Problem: The narrowness of many terraces means that livestock cannot pass, thus forcing women to cultivate soils manually, requiring back-breaking labour. Tasks undertaken by women such as manual weeding, sowing, transplanting, harvesting and grain threshing which already require female drudgery on flat lands, are more difficult on terraces as women and girls are forced to climb up and down steep ridges, carrying tools or supplies. Women and girls also need to walk across difficult terrain to collect animal fodder and fuel wood.
Our Solutions:
•We are testing, selling and encouraging new models of low-weight, low cost weeders.
•We are testing and scale up light-weight Jab planters which are hand planters that reduce labour by 75% while minimizing soil disturbance and hence weed germination.
•To replace the practice of women removing corn kernels manually, we are scaling up sales of low cost corn shellers.