The workshop by the Jashore-Jhenaidah highway makes paddy threshers and this is what draws the growers in droves, seeking to take advantage of this local manufacturing effort in their quest to save time and money.

And Disha Engineering too focuses this time to deliver growers the machines it makes by mainly using locally available materials.

"We work the round the year to make paddy threshing machines to sell during the Boro and Aman paddy harvesting time," said Lutfor Rahman, owner of the enterprise owner which is one of 13 workshops that makes such machines in Jhenaidah's Kaliganj upazila, southwest of the country.

These factories arose to cater to the demand for threshers among farmers.

Rahman said altogether, these workshops manufacture nearly 20,000 thresher machines for sale in the two big rice harvesting seasons.

Disha and its peers in Jhenaidah are not the only firms making threshers.

A large number of entrepreneurs and factories in other parts, from the north-western district of Bogura to the north-eastern region of Kishoreganj and Sylhet, have emerged over the last couple of decades to cater to the demand for mechanised threshing.

Jashore-Jhenaidah are two of the major regions emerging as a hub for locally made threshers, said farm machinery market analysts.

Bangladesh already has 5 lakh closed and open drum threshers and the annual market for this farm machinery is roughly 70,000, said Md Monjurul Alam, a professor of the Department of Farm Power and Machinery at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU).

"The use of the threshers reduces threshing losses along with saving time and money of farmers," he said.

Rahman of Disha said he sold 3,000 machines as of November this year and expects to sell another 1,000 by the first week of December.

"We supply our threshers to various parts, namely Jashore, Satkhira, Narail, Bagerhat, Khulna, Kushtia, Meherpur, Chuadanga, Magura and Faridpur districts," he said.

For farmers, the thresher has been beneficial. Drum-based ones operated by foot pedals cost Tk 4,000 to Tk 4,500 while those powered by machines can go up to Tk 40,000.

Farmer Gafur Ali at Enayetpur village of Kaliganj upazila said they used to manually smash the plant against hard surfaces to separate the grain from the stalks while extracting 800 kilogrammes of paddy used to take up four or five hours.

"Now two labours can do the same job within an hour. We can save cost of hiring extra labour because of the threshers," he said.

"We are highly benefited due to paddy threshing machine," said another farmer Mostafa Jaman of Solaimanpur village under Kotchandpur upazila of Jhenaidah.

Robjel Hossain, owner of another threshing machine maker at Kaliganj upazila, said increased popularity of threshing machines created job opportunities for a good number of people. Each worker earns Tk 600-Tk 700 as a daily wage, said Hossain, who employs 30 workers to make threshers and serve farmers during the harvesting period.

Bablur Rahman, another farmer, said growers who do not have the financial capability to purchase a machine but could rent it. The rent is approximately Tk 150 for every 400 kgs of grain collected. BAU Prof Alam said the government once provided subsidy to farmers to popularise and expand use of the farm machinery.

"Now steps should be taken so that farmers get low cost loans at easy terms. Banks should be soft when financing the agricultural machinery," he said.