Thanks to social media, ergonomics will become mainstream

A truck driver doing his thing. Most vehicle cabins are compliant with ergonomic requirements but the locally assembled bodies are not. Photo: Pius Maundu

Social media has given individuals an unparalleled power to express their sentiments and frustrations on pertinent issues. The other day, a Facebook friend uploaded a photograph of the interior of what seemed as a public service vehicle. 

The focus of the photo was an electric wall socket mounted on the body of the vehicle clad in green felt, the type used in pool tables, adjacent to one of the passenger seats. That a matatu could carry with it an appliance the size found in houses was more than hilarious. 

Following the concurrence that an oversized appliance inside a car was uncouth, comments pointed figures at the possible fleet represented in this photograph. Mwi Sacco, Channia, Kampala Coach, Forward Travelers, Matunda, Mbukoni, and Coast Bus were some of the names appearing in the comments following the update. But what were these people saying?

People result to social media to chide what they think the mainstream media fails to address satisfactorily. The need for ethical public transport, for instance. In this case, mounting an over sized electric socket inside a public service vehicle is both casual and dangerous. It is not rocket science to imagine the how risky such a move is to the passengers and the vehicle itself. Parading these brand names of public transport operators spoke volumes. 

Essentially, these comments were expressing the certainty that the public transport operators had the capacity of committing such reckless felonies. It could be that those commenting had not witnessed these gadgets in the vehicles, but from their experiences, it was possible to associate such unbecoming behavior with such operators. Put differently, the people had resulted to social media to report the bad experience they had had incessantly in particular public transport operators. Parading names, especially when particular names appear more than once or even attract more likes, confirms that affected individuals are certain on their sentiments. 

Considering the tone of the comments, chances are that the bad experiences resulted from structural imperfections in the fleets. They have little to do with the human aspects. Public transport operators should be worried of the justifications for the negative perception by their clients. This leads to some of the imperfections that could make travelers disgusted by public transport operators. Collectively, the explanation for the negative perception is failure to adhere to the requirements of ergonomics. What then is ergonomics?

Ergonomics is concerned with designing the environment to match human factors, thus breeding utmost comfort. It borrows greatly from anthropometrics, “the study of the sizes of people in relation to products,” according to BBC. Though widely applied in enhancing workplace productivity, ergonomics has its rightful role in public service vehicles. Take the passenger seats for instance. 

Body builders are supposed to factor in the comfort of the passenger before they bent on sketching the preliminary designs of the seats. A good number rarely think this comfort as important. Instead, they let the selfish interests of their masters dictate on the number and inclination of the seats they would install. The resulting design leaves the owner of the public service vehicle salivating while the client groaning. 

Resulting from this greed and lack of insight is a passenger car with seats that outnumber its recommended capacity. The alley is so squeezed that it is difficult for one to pace up and down the bus. Can you imagine the discomfort in breathing in such a crowded environment? Interestingly, it is possible to tell which body builder is encouraging this insensitivity from their labels on their “masterpieces.”

Whenever body builders remember to space the seats appropriately, they seldom remember to install footrests. At the end of the day, this subjects passengers, especially those on long distance journeys to untold suffering. Certainly, free Wi-Fi and snacks cannot supplant this kind of discomfort. Equally discomforting is the blaring of loud music or even mounting a television set almost on the roof so that passengers would strain their necks to follow. Nobody can forget this discomfort. They will do something.

In the wake of the discomfort, especially if it is incessant, passengers would start boycotting using the services of the notorious public transport operators. They would let others follow suit. And in the world of social media, they would let others know. Everybody knows of the word “viral” and what its potential. 

Rural agriculture is the surest way of ending poverty in Kenya

The author poses in front of his crop in this file photograph in 2011: Photo in memory of the late Rashid Mbwana

Good evening!

Good evening everybody!

What do you think would happen if you discover that the CEO of Bharti Airtell uses Safaricom products? You are right. The demand for Safaricom products will just skyrocket. Simple economics, right?

What is the essence? From these incessant questions, I am certain many of you have missed my presence for a couple of sessions during the last week.  The number and tone of phone calls and texts that I received during this time from the likes of Delinah tell me so. 

Allow me to report that I spend the better part of last week attending to my small farm in my Kibwezi rural home, some 195 km South of Nairobi. Here I grow green grams, cow peas, and raise chicken and geese.   

Did I just hear someone wonder what wisdom there is in abandoning the comfort of the city for a weeklong sojourn in a dingy village? Kindly come with me as I explain how agriculture is the surest way of ending poverty, the rationale for my behavior last week.  

Nobody doubts that the mainstream economic activity of rural folk in Kenya is agriculture. In fact, 90% of the rural population thrives on agriculture. I am sure that I am not the only one whose kin had to sell cattle and fowls to fund elementary and secondary education. These statistics in Kenya do not fall far from that in any other African country or developing country for that matter. What then does this mean for the country’s development?

Agriculture plays a very significant role in taming poverty in rural Kenya. To start with, agriculture is the source of food. This food not only feeds the rural populations but also it finds its way into urban markets. Besides providing populations with the essential nutrients, food is an important commercial ingredient. Scores of rural and urban fold are involved in the buying and selling of various food items such as corn, beans, cassava, coffee, tea, arrowroots, yams, cattle, cotton, pyrethrum and millet. This is not all. 

Rural folk count on agriculture as a source of employment. When urban dwellers flock to factories in sprawling industrial estates, their counterparts at the villages go to the farms. Please, allow me to skip the part where the health implications, and hence the sustainability, of the different undertakings come to play. With employment, rural populations are able to earn the much-needed income to take care of other facets of the economy. At this point, I know questions on the sustainability of agriculture in the wake of climate change are rife. 

Yes. Agriculture is sustainable. Forget the clamor about climate change. Not that I am rubbishing this reality, but the manner in which it has been over hyped. When God created man, for those who believe in the creation story, He gave man the power to subdue the world. The world entails the environment and the climate. In this connection, humans should not posit that they are defeated by climate change. If anything, climate change should be a motivation for individuals to jog their innovative memory and come up sustainable ways of doing agriculture. 

This is what Roger Thurow dissuades in his book The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change. “Africa’s smallholder farmers, most of whom are women, know misery. They toil in a time warp, living and working essentially as their forebears did a century ago.” Something needs to be done. 

Governments and corporates have a stake in the realization of sustainable agriculture. Researchers have always spent sleepless nights coming up with innovative ways of countering the adverse effects of climate change. Sometimes, governments fail terribly in playing their part in completing the equation. Inadequacy of farm inputs and lack of irrigation infrastructure in ASALs in Kenya is a classic example of this deliberate failure by those in establishment. This notwithstanding, the civil society has been working hard. 

To enhance the efficiency of agriculture in rural communities, it is imperative to look into increasing productivity. Recently, Bill Gates advocated for increased productivity in agriculture to make it meaningful. Speaking at a Farmers Feeding the World event, he believed: “About three-quarters of the poor who live on these farms need greater productivity, and if they get that productivity we’ll see the benefits in income, we’ll see it in health, we’ll see it in the percentage of their kids who are going off to school.”

Essentially, Gates connected an increase in agricultural productivity to social economic development. When rural folk are able to sell enough cattle and fowl to take their siblings to school, this is nothing but development. There is one more thing that Gates did not capture in his speech: peace. 

Agriculture is intimately related to peace. This is interesting. Where I come from, when a farmer “allows” his cattle to snack on the crops of his neighbor, the most natural thing is for the cattle farmer to visit the aggrieved farmer, admit on the development and agree to abide by the compensation the crops farmer would deem commensurate. You see, the crops farmer must instill restraint in the cattle farmer, lest every Tom, Dick and Harry would wipe his crop. But the crops farmer always plays safe, fully aware that he stands equal chances of offending any of his neighbors. The ensuing reconciliatory climate is interesting. There is more. 

Beyond the village reconciliation, agriculture discourages political discord. Food shortages in many societies are great sources of animosity. Not many have forgotten the heat that the infamous maize scandal has generated in the country. You see, the point is that in most societies, the Kenyan society being a classic example, a significant percentage of disposable income goes to food. For precision purposes, we spend over 50% of what we earn on food. This is serious, isn’t it? 

Now we understand that it is very important to invest in agriculture. It is the surest way of ensuring development reigns in the Kenya society. The next time I will be disappearing to harvest on my efforts, I will let everybody know, at least to make you envious of my significance in developing the society.

Thank you.