Peta Jones is an old friend of mine who is convinced that donkeys are the best way to go for rural development. This is her book and the blurb.
Donkeys for development
by
Peta Jones
1997
ISBN 0-620-22177-1
Recent studies have made clear what has been known to farmers for years: that donkey power is crucial to smallholder economy, to help with tillage, transport and thus with reconstruction and development. Donkeys are hardier and stronger than cattle, and work for many more years with little human input besides care and supervision. The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the academic interest given to donkeys, while at the same time the demand for them, and their price, has risen.
This book aims to answer most of the basic questions about donkeys asked by those who need them and work with them, incorporating recent research findings as well as traditional knowledge acquired over the thousands of years that donkeys have worked for humans.
Dr Jones has not only worked as a teacher and consultant with donkeys, but herself lives in a remote rural area of Africa where she is dependent on donkeys for all local transport and cultivation. She writes from an awareness of the problems that donkeys can create as well as the problems that they can solve, and the equipment that she recommends and illustrates with numerous drawings and photographs is all within the reach and skills of rural villagers of the developing world.
Available from:
Peta Jones, Donkey Power
PO Box 414, Tshitandani / Makhado
0920 South Africa
E-mail to:
asstute@lantic.net