How can farming survive when you are condemned to work with the « Daba »? (the hand-made hoe used in traditional Africa) Farmers, women in the farm community came to ECHOPPE to ask for access to tractor services. Years ago, it wasn’t time. The competence for repairing locally sophisticated materials wasn’t available, nor where the spare parts. But today, a (simple) tractor using hydrauliques and injection systems can be repaired by local labor and the parts are there. The huge expensive electronic run tractors are not necessary because small farming remains quite small – a few acres per farmer.

To serve the poorest, ECHOPPE has supported the creation of a local enterprise « Planèt Paysans » in order for the smallest to have access to tractor services for plowing, disking and cultivating lands. For a fee, the service provides a driver with the tractor in order to cultivate fields. The fields must be free of roots in order not to hurt the material. A motorized grain sheller, a rotary hand planter and other products are also availble for rental. The Howard Rowell Center for Mechanization also is a place for farmers to meet, share difficulties and consider alterntives to problems facing them, like poor soil, lack of local labor, poor rains or other climate changes. It is a place raise consciousness – understanding of what is going on around and how to respond to these changes in a community oriented way.