Coffee harvest revs up thanks to new machine

BANGKOK (The Nation/Asia News Network): The Chiang Mai Agricultural Engineering Research Institute has introduced a handheld harvesting machine for coffee beans that works 1.8-2.04 times faster than a human picker.

The 12-volt battery-operated machine features two 10 cm-long rotating arms equipped with springs at each side to extract coffee beans from their branches, the institute, which operates under the Department of Agriculture, said on Tuesday (Sept 19).

The falling beans are then collected in a nylon net measuring 1.2 x 1.5 metres and half a metre deep installed at the tree’s base.

The institute has tested harvesting Robusta coffee beans and achieved an average output of 85.18 kg. per hour, 1.81 times higher than the average output of a human picker at 46.91 kg. per hour.

For Arabica coffee beans, the machine is even more impressive with 30.54 kg. output per hour, 2.04 times that of human labour at 15 kg. per hour.

The institute added it had already been contacted by a private company for a blueprint of the machine for mass production. The commercial version of this handheld coffee picker is estimated to be priced at 4,900 baht and would help reduce labour costs for coffee farmers by 40%.

Coffee beans are one of Thailand’s key economic crops with an estimated value of 5.5 billion baht per year and over 260,000 rai of plantation areas. Only two types are grown in Thailand: Arabica coffee grown in the North and Robusta coffee in the South.

Currently, the coffee harvest is mostly done by hand, with labour costs of about 5-8 baht per kg.