Do you know why the mounds with half-moon shapes? Why is it more effective than simply digging a circular hole in the ground?
Do you know why the mounds with half-moon shapes? Why is it more effective than simply digging a circular hole in the ground?
The idea is that rain flows downhill, you dig the half moon shape to capture the water on the end without a ditch and then it sinks into the ditch instead of flowing unobstructed to the river and taking all soil with it.
It's an ancient practice that was forgotten and rediscovered. The beauty of this approach is that it shows results within a few short years. Basically in Africa if there's water, nature shows up and consumes it. So you get lush growth and rapid soil restoration. Trees, vegetables, etc. on what was a heavily eroded flood plain before.
It's easy to explain, the locals get why it works. And they get a very fast response from nature and all the produce and riches that come with that. And all they need is shovels and some elbow grease.
Same effect for half the work. Look up the videos on youtube, it's manual labor on very hard ground.
Why is it manual? If I had a mission to plant millions of trees, I am going to invest in a ditch witch.
assuming you're not joking, construction equipment is incredibly expensive for countries to whom profiting from importing it is not a "sure thing", doubly so if their roads are not developed. This is why a 2000s hummer in central America still costs as much as a nice modern car.
A basic trencher is little more than a push lawnmower frame with a chain saw attached. Not enormous industrial equipment, but still a large boost to productivity vs a shovel.
I think the basic trencher would almost certainly still count as manual labor? Nobody is expecting that they are out there digging with bare hands.
> Nobody is expecting that they are out there digging with bare hands.
Most of these ditches are dug out by the locals with shovels. We're talking subsistence farmers here in areas where people are more or less trying to live off the land. Their hands and some primitive tools is all that's there.
I confess that is a little surprising to me. Such that I can agree it would be a worthwhile endeavor to get them better equipment.
I would still call people using bigger stuff to be doing manual labor. For the same reason that using a lawn mower is still a manual labor job.
>Such that I can agree it would be a worthwhile endeavor to get them better equipment.
I imagine they /want/ it, it would just be a massive issue because they do not have equal supply chains to more developed nations, and them having to pay to make up the difference makes the cost-to-benefit ratio not make sense
again this is in a country that may have little to no debt infrastructure, so no way to take out a proper loan to buy the equipment, and many hoops to import it. The fact that it's small isn't the matter, it's that it's specialized. A used/legacy backhoe or skid steer maybe, but even if you can afford it, there's no tractor supply co or home depot, you are likely handling lading the thing yourself
local labour is cheaper