By Carol Ekarius
CourtesyTillers International
The genesis for Tillers International , a nonprofit organization dedicated to “ preserve , studying , and exchange low - capital technology that increase the sustainability and productivity of people in rural community , ” occurred back in 1969 when Dick Roosenberg served as a Peace Corp volunteer .
raise on a Michigan dairy farm , Roosenberg went to Dahomey , in west Africa ( the current - twenty-four hours Republic of Benin ) to help farmers of the newly independent country as they tried to reconstruct after centuries of Gallic colonialism and economic and social unrest . His charge was to introduce the role of oxen as a creature for increasing food for thought ego - sufficiency .
“ There had not been oxen in the compass north of the nation because of sleeping sickness in cattle , but new veterinary medicines made it potential to keep cattle . I was just so impressed by the responsiveness of these farmers to the oxen . They pluck up on using them powerful aside , ” Roosenberg says .
Out of AfricaBy the ending of his three - year commitment to the Peace Corps , Roosenberg was glom : “ Oxen could triple the food production of subsistence farmers . That ’s big ; it can make the world a more peaceable position . ”
Courtesy Tillers International
Though he had grown up on a dairy farm and worked with cattle all his life-time , he had n’t move to Africa with the skills of a herder — someone who moves farm animal over long distance .
Roosenberg explains , “ When we were over there , we knew that our expectant grandparents had used voice command to control draft animals , but we were learning as we live on . There were some French volunteers nearby who ’d had some experience droving in France , so they taught us some thing , but we learned a lot just by sour with the animals . ”
During his tenure , he , and the dozens of Farmer he ’d worked with while in Africa , develop the necessary skills to make the most out of ox index , but Roosenberg knew that his learn - as - you - instruct approach to droving reduced the effectiveness of his years on the ground with the poor multitude of Africa .
If only he ’d had those skill before going , he could have accomplish so much more . So , upon his return home to Michigan , he kindled a dream : He need to start a training center where aid workers , like he ’d been as a untried man , could come for preparation in animate being - powered agriculture before going out into the world ’s most impoverished countries .
Dreams do n’t always pay the bills , so Roosenberg render to schoolhouse and earned a law degree . He puzzle out as a attorney , yet the imaginativeness of a preparation center was always somewhere in the back of his mind .
On a Sunday afternoon in 1980 , the idea picked up steam : “ I travel to the Henry Ford Museum , ” he recalls . “ I observe these former men working their draft horses , and I thought , ‘ We really do need a bridge to tap into the historic reticence of knowledge that still live in this country , before it go away forever . ’ ”
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