Mechenical Harvesting ? Where are we ?!

I am pasting an excerpt from an article of mine on the Serious Problems the Indian Tea Industry is facing. I would like you to discuss and give your comments on whether we should go in for Mechanical aids for Harvesting and where we went wrong in North India. Let us have your views, whatever they be, and learn from them.

" 2. We need to look at Mechanization as a tool that we have to make work. A very clear example is that of mechanical harvesting ….
Mechanization of harvesting: This was tried out some years ago in the North East and in most cases the verdict was very clear that it affected quality adversely. As a result mechanical harvesting was thrown out.
I would like to go back in time... something similar took place in 1970/71. There were these new Withering Troughs which were being tried out to replace the old labour intensive ‘changs’ (the old leaf houses). After 6 months trials the verdict was similar - “the old system produced better quality”. BUT unlike with Mechanical harvesting, the system was not thrown out: it was worked at and modified & modified to suit the industry’s requirement. It was clear that for the future the labour intensive operation (which also would have been capital intensive for increasing capacity) needed to be changed to stay competitive. As a result this system of ‘trough withering’ is the only form of withering today.
But with Mechanical Harvesting somewhere down the line we lost our way. Just imagine if we had done the same thing with Trough Withering.

However, some other growing countries have persisted with it and have results to show today."