Premjibhai's method of planting trees

About Innovator :

Shri Premjibhai has developed an innovative practice for planting / growing trees in the arid region. The named the technique as Sand Pipe method.

Description :

The steps of the methods are as below. (To see the planting method stepwise in detail, please Click Here) Step: 1) A pit is dug ( about 1 feet deep) and a sapling is placed vertically in the pit. Step: 2) A PVC pipe of approximate 6 inch in diameter and 2 feet in length is inserted (about 1 feet deep) placed vertically aside of the plant in the pit. Step: 3) The pit is filled with the normal soil up to the ground level. Step: 4) Now the PVC pipe is filled with the coarse sand up a ground level Step: 5) Pull out the PVC pipe slowly. The process makes a passage in the ground nearer to the root portion of plant and facilitates easy and maximum movement of water towards roots. Steps: 6) Watering one – two bucket of water (15 – 25 liters) on the top of the sand passage. This water does not spread in surrounding area but remain in the dry coarse sand and give moisturize effect to the root zone of the plant. This accelerate the root germination and helps the plants growth much faster. Steps: 7) In case of insufficient monsoon, additional water and if available , watering the plant one or two times in six months  ( during summer and winter ) . This water is sufficient for the tree to survive till next monsoon (for one year) The concept behind this is that the sand filled pit acts as a chamber and moisture is retained for a longer time. Water percolating through sand facilitating water absorption by root zone of the plant and it helps the roots development much faster and ultimately plant survive for longer period.

EXPLORER MOMENTS No Electricity? A Low-Tech System Keeps Things Chilled

Mohammed Bah Abba's pot-in-pot coolers help rural Africans preserve perishables.

hat’s the case in many parts of rural Africa, where the lack of access to or high cost of electricity prevents many people from basics most of us take for granted, like refrigerators.

Nigerian Mohammed Bah Abba’s innovative food-cooling system adapted old-world technology into inexpensive, portable refrigerators that are particularly effective in desert climates, where fruits, vegetables, and other perishables can quickly spoil.

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Abba's low-tech refrigeration system keeps perishable foods cool by placing wet sand between two pots.

 
PHOTOGRAPH BY TOMAS BERTELSEN, ROLEX AWARDS

Abba, a college lecturer who came from a family of clay-pot makers, saw an opportunity to raise living standards for rural Nigerians. In the late 1990s, he developed a pot-in-pot system that could extend the shelf life of perishables from days to weeks.

His concept costs about two to four dollars and is decidedly low tech. It consists of two earthenware pots, one smaller than the other. The outer pot is filled with wet sand, while the inner pot, used to store foods, is covered with a wet cloth.

As the water in the sand in the outer pot evaporates, the inner pot is cooled to as low as 40ºF, preventing bacteria from flourishing and keeping foods, or even vaccines that require refrigeration, safe.

The pot-in-pot system enables farmers to sell produce for longer periods of time and at higher prices, and they’ve cut the daily market trips many families make to purchase fresh food.

We could stop tons of food losses by scaling these African-made low-tech cooling units

 How long is the shelf life for your fruits since you guys don’t have electricity or somewhere permanent to keep them?”

John Mbindyo was buying groceries at his local store in Nairobi, when the 28-year-old IT graduate asked that question of his vendor. The store manager said, depending on the amount of stock, the goods last about two to three days. And then, he added: “I wish we had fridges to keep them cool.”

And so was born the idea for FreshBox, a solar-powered, walk-in cold room that provides retailers with storage facilities to preserve perishable products. Operating for five months, the project offers vendors and farmers refrigeration services for 70 Kenyan shillings ($0.68) a crate per day. “It hit me,” Mbindyo says. “There’s demand. This is possible. Why not try it out?”

Throughout the world, food waste and spoilage is a significant problem facing supply chains from farm to fork. The Rockefeller Foundation says one-third of all the food that is produced is never consumed—a staggering loss that would have fed the nearly 800 million people who are food insecure of undernourished worldwide.

The crisis is even more acute across Africa, a continent where the majority of people derive their livelihood from agriculture. Currently, more than 20 million people in northeast Nigeria, South Sudan, and Somalia are facing starvation. Yet, half of all the staple food in the continent is lost in the post-harvest stage or before they hit the market.

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In Tanzania, for instance, nearly 40% of all grains are lost due to poor storage, costing the East Africa nation $332 million in revenues every year. In South Africa, despite increased production of food, 13 million people go to bed hungry partly because of inadequate storage facilities.

“Like manufacturing, agriculture needs to be supported by complete functioning systems from production to consumers,” says Calestous Juma, a Harvard professor and author of the book, The New Harvest, about agricultural innovation in Africa. “The solutions lie in building reliable energy, storage, processing, and transportation systems to support agriculture.”

But while there’s need to massively invest and improve the entire food system in Africa, there are small and large-scale technology projects hoping to stop the drain of food waste. The innovations around renewable or alternative energy are also paramount given that access and connection to electricity, especially in rural areas where food is produced, is still a luxury in many African countries.

Last year, the Rockefeller Foundation kick-started the YieldWise program, a seven-year multi-million dollar initiative to strengthen food systems. The foundation will work with governments and companies like Dangote Farms to provide metal silos and hermetically-sealed bags to smallholder farms. In Kenya, the project will promote solar drying and provide cold storage units to preserve crops.

The shift towards preservation is also taking place in rural and desert communities. Back in 2001, Nigerian Mohammed Bah Abba invented a pot-on-pot system that preserved produce for weeks instead of days. The two earthenware pots were fitted into each other, filled with wet sand, and the produce covered with a wet cloth. Bah Abba went on to sell as many as 12,000 pots

Go Energyless, a Morocco-based social enterprise also developed a natural low-cost cooler that can save food for over 13 days for people in remote areas. Its prototype is made with clay by local potters.

Evaptainers, a project that started in an MIT classroom, has also developed a mobile, electricity-free cooling unit that allows fruits, vegetables, and meat to be stored in one place.

Many of the innovative cooling units available, which could potentially save billions of dollars of food from waste, are also a reminder of the need to scale innovations with backing from investors in order to have a real impact on Africa’s agriculture ecosystem.

Since its establishment, FreshBox has engaged the services of 10 different vendors in Nairobi, and four different farmers in the neighboring Kiambu County. Mbindyo has also reached out to hundreds of farmers and retailers who say they are willing to purchase his services. “I am hoping to expand our capacity, and to have a number of units across Nairobi to attract more clients,” he said.

These kinds of tech investments, Juma says, is the best way to show communities that not all is lost on agriculture. “The work must start with securing the system in the first place,” he says. “One episode of rotting produce is enough to put off a community from increasing yields for a lifetime.”

Announcing YieldWise: How the World Can Cut Food Waste and Loss by Half

https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/announcing-yieldwise-how-the-world-can-cut-food-waste-and-loss-by-half/?utm_source=Social%20Media&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=RF%20Blog

Our global food system is facing a quiet crisis—one-third of all food produced is never consumed while 1.2 billion people go to bed hungry or under-nourished, and global economic losses mount into the trillions.

We will let this crisis build quietly no more.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I joined with our President Rodin to formally launch YieldWise, a $130 million initiative to demonstrate how the world can cut food waste and loss by half by 2030. This is the next chapter of The Rockefeller Foundation’s agriculture and food security work, which has spanned more than a century and several continents—from seeding the Green Revolution that fed a billion people across Asia and South America in the 1950s and 60s, to the work of the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA) (in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), over the last decade.

“In Africa, 50 percent of fruits and vegetables, 40 percent of roots and tubers, and 20 percent of cereals—all of which are staple foods—are lost in the post-harvest stage or processes.”

While food waste and loss is a global problem, we will be focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, where 70 percent of the people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and many of whom are also part of the world’s 1.3 billion who are food insecure. Here, 50 percent of fruits and vegetables, 40 percent of roots and tubers, and 20 percent of cereals—all of which are staple foods—are lost in the post-harvest stage or processes. As such, these vulnerable people are twice-hit.

For instance, take Sella, a potato farmer in Central Kenya. She refused to take a price for her potatoes that was so low that she wouldn’t break even on her investment in farming them—but because she lacked important market information, she failed to garner a better price. In the end, the potatoes simply spoiled—at great cost to Sella, and to the people who could have eaten the potatoes.

Sella’s lack of information, market opportunities, technologies, and access to alternative markets are, unfortunately, a familiar story for millions of farmers.

Over the last three years, we have explored interventions as part of our ongoing work to strengthen African farmers like Sella. We learned that there are many existing solutions—yet these solutions were not reaching smallholder farmers. We are dedicated to re-aligning actors and interventions, such as expanding proven technologies that preserve crops in harvest, packaging, and distribution, empowering them to protect themselves against crop loss and defending their livelihoods for years to come. This technological innovation and training will begin at mango farms in Kenya, maize farms in Tanzania, and cassava and tomato farms in Nigeria—nations that rely on agriculture to fuel growth, but where 40 percent are now lost between harvest and the market. These crop-saving techniques can also increase farmer incomes by 15 percent, giving them the chance to contribute to their local economies through increased consumer spending. Greater efficiency at the farm level will also increase the availability of nutritious food in local markets for families who don’t now have access to them.

But our work through YieldWise will go far beyond direct help to farmers. We also will drive collaboration across sectors and encourage investment from all actors throughout the food system, including partnerships with some of the world’s most recognized brands. New purchase agreements with large food buyers such as Coca-Cola—a collaborator of The Rockefeller Foundation—are allowing farmers to quickly sell their crops to a guaranteed buyer without the burden of frequent travel to oversaturated, and sometimes distant, local markets. Dangote Group—another Rockefeller Foundation collaborator—is working with the government of Nigeria to build a tomato processing industry to use tomatoes that would otherwise rot without access to cold storage. Further, Rockefeller Foundation grantee Pyxera is helping farmers identify and grow diverse tomato varieties that are in demand by both consumers and processors. In tandem, these two programs will diversify farmers’ buyer bases, allowing them to sell more, reduce loss, and increase profits.

Our work in Africa will directly impact the continent, encouraging the growth of local agriculture economies, protecting smallholder farmers and decreasing food insecurity. But the effects of that work will be felt far beyond Africa, as we make targeted investments in industrialized countries to reduce food loss that happens at the retail level, and demonstrate that is possible to reduce food waste and loss all over the world.

Tell us your strategies for cutting food waste and loss for the benefit of people, planet, and profit using the hashtag #YieldWise.