Non-motorized field cart can save time and energy

By Marcia Miquelon, Outreach Specialist
UW Madison Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits Project

Stooping or kneeling and crawling to harvest or weed strawberries or low-growing vegetable crops requires a lot of time and energy. Lifting and moving your harvest container many times as you fill it adds to the workload. An alternative is to build a simple cart that allows you or your workers to sit and roll over the bed or row while working. Plans for building a simple cart may be obtained for free from the University of Wisconsin's Healthy Farmers, Healthy Profits Project.

The cart straddles the crop bed or row, so that the wheels are on the paths. A seat is mounted low to the ground, between the rear wheels, allowing you to work directly over the crop without stooping or twisting. The seat height is adjustable. Move the cart forward by pushing the rear wheels with your hands, wheelchair fashion, or by scooting along with your feet on the ground.

In general, the cart reduces or eliminates the time spent in awkward, potentially damaging postures, and allows you to change posture more frequently so you are less tired. It also reduces stress on the body and saves time by conveying crop and container, so you do not have to lift it every time you move.

Since the cart is easy and inexpensive to produce (about $150 for materials), it can pay for itself in a short amount of time if, for example, it enables a school-aged seasonal picker to pick more strawberries more quickly or to stay in the fields for longer. Older or less physically fit u-pick customers might also appreciate an alternative to stooping or kneeling in your fields, and might purchase more berries as a result. If the cart reduces back or knee pain, you may also save money on medical bills.

The cart is generally not suitable for tasks where you need to cover a long distance in a short time, such as deblossoming strawberries, or for very hilly terrain. The seated cart prototype was designed by Bob Meyer, Hal Bohne and Jim Schwarz at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Biological Systems Engineering Department, funded by a grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. To receive plans, please contact the project at (608) 262-1054, or refer to their website: http://bse.wisc.edu/hfhp/.

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