A small cane harvester bearing a cane grab fixed at the end of the bottom of a small excavator and comprising a second boom mounted on the same excavator on which a cutting device is fixed has been developed. This innovative harvesting machine, contrary to chopper harvesters, does not require extensive and costly field adaption for its use. Preliminary tests have shown some structural weaknesses requiring sharp research and follow-up so as to improve its productivity. This cane harvester is expected, by its productivity after improvement and by its cost when produced in large numbers, to solve the labour cost and shortage problems on about 40,000 hectares of cane lands actually harvested manually. With the development of an adapted loading system, the machine is to be proposed to SME’s actually involved in cane transport in this sector of the Mauritian agriculture as well to sugar companies operating on the African continent.
