The Participatory Design of a Human-powered Shredder for Urban Farmers in Soweto

Abstract

This dissertation describes the participatory design process to develop a human-powered shredder for improving compost production with, and for, small-scale urban farmers in Soweto, South Africa. Historically marginalised farmers are challenging food insecurity from within the Soweto food system, however, urban farms remain relatively unproductive as farmers lack appropriate equipment and struggle to sufficiently reduce organic waste. Therefore shorter and regular composting cycles are not being realised. This results in soils remaining infertile and hence crop yields suffer. This study applied criteria from Appropriate Technology (AT) as a means of governing design decision-making, and employed Human-Centred Design (HCD) as a formal methodology for working with emerging farmers. Participatory HCD was utilised to develop appropriate agricultural processing equipment in collaboration with experienced farmers, composters and engineers. The design researcher purposefully selected experienced experts from each of these three fields as the shredder study’s key informants. Consecutive semi-structured focus groups, observation and fieldwork facilitated data collection. Iterative prototyping, testing and design reflection formed the basis for monitoring product design development. Being human-powered, the design favours multiple operators. Human-power allows farming families to power shredders at will without incurring added running costs. Thus, encouraging greater ‘resilience’ by considering, local employment. The shredder use and maintenance has been found accessible by newcomers, and serviceable using three basic hand tools. Components were purposefully sourced from local suppliers where possible, thus favouring local manufacture. The shredder study aimed to ‘nudge’ an increase in the ease and frequency of compost production by farmers.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	English
Supervisor	Angus Donald Campbell (Chief supervisor) & Naudé Malan (Co-supervisor)