Creating rotary weeders in Ndop, Cameroon

[Tamara]

Last year we imported rotary weeders from India to Cameroon to help the farmers; the weeders not only reduce the time taken for the farmers to weed their farms and reduce the extremely strenuous physical labour that the farmers have to put into their farms; but more importantly these should stimulate greater plant growth and productivity through active soil aeration and pruning of roots near the surface (that stimulates the growth of larger and deeper root systems).

When farmers started using weeders they found the time taken to work the same plot was reduced from 2.5 hours to 45 minutes !

This year the farmers started manufacturing the weeders locally in Cameroon. Following the successful pilot of 2 weeders, we have expanded on the number of weeders produced.

Caroline the chairwomen from the Church Street Farmers group has been responsible for organizing the manufacture of the weeders. The women have been paying part of the cost of the weeders themselves.

In this picture Cameroon Caroline is instructing the Church Street Farmers on the use of the weeders. The Church Street Farmers is one of the first groups we trained and they have been using SRI since 2013.

In the attached pictures Caroline is providing the weeders to new groups who started using SRI in 2014; the Son Women's group and the Ake Women's group. In addition the groups who we are training on SRI in 2015 are being trained on using the new weeders:

http://ndop-rice.ning.com/photo/albums/september-2015-manufacturing...