Animal-Drawn Wheeled Toolcarriers Perfected yet Rejected

This book did not start as a formal msearch study or a publication proposal. Rather it developed from a promise made to a colleague who was contemplating ordering wheeled toolcarriers for evaluation in a West African country. The promise was to contact professional colleagues and, by means of a “networking” approach, to track down in- formation relating to the successful use of wheeled toolcarriers by farmers. The idea was that it would save much time and money if that country learned about existing experience before it started its own work. At that stage it was naturally assumed there were successful experiences to find. So started eighteen months of correspondence and literature review in the search of successful use of wheeled toolcarriers by farmers. It slowly became apparent that everyone contacted thought that these implements were indeed successful but somewhere else! Thentfore it seemed worthwhile to put all the detective work together so that people could learn from the obvious lessons. Following discussions with Eduardo Busquets of the German Appropriate Technology Exchange (GATE), GATE agreed to sponsor the pre- paration of this text, and their support is gratefully acknowledged.