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Testing and Evaluation of Agricultural Machinery and Equipment

Principles and practices












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    Book (stand-alone)
    Empowering women farmers
    A mechanization catalogue for practitioners
    2022
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    Rural women across the world work along agri-food value chains performing numerous agricultural operations. Their work is increasingly affected by land degradation, climate change impacts, and out-migration. It is often unrecognized, unqualified, and unpaid. Moreover, the traditional division of labor often relegates women to manual, time-consuming operations with high degrees of drudgery. The combination of family responsibilities and insufficient access to critical services, information, and technologies, affects women’s work burden and their potential for income generation. For example, fewer rights over land make it more difficult for women to access subsidies, finance, or mechanization. There are three ways in which sustainable mechanization can empower women and respond to their needs:
    • as customers of mechanization service providers - reducing their drudgery, and freeing up time for resting or opting for other social or economic activities;
    • as operators of machinery and equipment or staff of a mechanization hiring services business - offering their service to others to earn an income;
    • as entrepreneurs managing their own mechanization hiring services agribusiness - providing a service for other farmers and generating revenue.
    The goal of this catalogue is to promote and support women’s access to sustainable agricultural mechanization as operators and/or managers. It lists and provides information on market-tested machinery and equipment for crop production and post-harvest operations. This catalogue highlights the potential for smallholder farmers, including women, to earn an income via mechanization hire service. The information for each machine or equipment includes:
    • its function
    • its main features
    • what it is suitable for
    • its technical specifications (key features only)
    • where to buy
    • its pictures.
    The target audience includes extensionists, gender experts, agricultural engineers, government officials, donors, micro-finance institutions, and implementing partners seeking to:
    • promote inclusive agricultural mechanization interventions;
    • reduce women’s drudgery and improve the efficiency of tasks they perform;
    • address gender issues in agriculture;
    • support economic opportunities for women as entrepreneurs.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Guidelines on standards for agricultural pesticide application equipment and related test preocedures
    Vehicle-mounted and trailed sprayers. Vol. 2
    2001
    The FAO guidelines on standards are based on existing international, European and national standards and other published references. They also draw on the in-depth knowledge and experience of international sprayer standards of the experts assigned to the project and on the authors’ experience of pesticide application in the developing world. The guidelines on standards consist of detailed specifications and requirements, supported by test procedures to measure compliance with the FAO standard, for the major types of agricultural pesticide sprayers manufactured or used in FAO member countries. These standards reflect current manufacturing practice, other national and international standards and the practical reality in the field in member states. The aim of the standards guidelines is to provide manufacturers and governments with a practical and consistent quality assurance system. Each member country can then decide on the form and speed of introduction of the respective guidelines into national practice and into legislation where appropriate.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Guidelines on procedures for the registration certification and testing of new pesticide application equipment 2001
    The guidelines in this document outline how governments can influence pesticide safety by controlling the quality of new pesticide application equipment manufactures in or imported into a country. They address government officials in plant protection, environmental and other concerned authorities. By incorporating into national legislation a requirement for manufacturers and importers to declare that application equipment meets acceptable, international standards of safety and durability, or to set up national or regional testing and certification procedures, it should be possibble gradually to reduce and ultimately to eliminate substandard application equipment from farms.

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