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WHAT IS AGRICULTURAL MATERIAL HANDLING?

Material Handling is used to describe all the processes involved in the movement of
agricultural products, either in their raw form, during processing and in their processed
forms.
According to Coyle (1992), this movement is usually over a short distance. This movement
can be in the form of loading, unloading, packing, distribution and so on.

Let us take the grains store in Silos for example. The grains will have to be moved from the
field after the harvest, in fact, material handling starts right from the point of harvest as you
will see later. These grains will have to be transported to where they will be cleaned and
processed before making sure that they get to the Silo. Now, you may remember that Silos
can be tall, so it is these Material Handling equipment that still ensure the proper and sage
transfer of the products into storage structures like Silos. What happens when you need to
take the grains out if the Silo, you guessed it, the equipment to the rescue again. This really
underscores how material handling pervades post-harvest processes in agriculture.

Like almost all the processes we have today, you can have material handling at different
levels of sophistication. I'll briefly discuss those below:

Manual Material Handling: Actually, I don't like being the guy that states the obvious, but it
appears in this case, I don't have a choice. This category is for those processes that are
carried out using human hands as the means of movement, be it for lifting, packing, loading
or any of the processes earlier mentioned. It also goes without saying that this method of
handling materials poses a lot of risks to workers in the production line, as most of the
carrying and lifting is done with the back, and it is the reason why a lot of ergonomic
improvements like hoists and lift tables have been made to ease the amount of danger that
manual handling causes.
It is for this main reason, that we have the other methods of handling materials, so that we
don't get "handled" while trying to handle materials.
Semi-automated Material Handling: When a farm tries to eliminate as much danger to their
workers as possible but still cannot afford to run total automation of their Material
handling, this is what they go for. Here, a particular process of handling is mainly handled by
a machine but is operated by a human, for example a driver or an operator. This is the
method of handling usually found on many farms. This is sometimes confused for another
material handling method that will be discussed last, watch out for the significant
difference.

Automated Material Handling: I could have referred to this as the fully automated method,
but I suppose that will be tautology. In this type of material handling, highly sophisticated
technologies are employed to replace any manual handling, such that all processes are
handled by machines. You know those guys called robots, yes those guys are the main boys
behind this material handling methods. There are already farms that start the use of robots
from the point of harvesting.

This method also comes in handy when the materials to be handled require the highest
hygiene level and zero tolerance for contamination. An example that comes to my mind is
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that of some dairy farms in Israel that have their system so automated that animals do not
need to be told when to go for milking.
These animals are said to have sensors that can tell when the volume is ripe for milking and
the animal is triggered to move to the milking stand where a machine does the milking, such
that from start to finish, there is no need for human interference.

Integrated Material Handling: As I mentioned earlier, this method is usually confused with
Semi-automated handling. So let's use this scenario to make the difference clear. Let's say
you're a transporter that moves Celebs between two cities, but most of the time you only
drive them halfway the journey yourself before making them alight and be ushered by some
beautiful ladies on red carpet into a driver less car that you own and have programmed to
travel from that point to the other city that completes their journey.

You can compare the first process of driving the car yourself to the Semi-automated
handling, while the female ushers carried out the manual handling, then the driver less car
plays the part of automated handling. Now, your whole company will be referred to as an
Integrated transporting company. Need I say more? The integrated handling combines one
or more of the three previously mentioned handling methods, so before you can say it is
integrated, at least two methods must be present.

Agricultural Material Handling Equipment

Now, let me briefly acquaint you with some three divisions of Material Handling equipment
that are mainly used in Agriculture. Note that they are not restricted to what I'll be
mentioning, but these are the main ones you'll find on most farms. Let's focus
on Conveyors, Elevators and Cranes/Trucks.

CONVEYORS: they are mechanical tools used for moving bulk materials from one place
to another. Now let's discuss three types of conveyors:

 Screw Conveyors: If you chose to call it an Auger Conveyor, you're still very correct.
These basically move materials by employing the principle of rotation. A typical one
has a helical screw that is usually mounted on a shaft. This shaft when driven by
electric motors or tractors (through power transmission shafts) moves materials
ranging from cereals to animal feed at a rate that is proportional to the speed of
rotation and the angle of inclination in inclined types.
These screws are either horizontal or inclined, and in case you're about to say that
you have never seen these screws, a good reason is because they are usually
enclosed in tubes or troughs. But if you've seen how a combined harvester transfers
harvested grains to trucks, then you've seen one at work. If not, this picture should
do for now.

 Belt Conveyors: These conveyors are also built on the principle of rotation albeit
they do so it a arrangement of a belt and two pulleys; a powered pulley (connected
to the power source) and the idler pulley. The belts are mounted on these pulleys,
and the materials to be moved are placed on the belts, such that as the pulleys
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rotate the belts, the materials are transported. These materials range from fruits to
grains and even boxes of packaged products.

 Roller Conveyors: These conveyors are used for carrying bulk materials that are
larger as those carried by the previous conveyors. They employ rollers that are
driven by a major shaft. The shaft and rollers are connected by spots. Usually, the
shafts are driven by electric motors. The fact that the rollers are connected to the
shafts by spools are said to have a safety benefit, for slip and for trappings in the
system.

 BUCKET ELEVATORS: This is the type of elevators mainly used in agriculture. Usually,
an arrangement of buckets and belts, or sometimes chains. The bucket scoops the
material from a pile at a lower level and holds it parallel to the floor until it reaches a
higher point where it deposits the material by tipping the bucket. There are three
major types:

  Centrifugal Discharge Elevators- mainly used for grains in grain elevators. 

 Continuous Discharge Elevators  

 Positive Discharge Elevators- which are used to convey completely processed food

materials like popcorn.

CRANES/TRUCKS: These two are together because they usually work side by side in
Agricultural Material handling. Cranes are usually used for unloading packed raw
materials or products from trucks, for stacking them for storage before or after
processing in warehouses and for loading packed final products into trucks.
CONCLUSION

The good thing about most parents is that as much as they possibly can, they try to help
their children to the best of their ability. Well, two problems exist in this case, first their best
may not be enough, and secondly because we don't get to choose our parents, some of us
may feel hard done by.

However, with a good knowledge of Material Handling, both of these can be avoided when
there is need for a higher power to help in handling agricultural materials. As to whether
one is better served by sticking to the manual methods, spicing things up with partial
automation, going fully automated or ultimately combining them all, a good choice will
always give the best results.

It is worthy of note that these methods and equipment of material handling survive on a
backbone of Material Handling principles like the Unit load principle which focuses on
assembling materials together into one large unit as much as possible, which is what
equipment like Roller Conveyors and Cranes thrive upon.

Also, the Layout principle encourages sequential movement based on the sequence of

harvest to production processes. There is also the Ergonomic principle which is concerned
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about reducing as much discomfort as possible for the humans in the movement process.
There are just some of the principles.

It is believed that Robots are the future of Material Handling in agriculture, but due to the
cost and technicalities involved, their usage is not yet widespread, but before that time and
beyond then, the methods and equipment mentioned are always ready to serve us well if
we are ready to use them rightly. Thank you.