Genie Rural

Frequent visits into animal farms either for cleaning, feed or water dispensation are a possible means of viral, and bacteria propagation into and out of the farms. The need for these visits compels the farmer to live in the farm and devote considerable time to these activities. A well-controlled automatic feed dispensation/water management system can considerably reduce labor and prevent frequent farm visits. This can in turn promote social distancing especially during the outbreak of epidemics. A solar energy powered automatic system for feed, water dispensation and sanitation management was developed for animal farms. It was made up of an Arduino UNO board, a water level/or feed sensor, a DS1307 Real Time Clock (RTC), two potentiometers, a buffer, an sim900 mini v3, a relay module for Arduino, a display (LCD) for visual monitoring of events. It was programmed to periodically command electric motors to release a desired quantity of feed and water into different troughs as well as ...

Rural exodus together with high birth rates and migration brings about a significant increase of urban population. Rapid urban population growth and urban development usually lead to environmental challenges, as increase in population density eventually causes major increase in quantity of waste produced. The management of waste has always been a tremendous challenge, especially in developing nations, where there is usually inadequate data on the quantity and quality of waste produced. The production and the management of solid domestic waste were studied in Yaoundé (Cameroon). The waste collected from the study site by the waste management company and at household levels were analysed, its quantification was done by collecting, sorting and weighing various categories. It was found that the per capita daily production of solid wastes varied from 0.36 Kg in poorer (unplanned settlements), to 0.56 Kg in well laid out areas (planned). About 77 % of the total waste produced is biodegradable. Due to the poor accessibility of some parts of the town, about 33 % of waste generated in the study area is not collected by the waste collection company and is dumped into streams and canals then leads to clogging.

Demographic growth and urbanization are the principal causes of the multiplication of various types of waste with multiple damaging effects on the environment. Managing waste has as such become a subject of great concern in all countries even developed ones. In Cameroon, waste management is a much thornier problem to solve as most market items are packaged in non-biodegradable plastic materials. Investigations were made in collaboration with the government to assess these materials and it revealed their overwhelming effect on environment and human health. Thus, a joint ministerial order was taken in favor of plastic packaging ban. This study was carried in-between 2013 and 2015 so as to gauge the capacity and assess the reliability of this order on plastics in nature. Throughout this period, a 6% (2625.04 kg) reduction in the amount of plastic packaging was observed.

Floods are natural occurring events that are becoming more and more recurrent, devastating and spectacular in the world. In developing countries this phenomenon is compounded by the lack or absence of specific legislations and poor drainage systems. Regrettably due to the awfully poor sanitation systems, most of the domestic wastes end up in the drainage system and as such reduce the capacities of water conveying structures thus aggravating the effect of the floods. Most countries with developing economies suffer from a lack of adaptation to challenging situations such as floods. Indeed, the absence of legislation on flood control causes the state to spend more on population relief rather than on flood mitigation. Also, the hydraulic structures are cruelly lacking maintenance and due to the fact that these structures are not initially designed to take into consideration the solid domestic waste factor, the subsequent situation is their rapid obstruction and hence flooding during rain events. As a matter of fact during this study carried out in the Mefou drainage basin revealed that almost all the hydraulic structures were found to be blocked by plastic bottles as well as other solid waste materials. Only the bridges kept on being functional.

Rural exodus together with high birth rates and migration brings about a significant increase of urban population. Rapid urban population growth and urban development usually lead to environmental challenges, as increase in population density eventually causes major increase in quantity of waste produced. The management of waste has always been a tremendous challenge, especially in developing nations, where there is usually inadequate data on the quantity and quality of waste produced. The production and the management of solid domestic waste were studied in Yaoundé (Cameroon). The waste collected from the study site by the waste management company and at household levels were analysed, its quantification was done by collecting, sorting and weighing various categories. It was found that the per capita daily production of solid wastes varied from 0.36 Kg in poorer (unplanned settlements), to 0.56 Kg in well laid out areas (planned). About 77 % of the total waste produced is biodegrad...

Floods are phenomena that become more frequent and more intense due to anthropogenic activities such as poor land use, improper waste management, uncontrolled urbanization, industrialization … In developing countries, the drainage systems are most often limited (if not absent), inadequate or not adapted. Most of the storm drains are regularly filled with solid materials that are collected from the environment and conveyed by runoff. Waste management in developing countries is very poor and important fractions of the wastes produced are abandoned in nature thereby impacting severely on the environment. The Abiergué watershed was targeted to study the process of the hydrological transformation of rainfall into runoff that conveys solid waste within a drainage system. The aim of this research was to develop a model that will enable the simulation of waste flow with respect to a specific rainfall pattern. It will permit to quantify the total solid wastes in circulation in a drainage system and as such provide appropriate and significant information on the role played by these wastes which can be used for engineering new adapted systems in developing countries. It was found that the solid domestic wastes and soil sediments evolved following a linear and a quadratic pattern respectively with respect to runoffs.

Floods are natural occurring events that are becoming more and more recurrent, devastating and spectacular in the world. In developing countries this phenomenon is compounded by the lack or absence of specific legislations and poor drainage systems. Regrettably due to the awfully poor sanitation systems, most of the domestic wastes end up in the drainage system and as such reduce the capacities of water conveying structures thus aggravating the effect of the floods. Most countries with developing economies suffer from a lack of adaptation to challenging situations such as floods. Indeed, the absence of legislation on flood control causes the state to spend more on population relief rather than on flood mitigation. Also, the hydraulic structures are cruelly lacking maintenance and due to the fact that these structures are not initially designed to take into consideration the solid domestic waste factor, the subsequent situation is their rapid obstruction and hence flooding during rai...

Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences/ University of Dschang, Cameroon ABSTRACT: In developing countries drainage systems are most often designed without taking into consideration the reality of solid domestic wastes and soil sediments that regular fill the limited number of drains in a drainage system. Soil sediments from erosion are usually conveyed by runoff into the drains however the poor land use practices accelerate the process of erosion. On the other hand, because of the poor waste management most of the waste produced by households are left uncollected and end up in the drainage system. The Abiergué drainage basin was used to assess the impact of solid domestic wastes and soil sediments on the design of drainage system in developing countries. Models were designed to take into consideration this aspect. However, the initial model used computed values of runoff obtained from precipitation and runoff coefficient. As such a new ...

Urbanization and waste production are closely related subjects. Solid waste management remains a serious challenge for developing countries. The reason for this situation includes: misunderstanding, weak rules and regulations, unreliable methods, inappropriate storage. Most of the wastes produced end up in the drainage systems and considerably impact its functionality, giving rise to floods. This research assesses the impact of uncollected solid waste on the drainage system of an urbanized drainage basin. The pilot site chosen for this work was a drainage basin called Abiergué. With its urban and cultural diversity, Abiergué is a microcosm of most drainage basins in its mother town Yaoundé. The quantity of wastes produced and collected was determined by collecting, sorting and weighing solid domestic wastes from 307 Households living in the area. The fraction of uncollected solid wastes circulating in the drainage system was assessed as well as the amount of soil sediments conveyed ...

Urbanization and waste production are closely related subjects. Solid waste management remains a serious challenge for developing countries. The reason for this situation includes: misunderstanding, weak rules and regulations, unreliable methods, inappropriate storage. Most of the wastes produced end up in the drainage systems and considerably impact its functionality, giving rise to floods. This research assesses the impact of uncollected solid waste on the drainage system of an urbanized drainage basin. The pilot site chosen for this work was a drainage basin called Abiergué. With its urban and cultural diversity, Abiergué is a microcosm of most drainage basins in its mother town Yaoundé. The quantity of wastes produced and collected was determined by collecting, sorting and weighing solid domestic wastes from 307 Households living in the area. The fraction of uncollected solid wastes circulating in the drainage system was assessed as well as the amount of soil sediments conveyed ...

Floods are natural phenomenon which effects are aggravated by anthropogenic activities such as uncontrolled urbanization, poor land use, quarrying, improper waste management... In developing countries where the urban drainage system is very poor or absent in some cases, the development of floods is more recurrent. The Abiergué drainage basin was targeted to study the hydrological transformation of rainfall into runoff that conveys waste in the drainage system. This was to enable the development of a model which could explain the link between the various components that come in play in the drainage system: solid domestic wastes and soil sediments. This was to bring forth a method that will enable to take into consideration the major factors that are at the origin or amplification of floods in developing countries in the design of new drainage systems.The model developed at the end of this study described the relation between the various components under study. It was found out that s...

Demographic growth and urbanization are the principal causes of the multiplication of various types of waste with multiple damaging effects on the environment. Managing waste has as such become a subject of great concern in all countries even developed ones. In Cameroon, waste management is a much thornier problem to solve as most market items are packaged in non-biodegradable plastic materials. Investigations were made in collaboration with the government to assess these materials and it revealed their overwhelming effect on environment and human health. Thus, a joint ministerial order was taken in favor of plastic packaging ban. This study was carried in-between 2013 and 2015 so as to gauge the capacity and assess the reliability of this order on plastics in nature. Throughout this period, a 6% (2625.04 kg) reduction in the amount of plastic packaging was observed.

The absence of accurate field operation time records may result to wasteful use of the time available for farm operation which reduces the possibility of a successful operation. Making decisions related to whether or not the soil is suitable for farm activities is essential. However, about 70% of Cameroon's soils are ferralsols and there is little to no data on how they respond to pressure from farm machinery intensities at different levels of moisture content. For the Bimodal Humid Forest Agroecological Zone of Cameroon, a model was developed to estimate soil suitability and the effective time available for farm operations on ferralsols. To achieve this goal, pot and field experiments were carried out to observed how bulk
densities changes under different traffic intensities at various soil moisture levels. Also, NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) was used to develop a model in JAVA language that isran by a desktop. It was found thatferralsols have four main types of soil texture: Sandy Clay Loam, Clay, Sandy Clay, Clay Loam.Also, compaction caused by farm machinery traffic in these soils at depths of 0-15 cm tends to be greater than that at depths of 15-40 cm, which did not vary much; moisture content at wilting point (MCWP) was found to be between 10% and 15%, and critical moisture content (CMC) ranged from 25.88% to 38.32%. Furthermore, ferralsols reach their optimum bulk density at moisture contents higher than field capacity. The NGUTRACT model developed permits to determine if a day was workable or not based on several variables and consequently permit to determine the number of days in a year. As a result, the model is site-specific, and depending on the soil type and moisture content, a day may be workable for one farmer while being non-workable for another in the same location.However, in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the entire agroecological zone, the results should be extended to the East and South regions.

Because soil is the medium of life, it is critical to the environment. Its modification by agricultural machinery to increase productivity causes negative effects (compaction, erosion, etc.) that vary in severity according on its texture, organic matter content as well as the moisture level at the time of work. Root development and subsurface penetration are hampered by compacted soil. Due to the limited water and nutrient intake in this circumstance, plants may become stunted and drought-stressed, which would lower crop production. According to numerous researchers, the size of farm equipment has dramatically increased, which has further increased the risk of soil compaction. Some countries develop their agricultural policy with an emphasis on boosting the use of farm machinery in order to attain food security and sovereignty. In order to dramatically increase agricultural land surfaces and consequently productivity, these strategies are intended to boost the influx of farm machines and their interventions. Agricultural fields may experience more difficulties in this regard than in the past. Given that nearly 70% of the soils in Cameroon are ferralsols, understanding how these soils react to compaction may help to reduce any potential negative effects on the overall amount of arable land as well as prevent severe environmental damage. Literature presents little information on how these soils behave upon compressive forces added to the fact that there is very little if not no consensus between researchers as some describe the relation between bulk density and amount of clay as direct or inversely proportional.

Cameroon has an economy strongly dominated by the agricultural sector and despite this domination as well as the fact that this sector is backed by several policy documents and statements, investments in the sector is still grossly underdeveloped. Many farm operators in the different agro ecological environment still rely to an overwhelming extend on the use animate power to achieve their agricultural production goals. This power source and the tools used have implicit limitation in terms of energy and operational output. Cameroon government persistently carry out some initiative to inverse the tendency such as the providing modern agricultural equipment and machinery to farm operators, training complex farm machinery users. However, these solutions are not part of a common though and so far have produced mixed results without a significant improvement on the field. This paper permits to appreciate the challenges faced by users of farm technology in agricultural mechanization via four main crops of significant importance to Cameroon: Maize, Cassava, Sorghum and Cocoa. Among others, it was observed that 75% of farmers involved in cultivation of sorghum, maize, cassava have land surfaces less than 2%. These small farm sizes are a serious handicap to the effective mechanization due to sparse and scattered cultivated lands. Also, only 13% (112) of farm operators have access to credit from micro finance institutions. This low access to credit contributes to the reluctance of farm operators to invest in agricultural machinery acquisition with only 3% owing a land with a land title.

The level of agricultural mechanization in Cameroon for the past decades has faced an improvement though not significant and despite repeated attempts of the government to improve the sector. One of these attempts was the recent distribution of SONALIKA brand tractors of different horse power (DI 60, DI 75, DI 90) to farm operators in order to improve the level of farm mechanization. Unfortunately, a certain number of these tractors (30%) were found abandoned after a short period of time in the field due to numerous constraints such as the lack of proper training of drivers, the scarcity of spare parts, the poor quality of the machine and the poor land preparation, just to name a few. This study seeks to contribute to the improvement of the shelf life of SONALIKA tractors in the five Agro-ecological zones of Cameroon by identifying and prioritizing the primary causes (hardware link or software link) of tractor breakdown and proposing solutions to main faults on the hardware and software components. Questionnaires were administered to respondents (tractor operators and mechanics) and data collected was analysed using SPSS and Microsoft office excel. Interviews were carried out to get root causes of breakdown then prioritized using Pareto chart. Organization of root causes was done using ISHIKAWA diagram. Results revealed five primary factors; (Material, Machine, Manpower, Method and Environment) responsible for the operational weaknesses of SONALIKA tractors. Prioritizing of these factors showed that there are three vital few factors (Manpower, Machine and Environment) which if tackled could solve 90 % of the problems of premature failure of tractors and thus avoiding the perpetuation of the existing situation.