Back-saving inventions for small-scale farmers | Michris Janse van Rensburg | TEDxJohannesburgSalon

Farmer and inventor Michris Janse van Rensburg works with small-scale farmers, in South Africa, and throughout the African continent. In his travels, he says, a question that he often faces is “how are we going to get the youth back into farming?” The obvious answer is “through technology.” With a cellphone, every small-scale farmer can leapfrog to a growing range of increasingly powerful digital tools. Yet, Michris notes, “those same small-scale farmers still have to break their backs just to insert seeds into the ground, using their fingers to cover kilometers of rows.” With this problem in hand, and a farmer’s pragmatic approach in mind—often referred to as 'n boer maak 'n plan' in his native Afrikaans— Michris got to work. That work has produced a series of back-saving, cleverly constructed, hand-propelled applicators that make small-scale farming a little easier, with a touch of swag to boot. These have brought much-needed precision and speed into the operations of small-scale farmers, vastly increasing their crop yield. In a charming talk that combines pictures, videos, and demos, with humour and heartfelt laughter, Michris takes the TEDxJohannesburg audience through his creative process. Find Michris on the Web: backsaver.co.za Operating out of Bultfontein in the Free State, Michris Janse van Rensburg invents practical solutions to many of the problems associated with improving the success rate of small-scale farmers. With a series of cleverly constructed, hand-propelled applicators, he has brought much-needed precision into the operations of small-scale farmers, vastly increasing their crop yield in the process. Michris’ inventions have taken root all the way up the African continent, helping farmers turn their fortunes in Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and as far afield as Ghana. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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