Practical Action Publishing
-
An Introduction to Beekeeping
This Technical Brief looks at some of the basic considerations of beekeeping on a small scale, with diagrams illustrating the techniques involved.
-
Windpumps
Using windpumps can be a reliable, cost-effective and environmentally benign means of providing a supply of clean water in rural areas. Although winpumps have been in commercial production for over 100 years, there is still enormous potential for their use in communities and on farms throughout the...
-
Appropriate Food Packaging
Food manufacturers operating on a small to medium scale face direct competition from the large-scale food sector whose economies of scale, better presentation and powerful marketing can endanger the future of smaller businesses. High quality packaging not only helps to keep products in good conditio...
-
Basic Blacksmithing
Starting with only an anvil and a few basic tools, almost all the tools needed by a blacksmith can be made from commonly found materials. With clear instructions this book gives step by step instructions on basic blacksmithing.
-
The Blacksmithing Instructors Guide
This guide is designed to help skilled blacksmiths who have little or no teaching experience to train others in forge work techniques, using easily obtainable equipment and scrap metal to produce tools such as hoes, sickles, hammers and axes.
-
Carpentry Toolmaking
This guide for carpentry instructors includes detailed plans for practical demonstrations, and important theoretical aspects of the craft. The tools include planes, clamps, workbench and vice. There is also a section on basic blacksmithing techniques.
-
Challenging the Professions
Challenging the Professions questions the dominant approaches of professions, disciplines and bureaucracies concerned with rural development. The theme is that 'we', who call ourselves professionals, are much of the problem, and to do better requires reversals of much that we regard as normal. The c...
-
Communicating Building For Safety
Presents the principles of communicating the information needed for building improvement. Covers the uses of different media to convey information and describes the use of graphic design for education.
-
Crop Protection Strategies for Subsistence Farmers
Drawing on examples from Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia, this book describes crop protection strategies that rely on farmers' knowledge and participation, local resources and alternative low-input methods, as a sensitive approach to develop and implement pest management schemes adjusted t...
-
Cultivating Knowledge
Local crop diversity in the South is being threatened by the promotion of modern 'high-yield' varieties. These worldwide case studies show the importance of small-scale farmers and local communities to maintaining crop diversity.