Ganapathi Bhat in his farm with "tree scooter" (Reuters)
Mangaluru: A Karnataka areca nut farmer made a homemade machine, which has a motor, roughly made seat and a set to wheels, to climb tall areca nut trees, Reuters reports.
The Mangaluru based Ganapathi Bhat of age 50 has to climb trees of height 60 to 70 feet to harvest areca nut.
Bhat is too old to climb on limbs, and cheap labour is hard to come by. Thus he invented the crude device he calls "tree scooter", to make his climbs easier.
Bhat, who owns a 30-acre farm, told Reuters, "Villagers asked me if I was mad. They had doubts about my invention... whether it would work in the rainy season because the trees would be slippery."
He said that since 2014, he had spent Rs 40 lakhs into research and development, and four years later, Bhat with his engineering partner had a working prototype. Now, he had sold more than 300 units of his invention, each at Rs 62,000.
"I feel proud that I did something for the people through this invention," Mr Bhat said. "I feel that my life is complete now."
India is the world's largest producer of areca nuts. India's produce marked 1.2 million tonnes in 2020-21, and most of it was contributed by the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala.