Design Intervention in Farm Equipment: Using a Studio Research Approach to Design a Sustainable, Human-Powered Solution for Small and Marginal Indian Farmers

Small and marginal farmers play an essential role in the Indian agrarian economy. However, climate change, inflation, inadequate supply, volatile market, deterioration of land and water resources, rising input costs and post-harvest losses along with lack of appropriate technology have led to an agrarian crisis in recent years. Small and marginal farmers are unable to use modern solutions due to issues like rising labour costs, lack of capital and unavailability of appropriate technology. Also, as the men migrate from villages to cities, Indian agriculture is becoming increasingly feminized. Hence, there is an urgent need for developing sustainable, appropriate and affordable farm tools which are gender-friendly, effective and efficient. A designer needs to understand various parameters for designing and evaluation of solutions to design and develop appropriate, affordable and context-specific interventions. These parameters range from technical to social, and the process for developing the parameters is described in this paper. Initially, data from various sources were collected and represented visually in mind maps with overlays to understand different layers of activities, existing solutions and needs. These overlays, along with a design futures framework, were used as a reference point to generate parameters which would inform and drive various directions for ideation and evaluation during the design process. The authors have used the user needs pyramid resulting out of the identified parameters to generate a design specification for farm implements. The factors used to generate the specification consider not just the technical aspects but also the socioeconomic and cultural aspects.