Farm power and mechanization for small farms in sub-Saharan Africa
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FAO ;
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In the past, many of the publications concerned with mechanization, draught animal power, hand-tool technology, etc. tended to be rather mono-topical, dealing with only one aspect of the subject. Farm power and mechanization also tended to be separated from the actual processes of crop production and processing; it was a topic created by engineers and was dealt with by engineers. As a result, there is a widespread lack of understanding of the subject, and there are many widely held mis conceptions with regard to the essential contribution of farm power and mechanization to small farmers’ productivity and livelihoods. In recent years, the Farm Power and Mechanization Group in FAO has broken away from this rather narrow approach and has put the different sources of farm power, mechanization, machinery, equipment and tools into a much broader context. We have looked at farm power from the perspective of rural livelihoods and farming systems, as well as the critical area of labour saving in HIV/AIDS and migrationaffected populations. We have purposely avoided taking rigid positions with regard to any one particular type of technology; instead, we have adopted a much wider brief and have been concerned to identify appropriate solutions for a range of situations.