Agriculture

Brian Lilly of Ergo-Tech Inc. in the U.S. will design and build a water irrigation pump from inexpensive and widely available automobile parts to decrease labor and increase production of women smallholder farmers in Africa. Irrigation is one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive activities of women farmers. Making an irrigation system from automobile parts is useful because the parts are well tested and mass-produced in Africa, and expertise on their repair and maintenance is readily available.

Vaibhav Tidke of the Institute of Chemical Technology in India will design and test a low-cost movable dryer called CassavaTech to easily and quickly dry large quantities of cassava, which is a major staple crop grown by women smallholder farmers. The majority of harvested cassava is dried to form flour and chips, but traditional hand drying methods take between five and fifteen days, which limits time for other activities.

Carmine Bozzi of Akeso Associates in the U.S., along with Maurice Masoda of Heal Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, will test the effect of treating hookworm infections in women smallholder farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo on disease prevalence, iron status, and capacity for labor over a 12-month period. Hookworm infections are endemic in many regions, and infection rates can reach 50% of the population.

Andy Jarvis of CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) in Colombia will test a new feedback approach, involving cycles of five simple questions asked to relevant stakeholders, to see whether it can promote the success of agricultural projects in developing countries. Involving local farmers in the design and implementation of agricultural projects is important but mostly bypassed because it is time-consuming and often impractical.

Eliane Ubalijoro and Myriam Gervais of McGill University in Canada will analyze methods to use the knowledge and expertise of rural women smallholder farmers in developing countries to better inform agricultural development projects. Although women are central players in the production, processing, and distribution of agricultural food products in sub-Saharan Africa, they are often not consulted during the planning of projects related to food security, partly due to communication barriers.

Henry Baffoe of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services in Ghana will develop an integrated system using existing technologies to gain feedback from smallholder farmers on agricultural projects that can then be analyzed by stakeholders. His team will recruit farmers from a district in Ghana, map their locations using GPS, record the type of farm, and launch an Instant Voice Response (IVR) platform, which collects responses to surveys by recording voice messages sent by mobile phone.

Mohammad Riaz Khan from Charles Sturt University in Australia will test whether the controlled internal release of progesterone in Pakistani dairy buffaloes can induce pregnancy and thereby increase milk production. Buffaloes are an important source of milk in Pakistan, but they breed seasonally and have a silent ovulation. This translates to a long interval (over 500 days) between calves, which limits milk production.