Make your choice : mobile technology or food production techniques (Willem VAN COTTHEM)

I have read with great interest the article on “12 ways mobile technology can boost African agriculture” , see the posting on my desertification blog :

http://www.africanagricultureblog.com/2011/11/12-ways-mobile-technology-can-boost.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+africanagricultureblog%2FNaEx+%28African+Agriculture%29

In fact, I was not surprised at all that this article, published at the African Agriculture blog, is based upon a recent report of Vodafone – Accenture (“Connected Agriculture : The role of mobile in driving efficiency and sustainability in the food and agriculture value chain”).

Here is Vodafone’s introductory text :

“Vodafone Group Plc is one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies
by revenue. It has a significant presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia
Pacific and the US through the company’s subsidiaries, joint ventures, associated
undertakings and investments.

Vodafone plays an active role in seeking to address the challenges faced by
today’s emerging economies through the use of technology. Using the Millennium
Development Goals as a focal point, the company has worked in partnership with
other multinationals and organisations such as the GSMA, UN Foundation and the
UK Department for International Development to provide products and services that
help to tackle hunger, reduce child mortality and support women.

Vodafone’s mobile money transfer service, M-PESA, has proved extremely successful
at bringing basic financial services to the rural poor in Kenya and other countries,
together with a wide range of community benefits. Other examples include
programmes such as the GSMA mWomen initiative which aims to address barriers
preventing women from using mobile, and SMS for Life which is improving the
management of anti-malarial medication stocks in rural Tanzania.”

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Vodafone and Accenture identified the following “12 opportunities for mobile phone technology to increase agricultural income and productivity. Some of these platforms are already widely used in Africa, while others are still in the early stages of implementation.“:

1. Mobile payment systems
2. Micro-insurance systems
3. Micro-lending platforms
4. Mobile information platforms
5. Farmer helplines
6. Smart logistics
7. Traceability and tracking systems
8. Mobile management of supplier networks
9. Mobile management of distribution networks
10. Agricultural trading platforms
11. Agricultural tendering platforms
12. Agricultural bartering platforms

To make things a bit more clear :

1. Smallholder farmers can get an inexpensive and secure way to transfer and save money using their mobile phones, mobile payment systems replacing costly traditional transfer services and the need to travel long distances to collect funds.
2. Mobile micro-insurance systems can safeguard farmers against losses when bad weather harms their harvest, encouraging them to buy better quality seeds and invest in fertiliser and other inputs.
3. Micro-lending platforms could connect smallholder farmers with individuals elsewhere willing to provide finance to help the farmers.
4. Mobile information platforms let farmers receive text messages with information.
5. Farmers can call a helpline to speak to agricultural experts.
6. Smart logistics uses mobile technology to help distribution companies manage their fleets more efficiently.
7. Smallholders can use mobile technology can be used to track individual food products.
8. Food buyers and exporters can use mobile phones to manage their networks of small-scale growers.
9. Distributors of farming inputs could use mobile technology to gather sales and stock data.
10. Linking smallholder farmers directly with potential buyers.
11. Online platforms for submitting and bidding on tenders.
12. Exchanging goods, services and skills with community members.

——————-

Suppose many agree that these are all fantastic opportunities!  But, do we really mean opportunities for smallholder farmers in Africa ?

Aren’t these smallholders not the same people spoken about in UN-articles on child malnutrition, hunger and famine, not to mention poverty ?

Are poor smallholders supposed to buy mobile phones with batteries (rechargeable ones, if there is electricity in the neighbourhood) ?

Are they supposed to use their mobile phone for every single opportunity mentioned above ?

Or do they try today to feed their family with hard field labour ?

And try to save some money to take their women and children to the hospital when needed ?

For me, one thing is clear : instead of promoting the use of mobile technology by poor people, I would rather spend some money on wages of teams of extension officers, training the smallholder farmers in some simple, cheap, low-tech food growing methods. My point is : with an empty stomach you can’t use a mobile phone.  So, let us first teach them how to improve their methods and techniques for food production and then, at the end of the day, when stomachs are full, show them the opportunities of mobile technology.  The horse and the wagon, you know !

Before going into business “with phones, payment systems, insurance, micro-lending platforms, information platforms, helplines, logistics, tracking systems, management of supplier and distribution networks, trading and tendering platforms”, shouldn’t we help these smallholders to decent food for their families by offering them all the possible opportunities to produce food at the lowest, sustainable cost ?

Our main objective is to help the smallholder farmers to better standards of living, not by making them spend their bit of money on modern technologies, but by informing them about opportunities to improve their food production with simple, affordable methods and techniques.

We have the knowledge to do so.  Let us not wait any longer to share this knowledge with them without hoping to become richer ourselves.  Maybe some bigger companies can contribute to set up this information sharing and training chain ?

Family gardens, school gardens and urban gardening against the actual food crisis (Willem)

Family gardens, school gardens and urban gardening against the actual food crisis

Drought is described as a very important environmental constraint, limiting plant growth and food production. The World Food Program (WFP) has recently indicated drought in Australia as one of the major factors for the difficulty to deliver food aid to millions of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Drought is seen as the force driving up wheat and rice prices, which contributes directly to food shortage, social unrest and disturbances at the global level. Therefore, mitigating drought and limiting water consumption seems to be essential factors for resolving the actual food crisis and to find long-term solutions to malnutrition, hunger and famine, particularly in the drylands.

Application of water stocking soil conditioners, keeping the soil moistened with a minimum of irrigation water, and seeding or planting more drought tolerant species and varieties will definitely contribute to solve the food crisis. Scientists in China and the USA have recently discovered important genetic information about drought tolerance of plants. It was thereby shown that drought tolerant mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana have a more extensive root system than the wild types, with deeper roots and more lateral roots, and show a reduced leaf stomatal density. My own research work on the soil conditioning compound TerraCottem has led to similar conclusions : treatment with this soil conditioner induced enhancement of the root system with a higher number of lateral roots. More roots means more root tips and thus a higher number of water absorbing root hairs, sitting close to the root meristem. As a result, plants with more roots can better explore the soil and find the smallest water quantities in a relatively dry soil.

As the world’s population is growing by about 78 million people a year, it affects life on this earth in a very dramatic way. Droughts have caused a rise of food prices many times before, but the present situation is quite different, because it is based on specific trends and facts : the faster growing world population and a definite change in international food consumption trends and habits.

Some experts claim that “major investments to boost world food output will keep shortages down to the malnutrition level in some of the world’s poorer nations“, and that “improving farm infrastructure and technological boosts to farm yields can create a lot of small green revolutions, particularly in Africa”.

It seems quite difficult to believe that “major investments to boost the food output” will be able to “keep the food shortages down to the malnutrition level“, wherever in this world. Indeed, the world’s most famous research institutes have already developed very effective technologies to boost food production in the most adverse conditions of serious drought and salinity. Yet, not one single organization has ever decided, up to now, to use “major investments” to apply such technologies in large-scale programs, which would most certainly change the food situation in the world’s poorest nations.

It seems also difficult to believe that “improving farm infrastructure and technological boosts to farm yields” will be able to create “small green revolutions, particularly in Africa”. It is not by improving a farm’s infrastructure that one will manage drought. Although a number of technological solutions to boost farm yields have already been developed, only those tackling the drought problems are an option to create significant changes.

I do not believe that such changes can be realized at the level of large-scale farms. On the contrary, I am convinced that application of cost-effective, soil conditioning methods to enhance the water retention capacity of the soil and to boost biomass production in the drylands, is the best solution to help the poor rural people to avoid malnutrition and hunger, giving them a “fresh” start with a daily portion of “fresh vegetables”. These rural people, forming the group most affected by the food crisis, do not need to play a role in boosting the world’s food production. They simply need to produce enough food for their own family (“to fill their own hungry stomach“). Application of cost-effective technologies should therefore be programmed at the level of small-scale “family gardens” or “school gardens” and not at the scale of huge (industrial) farms, where return on investment is always the key factor for survival of the business.

Preferentially, major investments to boost the food output in the drylands should be employed to improve food production in family gardens and school gardens, in order to offer all rural people an opportunity to produce more and better food, vegetables and fruits, full of vitamins and mineral elements, mostly for their own family members or kids, partly for the local market.

Splendid examples of long-term combating food shortage with family gardens can be seen since 2006 in the refugee camps in S.W. Algeria (UNICEF project). One can only hope that such a success story will soon be duplicated in many similar situations, where hungry people wait for similar innovative and well-conceived practices, with a remarkable return on investment, laying solid foundations for further sustainable development.

Recently, a number of initiatives have been taken to enhance urban gardening space, not only with allotment gardens, but also with “guerilla gardening” and transformation of open, underused spaces into small-scale garden plots for downtown dwellers, apartment dwellers and even for university students like those at the McGill University in Montreal. Many poor urban people are very keen on harvesting their own crops in such small gardens or applying container gardening on balconies, terraces, rooftops or other unused open spaces. Support for urban agriculture or urban gardening can be seen as a priority for decision-makers to reverse the world’s food crisis.

Food aid, be it with billions of dollars, can only be very effective if priority is given to local food production for the poor rural or urban people, who can not afford to buy the expensive commercial food products in shops or supermarkets. Small-scale family gardens, school gardens, allotment gardens and urban gardens in unused open spaces should be our strategic counter-attack against the actual food crisis.

Plastic bottles and bags: precious jewels for container gardening (Willem)

On September 12th, 2007 Riziki SHEMDOE sent the following message :

“I have been reading on the container gardening experiments that you have been doing. This has encouraged me to put up a proposal on introducing this technology to the rural semiarid areas of Tanzania where normally crop production is very poor due to drought and poor soil fertility. I am requesting to know whether there are some best practices from the third world countries that you have come across regarding the use of this technology in improving rural food security and poverty alleviation? I will be grateful if you share with me some of the best practices so that I may use them to strengthen my proposal. I look forward to reading from you.
Kindest regards,
Riziki. “

Riziki Silas Shemdoe (MSc)
Institute of Human Settlements Studies,
University College of Lands and Architectural Studies
P.O.Box 35124 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Here is my reply :

The easiest and most practical way for people in developing countries to practice container gardening is to collect a large number of plastic (PET) bottles and plastic shopping bags. It’s clean and cheap. Moreover, it helps to take care of our environment !

The plastic bottles should be cut in two : a shorter bottom part (the cup, used as a water tank) and a longer top part (with the stop still on), to be filled with potting soil. In order to cut the bottle in two optimal parts, define the length of the two parts approximately so that, turning over the top part (that will contain potting soil later on) and sliding it into the bottom part, the stop is touching or almost touching the bottom of the cup. If this is not the case the bottle will be rather unstable. Then, a small slit should be cut at the edge at two opposite sides of the bottom cup so that the top part of the bottle can be pushed into the cup until the stop reaches the bottom (short slits will open a bit). It is better to have the bottom cup a bit too long than too short (stability). One can always cut the two slits !

The bottleneck should be perforated at two opposite sides, close to the stop, to create drainage possibilities if too much water is poured in the bottle and to create water absorption possibilities from the bottom cup. Holes of 5 mm diameter are sufficient.

When filling up the inverted top part with potting soil, the soil should be well compressed in order to avoid larger air cavities in the bottle. I recommend to mix a water stocking soil conditioner with the potting soil, but if this is not possible for financial constraints, don’t hesitate to do it without.

During the first days, watering should be abundant to eliminate too much air in the potting soil. As the infiltrating surplus of water will run through the two openings in the bottleneck into the bottom cup (water tank), and as evaporation will be limited (only through the top opening of the bottle), one can save a lot of irrigation water and produce significantly more biomass with less water (less leaching of nutrients from the potting soil, and less evaporation).

Isn’t this a nice solution for some of our main environmental problems in the drylands ?
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The same advantages are offered when growing vegetables or young trees in the classical plastic shopping bags.

Fill up a plastic bag with potting soil for 2/3, and keep the two handles of the bag upright, simply by pushing them up and sustaining them with two pieces of a small branch or another support (one at each side of the bag). Thus, a shallow cavity is created above the potting soil in which water can be poured from time to time.

Don’t forget to perforate the lower part of the plastic bag a couple of times at the two opposite sides of the bag, e.g. 2-3 little holes (not slits !) at both sides approximately 1-3 cm ( 0.5 – 1 inch) above the bottom (and not in the bottom itself, so that a bit of water can be kept temporarily in the bag). Vegetables can be seeded or planted in the potting soil. Young tree seedlings can also be grown in such a simple plastic bag.
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FOR BOTH BOTTLES AND BAGS :

Considerable advantages :

(1) more biomass with less water (because of less leaching and less evaporation).

(2) eliminate plastic from the environment by burying the used plastic bottles and bags at the end of the growing season, e.g. when planting the tree seedlings in a planting hole (ecological cleaning).

Caution : avoid heating in the bottles or bags by keeping them in half-shade or in places where the number of hours of sunshine is limited (not a full day).

Please set up some experiments and discover the real advantages of gardening in plastic bottles and bags, not in the least the provision of food security and the alleviation of poverty. That’s what I call a success story or best practice for sustainable rural development. I hope that once my preaching in the desert will be heard.

PS. Have a look at my former postings to discover pictures and drawings.

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RIZIKI’s IMMEDIATE REPLY

“Thank you so much, Prof., for the explanations and the methodological approaches. I will try something in this area. This will really relieve our poor people in the dryland-areas to improve their nutrition. Similarly this will assist in improving the environmental sanitation by giving use values to the plastic bottles that are being thrown everywhere in our cities. Thank you.
Riziki.”

Food production in transparent plastic bottles and cups (C. ASH, J. TOLLEDOT, Willem)

Here is nice additional comment of Charles ASH on :

Recycling plastic bottles and pots (Charlesash / Willem) August 3, 2007

“You don’t really need to cover the transparent plastic because there appears to be no harm or set back to the plant if you don’t. It’s mainly cosmetic. Not only that, seeing the roots creates more interest. When we used them we got many youngsters interested because we could explain easier and show “what grows underground” of a plant. It created huge interest and some of those youngsters went on to a career in horticulture. So my suggestion is, don’t permanently cover them. Enjoy a sight you do not normally see.

We don’t have any problems removing plants, even well established or large plants, from plastic plant pots. They always come out with the root ball intact and unharmed. They may need a gentle tap once or twice but they always come out ok. And we get to use the pot again!

Charlesash”

Thanks, Charles !  It encourages me to continue my efforts introducing plastic bottle gardening in schools of developing countries.  I strongly believe that every kid in developing countries should set up its own vegetable garden in plastic bottles and shopping bags, not only at school, but also at home.

At school, they can be helped by the teachers, at home, by their mothers.

The result would be :

1. A remarkable enhancement of fresh food production, particularly in desertified areas.

2. An interesting improvement in the situation of food security, malnutrition or famine.

3. A very profitable improvement in public health (less deficiencies, less diseases.

4. Better environmental  conservation and protection (less littering of plastic).

5. Enormous educational value.

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Will this appeal on all stakeholders (decision makers, authorities, donors, NGOs, local people, …) one day be heard ?  I hope it will happen before the end of my days, with all my heart !

Who can resist the beauty of vegetables and fruits growing close to or even in our house or school ?  Look at this beautiful picture of Joseph TOLLEDOT :

Black manaqualana Pepper growing well in a recycled party cup (J. TOLLEDOT, July 25, 2007)

“Gardening kids are truly inspired, food providers for their families” (Kids Gardening)

Read at :

Kids Gardening

http://www.kidsgardening.com/grants/2006-evaluation-summary.asp

 Evaluation Summary ~ 2006 NGA Grant Winners

The National Gardening Association has been providing material assistance to youth and community gardens through grants since 1983, and in 2005 we started collecting data to track the impact of our grants programs via a year-end evaluation summary completed by grant recipients. Here are results for the 2006 grant cycle, based on 487 evaluations (74% response rate):

Grant Program	# responses	% response
Youth Garden Grants	116	77%
Mantis Awards	20	80%
Remember Me Rose	14	70%
Kids Growing with Dutch Bulbs	305	72%
Hooked on Hydroponics	12	86%
Healthy Sprouts	20	80%

These grants are awarded based on merit. Winners were chosen through evaluation of written applications; winning applicants indicated well-planned, comprehensive, community-supported, and sustainable youth garden programs. Because the pool of applicants and types of programs vary each year, the statistics noted here are dynamic.

Evaluation Highlights (continued with several statistics)

Here are a few comments gathered during year-end evaluations:

Tomatoes in containers for food in refugee camps (HGTV / Willem)

Already published on my desertification weblog on April 30, 2007

Tomatoes in containers for food in refugee camps (HGTV)

April 30, 2007

Posted by willem van cotthem in desert/desert gardening, women/youth and desertification, container/bottle gardening, soil conditioning, horticulture/gardening, water, agriculture, rural development, technologies. trackback , edit post

Interested in container gardening for its potentialities to set up vegetable production in the drylands or deserts, I started some experiments in plastic bottles and plastic bags at home in Belgium (see former messages on this blog). Currently, I am checking publications on container gardening for their “tips” to enhance our chances to grow food in the refugee camps of the Saharawis in S.W. Algeria. Here is an article that may help us to grow tomatoes in containers, and why not, in plastic bags or bottles.

Read at :

HGTV

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_vegetables/article/0,1785,HGTV_3650_1397349,00.html

Tomatoes in Containers

No room at all to garden? Not to worry. You can have a beautiful vegetable garden in pots. Here’s how to culture a tomato in a container:

Growing papaya from seeds / Culture de papayer à partir de semences (Willem)

Already published on my desertification weblog on March 26, 2007

Growing papaya from seeds / Culture de papayer à partir de semences

March 26, 2007

Posted by willem van cotthem in horticulture/gardening, salinity, food / food security, hunger / famine, desertification, rural development, technologies, poverty, water, agriculture, research. trackback , edit post

J’essaie de produire des jeunes pieds de papayer à partir de semences, trouvées dans des fruits brésiliens au supermarché.  Je fais appel à tous ceux qui veulent nous aider à cultiver des papayers dans les camps des réfugiés Sahraouis au S.W. de l’Algérie, en demandant debien vouloi m’envoyer des semences de n’importe quelle variété de papayer (voir mon adresse plus bas).  Merci d’avance !

In view of studying possibilities to grow papaya trees for our UNICEF ALGERIA project in the refugee camps of the Sahraouis people (region of Tindouf, S.W. Algeria), I have set up some experiments with seeds collected from some fruits purchased at a local supermarket (Brazilian fruits).

Bottle gardening – some experiments (Willem)

Already published on my desertification weblog on March 25, 2007

Bottle gardening – some experiments

March 25, 2007

Posted by willem van cotthem in fertilizer – nutrients, sustainability, horticulture/gardening, food / food security, hunger / famine, desertification, ecology – environment, water, poverty, agriculture, soil, rural development, research. trackback , edit post

In Februari 2007 I started some small experiments with what I call “bottle gardening“. I try to show that plastic bottles can be used as containers (see also “container gardening” informer messages on this blog). The main objective is to use plastic bottles for vegetable production in the drylands in order to save a maximum of water for irrigation. Within the framework of the combat of desertification, it is important to get a maximum of agricultural or horticultural production with a minimum of irrigation water. Moreover, enhancement of food production should also be realized in the drylands and on relatively poor soils.

Should these experiments be successful, a myriad of bottles, otherwise littered and dramatically degrading the environment, could play a very interesting role in sustainable food production for the rural people.