Excerpted from Oxfam in Cambodia
Case Study: Helping Farmers to Increase Yields and Knowledge
“Oxfam and local partner-RACHANA based in Takeo are forming agriculture service teams to train volunteer farmers, especially women, in technologies such as SRI, and business and promotion skills that can help them to adapt to the challenges of climate change and drought. They are also able to offer SRI planting services to smallholder farmers in their communities.”
The Rice Dragon is a manual rotary weeder developed “by women for women”. It was designed, produced and marketed by Oxfam and RACHANA in South East Asia.
Advantages:
- It is well-tested mechanical weeder and has ergonomics that are women friendly.
- It is lighter in weight than most other weeders with two rotors.
- It is affordable and the cost of a Rice Dragon can be shared with other farmers
- It has a relatively narrow width of approximately 10 cm. The design could be produced with a wider width but we do not have any information on this being done.
- It can be repaired locally.
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