Replacing The Bullock Cart

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 12

Replacing The Bullock Cart

(By

a “Sydney Morning correspondent.)

ASIA is on the lookout for a design of a “fanner’s car” to replace the traditional bullock - drawn cart which operates in many countries in the Far East.

Leading the search is the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East which recently completed a session of the Inland Transport and Communications Committee in Bangkok, at which the project was discussed.

Hong Kong delegates to the E.C.A.F.E. meeting reported that the car would have to cost less than £230, have a consumption of about 50 miles to the gallon; have a high road clearance; be able to operate in fields as well as on roads and be able to tow a trailer. E.C.A.F.E. officials have consulted manufacturers in four countries already Britain,, France, Japan and the United States—about the design of the car and the manufacturer who comes up with the solution should make a fortune. The United States claims it already has the answer in a “Farmobile” which carries loads, acts as a tractor or a five-seater car, sprays crops or becomes a small bus, but it is likely to prove beyond the reach of most Asian farmers.

Obstacles It will, of course, take time to persuade Asian farmers of the advantages of such an investment. It will also mean an elaborate system of hirepurchase and a convincing demonstration of “hard-sell” salesmanship before Asian people agree to give up the only form of transport they have ever known. In addition, the sophistication and complexity of the in-ternal-combustion engine is likely to seem frightening beside the simplicity of wooden carts. This means that the manufacturer of the farmer’s car will also have to be ready to provide extensive maintenance facilities, spare parts and trained mechanics—all at an attractively low cost to the farmer.

If the prospects seem somewhat daunting, there are examples of mechanisation having caught on in parts of Asia in recent years. In Japan, the farmer has in most cases given up his bul-lock-drawn plough and hoe for one equipped with a small petrol or diesel driven engine. This is important in Japan where there has been a steady drift of young people from the rural to the urban industrial areas.

The Hong Kong farmer is also beginning to realise that with these mechanised implements the job can be done much faster and with less effort.

Another example is the mechanisation of Hong Kong’s fishing fleet. This fleet, the biggest in the Commonwealth with 9400 craft of varying sizes, is now more than twothirds mechanised with engines which vary in size from

15 h.p. to more than 1000 h.p. In many cases the Hong Kong fishermen have made good use of Government loans or hire-purchase schemes launched by the manufacturers or agents to make the conversion. All junk masters owning powered vessels have also had to take examinations to show their competency as navigators and engineers.

* The introduction of a farmer’s car, however, poses bigger problems and seems to require a standard of living that comparatively few Asian farmers enjoy at present. Moreover, the bullock cart requires little or no attention and the motive power gets its “fuel” from any handy patch of grass. The cart is simple to maintain and easy to repair. In addition, a farmer needs no driving licence, needs pay no registration fees or insurance premiums for the cart. Only when he is convinced that he can save time and substantially increase his earnings by using the car therefore will he be encouraged to make the change. Commenting on the development recently the “South China Morning Post” said it may be many years before the bullock becomes obsolete in Asia though few would have thought that mechanisation would have made such rapid advances in Hong Kong’s fishing industry or Japan’s agriculture.

Road Projects

“The important thing is that good serviceable roads should be one jump ahead of the farmer’s /automocart’. The bursting energy of the world’s car manufacturers together with the advent of hire purchase could well revolutionise the rural areas of the Orient in the next decade.”

Big road projects are planned for many parts of Asia. There is the major Asian Highway scheme, a revival of the ancient Silk Highway along with traders and pilgrims travelled from Samarkand to Chungking, in China, 1700 years ago. The new highway will link Burma with

Europe and should be completed by 1970. It will be an all-weather through road and will eventually extend to Thailand and Cambodia though there are at present gaps of 185 miles in Burma and 65 miles in East Pakistan which have to be completed first.

Australian Help The road will be built to certain agreed standards and a highway code governing the conduct of international traffic has been drafted and a uniform system of road signs has been developed. But more important than the road is the need to develop feeder roads to open up the agricultural areas.

feeder roads will, however, The rate of development of

depend on the amount of money Asian governments are prepared to spend and the standard of existing roads in many parts of Asia gives the farmer little encouragement to buy a car. In Thailand, Australia is helping to build high standard country roads and work began last June on the building of a 87.5 kilometre road linking Mao Sod to Burrirum and Tak in the north. This was estimated to cost £2 million and five or six years to build.

Another Australian road project now nearing completion is designed to improve the standard of the road near Khon Kqen, Thailand, over a distance of 300 kilometres at a cost of £1.5 million.

An Australian delegate to E.C.A.F.E. told delegates that about 120,000 persons would

f benefit from these projects. It : was less important, he said, • to improve the comfort of i road transport in these areas > than to give farmers access [ to outside markets. Farmers in the area of the new roads . were already sending produce I to markets as far as Bangkok. i J Aid By N.Z. New Zealand is also helping • to build new roads in ThaiI land and its expenditure over the next five years is likely to be £450,000. Not every • Asian country is as fortunate : as Thailand, although Malaya, ■ Japan, and parts of India and Pakistan have relatively good rural road systems, and it is in these countries that the traditional forms of rural transport are likely to give way first to the farmer’s car.