Field Study/Trial

Steve Lindsay of the University of Durham in the United Kingdom will develop a non-invasive test to block the reemergence of malaria in disease-free regions by training dogs to identify specific odors that are released from people carrying the malaria parasite. It is known that people infected with the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum produce thioethers in their breath, possibly to attract mosquitoes so that the parasite can spread more quickly to other people, thereby promoting malaria transmission.

Twahirwa Merab of PIVOT ACCESS Ltd. in Rwanda will improve access to credit for poor individuals in Rwanda by developing a credit scoring system so that digital financial service providers can better estimate risk. Their system will integrate data from a range of financial transactions such as utility bill payments and mobile phone top-up frequencies to produce a formal credit history for each individual. They will perform a pilot test involving a Rwandan mobile network operator and bank to assess the feasibility of their system and use the results to refine it.

Bert Rivers and colleagues of Compatible Technology International in the U.S. will test whether a recently developed suite of four manually-operated processing devices of pearl millet, which is a major food source in West Africa, is quicker and improves quality and yield compared to traditional methods. This will initially be analyzed in a test site in Senegal or Mali or both, and they will also explore local financing and manufacturing potential for more widespread distribution.

John Gilliland of Vita in Ireland will develop a sustainable financial and social model to implement more efficient cooking stoves in Ethiopia. The stoves, pioneered in Eritrea, substantially reduce timber usage, thereby saving operation time and costs. They will analyze the feasibility of microfinancing as a means of payment, and the logistics of training women in the community to build the stoves, thereby ensuring their longevity. The stoves will be distributed to a selected zone in Ethiopia where they will be evaluated for economic, social, and environmental impact.

Tomás Chiconela of Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique will help improve rice production in women-run smallholder farms by establishing ducks and azolla plants as environmentally friendly alternatives to fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. The ducks protect crops from pests and control weed growth, which saves time and energy needed for hand weeding as well as providing meat and eggs to boost protein consumption, and azolla is a proven biofertilizer that acts as a potent organic nitrogen source.

David Sands of Montana State University in the U.S. will work with Kenyan women farmers to evaluate the performance of a biological control method for eliminating the parasitic weed Striga (witchweed), which can cause up to 80% loss of maize, millet, and sorghum yield in smallholder African farms. Striga is a problem in 43 African countries, and manual weeding is highly time- and labor-intensive. They have previously developed a virulent fungal strain to inhibit weed growth, and shown that it can be easily transported on toothpicks for safe and effective distribution.

Rachel Hess of the Mennonite Economic Development Associates in the U.S. will work in Ghana to test different models of water catchment and storage and irrigation systems to promote dry season cultivation in small farms in the north part of the country. Food production by women farmers in Ghana's northern savannah region is restricted to a single season of rainfall and is not sufficient to circumvent malnutrition. Low-cost water storage systems are available, but need to be brought to these rural areas and adapted to their needs and capabilities.

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.

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.