Browse Ideas

Re-Designing Africa's Ox-Powered Farm Tools

4Contributors | KUdesign | Recent Author: KUdesign

Hello, we are students in the 2009/10 Industrial Design class at The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas USA. We are interested in applying socially directed design to make meaningful contributions to solving everyday problems faced by the majority of people in our world today. We are offering our collaboration as design students to contribute to this IDEA and assist in advancing its presentation or implementation in some way. Inspired by the problem statement posted we have ideas and questions we hope can be clarified by collaborative input from those of you who are experts in your field or have lived or observed the condition the IDEA intends to resolve. Here are some of the initial questions we would like some help with:

What specific farm tools need to be re-designed?
Why do those tools need to be re-designed?
Should tool re-designs be focused more toward donkeys or oxen?
What materials would be used and would they be readily available in the local communities?

POST #2:

RESEARCH: Based on the reply we got to our first post, we began to research the available materials; rebar and leaf springs (spring steel). If we can use these common materials in the re-design of the farm tools, production costs and manufacturing will be facilitated.

REBAR: used in many structural applications like concrete work. Can be welded but not without compromising the fatigue life of the material and some cannot be welded at all. Most rebar is connected with ties.

LEAF SPRINGS: also known as spring steel, is generally used in automotive suspension. Can be re-forged and used in many applications.

Rebar could easily be used in the handle portion of this design while the leaf spring could be used for the main frame of the plow. The possibility of injection molded plastic, as mentioned in the reply, could be used in the handle portion of the design or other low torque applications.

In the reply on the ARC site it was stated that the existing plows are made from cast iron which is extremely heavy. Modern material such as welded steel would make the plow lighter and easier to transport.

As far as the harnessing goes, it was stated that there was not much difference between the donkeys and the oxen. Therefore the same harnesses could be used with minor adjustments.

MOST RECENT QUESTIONS 11/1/09:

Do you have a suggestion for which tool we could possibly redesign?
Do you have any pictures of that tool or is there somewhere we can go to get information or specifications on that tool?
Is there a need to develop a different harnessing system?
Will this tool be pulled by donkeys or oxen? Or possibly both?
Do you have any further suggestions as to which direction we should take on a tool redesign?

For a more in depth proposal e-mail : cheichel@ku.edu

Comments

roosenberg said 4 months ago

We would see your posts more quickly if you made them as comments rather than as new Ideas and in a new location. We never said the plows were made of cast iron. Perhaps this medium is making us talk in too great of generalities. Is there any chance that you could come to Tillers' Learning Center to participate in a much more focused way to hands on detail?

1) I mentioned a manual baler, plow, maize sheller and weeder as examples that we are working on. What are your skills, which one would you have the most to contribute to?

2) Yes, we can get you a number of photos. We can see some on our website, www.tillersinternational.org I would be pleased to get more to you when I know your focus.

3) Harness or yokes are usually re-designed to meet local material needs. The basic design options are available to Tillers field workers are good.

4) Give me an idea of your focus. But most are used for both.

5) We tell farmers that they are the first half of the design process. That is identifying the problems or challenges for their local community is half the battle. Then, we try to make the design process an iterative group process with as much field interaction and feedback as possible. We need to know your skills to guide you in this process. We need you to offer information in addition to questions.

Want to contribute?

A short summary will be displayed in listings (e.g. featured on the homepage, search results, your profile).

Improve it

Like this idea?

0 endorsement

Summary

Buying tractors or the fuel required to power them is far beyond the reach of most African small farmers. At the same time, they are tired from the energy draining attempt to raise their families beyond subsistence farming to surplus production with the hand hoe. Many have oxen or donkeys that can power a quadrupling of production with improved implements, inputs, and practices. In the 1960s, Africa missed out on the benefits of the Green Revolution, in part because it did not have the draft animal infrastructure that existed in Asia and Latin America. Later, the tsetse-fly-carried sleeping sickness of cattle was removed as an obstacle, but the designs of small-scale farm implements available in Africa have not changed significantly in the 40 years that have elapsed. Picking up on the "Designing for the World's Poorest" projects at MIT and other institutions, it seems that we can focus outstanding skills on the challenges to Africa's small farmers. An international network of farmers, agricultural historians, Amish, metal fabricators and machinists could work together digitally and personally to meld historic and contemporary implement design elements in response to challenges from Africa's farm communities for appropriately-scaled, low-capital farm tools for draft animals. The productive potential of these re-invented tools could be diffused through local manufacturers and farmer field schools.