TECNOLOGIA DA ENXADA DO CABO CURTO: AGRICULTURA ESQUECIDA

Abstract

Farmers or Peasants in developing countries have never had access to the means of production and thus or therefore mechanization is practically absent and selected seeds, fertilizers and pesticides are not used in areas of extensive production of irrigated crops in Africa. In regions where agrarian revolutions have assimilated (contemporary and green), many peasants or farmers have never been able to acquire new means of production that facilitate the work and increase productivity. These peasants were and still are poor today and still suffer inconveniences as a result of these two revolutions. The lack of proper monitoring of these revolutions has meant that millions of peasants continue to work today with small, strictly manual tools, without using fertilizers or treatment products.

The manual instrument does not allow cultivating more than one hectare per worker, and productivity does not exceed 1,000 kg per year (Marcel Mazoyer & Laurence Roudart). This problem conditioned a very unequal agriculture, and if we measured productivity per worker, we would see that, in half a century, the relationship between the productivity of agriculture practiced exclusively with hand tools (short-handled hoe ...) has stagnated and the mechanized agriculture has intensified, which has blocked development and greatly impoverished peasants.

In this context, it can be concluded that the majority of peasants (cultivation with a short-handled hoe) did not have access to mechanization. This phenomenon leads us to affirm that half of Africans, mainly in Mozambique, many lost the green revolution and mostly continue to plow their fields with hand tools (short handle hoe). Consequently, millions of active farmers work not only with strictly manual tools (short-hand hoe), but still do not use fertilizers or pesticides, much less supplement their animals' food. South Africa, Zimbabwe, among others, which have not had land reform, poorly equipped peasants have been stripped of their thousands of hectares of land by farmers.

It means, on the one hand, the peasants have land even greater than that which they cultivate with their simple tools (short-handled hoe), and inferior to that which would be necessary to cover the needs of family self-consumption.

On the other hand, this scenario obliges them to look for work in the farmers, with wages of less than $ 1 a day, which is the reason for the extreme impoverishment.

The aim of the research is to analyze and discuss the technology to be adopted to innovate the short-handled hoe and orient it towards contemporary approaches. In this context, the following questions arise: What methodological propositions make it possible to recognize the practical diversities in agriculture (rural areas)? What are the problems that condition development in current agrarian systems? What strategy should be adopted to innovate the short-handled hoe and facilitate the farmer's work? How is research done in family farming or rural development?

The type of research is qualitative-exploratory. The expected result is the proposal of innovative strategies that help the farmer's work. As a partial conclusion, that technological innovation, not only help the farmer's work, but consider the possibility of manufacturing and local supply of inputs and maintenance services.

Keyword: short-handled hoe, cultivation system, Green and contemporary revolution.