Agricultral Equipment & Mechanization

“Human muscle” still contributes to about 85% of power for land preparation in rural areas. Farmers with physical disabilities therefore face many constraints to increased farm production, which to a large extent, cab be categorized into three factors;
• An excessive reliance on human power
• The low productivity of human labour
• A decrease in the labour available.
A typical disability farm family can only cultivate less than one acre per year. This can rise to 8 ha if a tractor power is accessed. Many disability households are forced to respond to farm power shortages by scaling their activities, reducing the area under cultivation and growing a limited range of less labour intensive crops.

They struggle to keep pace with the seasonal calendar, which results in delayed or incomplete operations in one season with adverse effects on the next. Food security falls, nutritional status declines and disability household members become increasingly susceptible to infection thus becoming less productive.

Poverty and inaccessibility to credit by farmers with disabilities limits their ability to purchase or hire required farm machinery that leads to low mechanization. The cost of farm machinery is too expensive and therefore unaffordable for small scale farmers- especially those with disabilities

SCAN AgriAbility Enterprise hope to improve access to and the use of productive assets, such as tractors, power tillers, threshers and Solar water pumps, by the most affected Farmers with Disabilities (FwDs) in the remotest rural villages by establishing self-managed machinery rings and networking them to achieve scale economies.

To achieve this, the SCAN AgriAbility Enterprise aim to: i) provide start-up kits of agricultural equipment to Farmers with Disabilities (FwDs); ii) establish self-managed machinery rings; iii) build the capacity of local farmers' organizations in the management of the machinery rings and organization functioning; and iv) link and network the machinery rings with their economic and institutional environment. The project will assist small- and medium-scale farmers who are eager to organize themselves and to improve their access to equipment.

Expected Impact:
The project is expected to;
• Improved farm labour productivity through use of agricultural machinery, implements and tools that meet the special requirements of rural farmers with disabilities.
• Increased productivity per unit area due to improved timelines of farm operations.
• An expansion of area under cultivation where land is available, as it often is in many rural areas.
• Accomplishments of tasks that are difficult to perfume without mechanical ids
• Improvements of the quality of work and products.
• A reduction of drudgery in farming activities, thereby making farm work more attractive.
There will be enough food for consumption and surplus for sale. The surplus food will be processed and added value then sold out to the market. This will help in improving the livelihoods of people with disabilities in rural areas, achieving food security and increasing exports of agricultural products by our rural smallholder farmers.

How You Can Help:
SCAN AgriAbility Enterprise is looking for Partners who can support in mobilizing or making available financial support to implement our Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization for Smallholders. Investment in the SAMS Project will have a huge impact towards the achievement of food security among the poor rural disabled masses.