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Agronomists recommend that compacted farm soil should be broken up with ground rippers to promote soil and water conservation. A significant amount of rainwater simply runs off compacted fields and is lost, a situation which has serious implications for farming in Tanzania and for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa as climate changes take effect .
The process involves what its name suggests - pulling a large spike or spikes through the ground to break up the compacted layer.
For commercial farms, ground ripping is done as a matter of course as they have the necessary tractor power. Smaller farms with access to animals may be able to use a hand guided single spike ripper which would usually be pulled by a pair of oxen (right and below).
However, there are many poor village farmers who have no access to tractors or oxen, or the topography or size of their plots does not permit their use.
Traditional manual cultivation by hand hoe is therefore the only alternative.
As a result the productivity of these farms is well below
what it could be if ripping could be carried out.
 Twende is planning to develop a manual ripping machine for use on these small and difficult plots.
It is a challenging project but some preliminary practical work has already been carried out which gives pointers to a possible working design.
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 "Type of ground ripper pulled by oxen")
 "Oxen pulling ripper")