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Small Grain, Big Yield
Small Grain, Big Yield
Small Grain, Big Yield
Reinventing 5000 years of teff farming in Ethiopia
Reinventing 5000 years of teff farming in Ethiopia
A joint effort between IDEO.org and the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in Ethiopia, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the goal of this project was to create a row planting tool to help Ethiopian teff farmers increase their crop yields and stimulate economic development. We learned everything we could about the cultivation of the world’s smallest grain by speaking with farmers, local engineers, and agricultural experts. A range of prototypes and a few very sticky run-ins with the highly variable Ethiopian soil later, we arrived at a row planter that showed markedly improved results. Not only does it take fewer seeds to plant a field, but early test plots are producing much larger yields.
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2013
Martin Schnitzer for IDEO.ORG
Design Research, Industrial Design, User Experience, Prototyping
http://www.ata.gov.et/row-planter/
A joint effort between IDEO.org and the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in Ethiopia, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the goal of this project was to create a row planting tool to help Ethiopian teff farmers increase their crop yields and stimulate economic development. We learned everything we could about the cultivation of the world’s smallest grain by speaking with farmers, local engineers, and agricultural experts. A range of prototypes and a few very sticky run-ins with the highly variable Ethiopian soil later, we arrived at a row planter that showed markedly improved results. Not only does it take fewer seeds to plant a field, but early test plots are producing much larger yields.
___
2013
Martin Schnitzer for IDEO.ORG
Design Research, Industrial Design, User Experience, Prototyping
http://www.ata.gov.et/row-planter/
A joint effort between IDEO.org and the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) in Ethiopia, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the goal of this project was to create a row planting tool to help Ethiopian teff farmers increase their crop yields and stimulate economic development. We learned everything we could about the cultivation of the world’s smallest grain by speaking with farmers, local engineers, and agricultural experts. A range of prototypes and a few very sticky run-ins with the highly variable Ethiopian soil later, we arrived at a row planter that showed markedly improved results. Not only does it take fewer seeds to plant a field, but early test plots are producing much larger yields.
___
2013
Martin Schnitzer for IDEO.ORG
Design Research, Industrial Design, User Experience, Prototyping
http://www.ata.gov.et/row-planter/
Let's create fewer, but better.