Farmer-Led 3D Prototyping for New Labor Saving Agri-Tools

Charles Spillane, Paul Wagtaff, and Una Murray of the National University of Ireland, Galway, in Ireland will lead a team in working to enable women smallholder farmers in Tanzania to design and develop their own labor-saving agricultural tools. They will work with six women farmer groups to identify agricultural and food processing tasks that require the highest labor demands, and assist them with designing improved tools. The top designs will then be scanned with a 3D camera and printed as plastic prototypes using low-cost printers. After testing and refinement, a selection will be manufactured by local toolmakers and promoted to the community with a view to scaling up manufacturing for commercial production and dissemination.