportation process.
- FREQUENCY OF TRAVEL The frequency of travel deals with how frequent the transport system (On farm/Off farm) is being utilized. The frequency of travel is mainly dependent on the farming activities carried out on the farm. The more the agricultural produce on the farm, the more the agricultural products to convey off farm.
Since we've looked at the differences between On farm transportation and Off farm transportation, I think it's best we consider the characteristics of Farm Transportation.
**Characteristics of Farm Transportation**
ITEMS CONVEYED The items conveyed in this case must all be related to agricultural products. The items conveyed can also be agricultural tools and equipments, animals and humans.
TRAVEL DISTANCE The travel distance is also an important characteristics of farm transportation since there tend to be more travel distance to cover when there's need to distribute and sell agricultural goods to urban centers or areas.
VOLUME OF TRAFFIC The volume of traffic is the number of vehicles transporting agricultural products per day on a farm transportation route (road). The volume of traffic is also influenced by some factors which tends to affect the transportation rate of vehicles.
VEHICLE CAPACITY The capacity of vehicle is solely dependent on the items to be conveyed. The higher the capacity of the vehicle, the more agricultural products it will be able to convey and the lower the vehicle capacity, the lower the Agricultural products and items to be conveyed.
It will also be nice if we also look at the requirement of farm transportation as this tends to explain the required things needed for an effective farm transportation system.
**FARM TRANSPORTATION REQUIREMENT**
The below points are the requirement for effective Farm transportation system ;
- AVAILABILITY OF VEHICLES Vehicle must be available for the the conveyance of agricultural products, tools, machines, humans and animals from one location to another. The vehicle can be in different form such as trucks, lorry, cart driven by animals (bullocks) or powered by tractors.
Vehicle must be available for efficient Farm transportation system to also aid the distribution of farm produce in different locations at a very easy and convenient.
- GOOD CONDITION TRANSPORT ROUTES
The transport route such as road must be in a very good condition for easy and good conveyance of agricultural products. Poor roads can cause huge losses of agricultural products most especially fragile goods like fruits or poultry eggs. This is also why the government also need to work more on providing good roads for agricultural transportation to increase the distribution of agricultural goods or products to other places.
- REDUCTION IN POST HARVEST LOSSES
There must also be minimal losses in agricultural post harvest products. These type of products can be conveyed for storage and processing at the required time which helps to increase it's shelf life before utilizing such products for either consumption or other uses.
ALL YEAR ROUND ACCESSIBILITY The farm route of an effective farm transportation system must also be accessible all year round. There are times whereby climatic condition such as rainfall plays it part which tends to change the state of the farm route making it uneasy to access as it used to be before.
AFFORDABLE COST The cost of transportation must also be affordable to make it more accessible to everyone to convey people and their agricultural goods from one location to another.
I'll be ending the first part of this content here and I hope to see you available for the next part of this content.
Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great day ahead with love from @hardaeborla 💕♥️❤️💕♥️❤️💕
