Ox Carts

Of the 7000 members of KASFA none has a car. Bikes are used for carrying an amazing number of things but have their limits. Carrying your rice on your head in 50kg sacks back from the fields is a major test of stamina.

Again, a grant from the Scottish Government, enabled us to buy 50 ox-carts, which were sold on an instalment basis to farmers. As the repayments came in, more were bought and now there are 256 carts owned by members. They hire them out, or in cases of emergency – someone needing taken into hospital – offer them freely.

It means all sorts of activities can develop more easily: moving feed for animals, bricks, cement and sand for building, taking rice home and to market, seedlings to the field for planting out. It’s a real benefit, and sometimes a life line, for farming communities.

And they’re manufactured locally, so it’s also a welcome increase in trade for the cart makers of Karonga.