THINK WHAT ONE TRACTOR CAN DO
Farming without a tractor? Difficult to imagine. But in Karagwe, it’s difficult to imagine farming with one. ETI and Partners envision a mechanized tomorrow for Karagwe’s farmers, so ETI donors helped fund KAD’s first tractor and plow. KARUCO students and area farmers will be sharing their use. All anticipate that production, incomes and quality of life will rise. Why? Because it takes a day to hoe and till a 1/2 acre plot by hand, but with a tractor – it is done in an hour. And not only time is a factor: Absent are the long-term crippling effects on a body that hoed and cultivated endlessly by hand. And incomes and yields will rise as a fleet of tractors become available for rental businesses. One tractor in the hands of a farmer = income and fulfillment. Read about one success story HERE.
Deep thanks to Westwood Community Church, the Central Africa Ministry Team and ETI Donors who got behind the tractor and the disc/plow and helped make it happen. You are changing lives.
MORE TRACTOR INFO
I admit tearing up when I first saw KAD’s new tractor. As a member of the third generation on my family’s farm, I know first-hand the necessity of a reliable tractor to a successful farm operation. Tractors have been in my family for 80 years with my grandfather’s first purchase of a steel-wheeled, Farmall F12. That was 1939.
This is 2019. The people of Karagwe are coming into a technology that has been considered a staple for at least eighty years in my family. But it wasn’t always this way in Tanzania: There have been many changes in primary tillage as many developing communities moved from total reliance on hand power to using draught animals (DAP) and then tractors to varying degrees. Sadly, there was a regression from tractors to draught animals/hand power for a variety of reasons. For more on FARM POWER in AFRICA, click HERE.
KARAGWE’S TRACTOR SPECS
And for those of you, who like me, enjoy all things mechanical, here are tractor and implement specs that will launch you as the highlight of any party. But the real highlight is the change that will unfold in Karagwe.
