Increasing Haiti’s mango yield
June 3, 2009
The Madame Francis mango is unique to Haiti, prized for its sweet and fragrant qualities. In an extremely poor country where 66% of the labor force is involved in agriculture, the mango is of tremendous national import and accounts for $10 million in annual revenue. It is however estimated that $25 000-40 000 is lost per 100 000 boxes of exported mangoes, as the produce fails to meet quality standards.
The majority of Haiti’s mangoes are grown by small-scale hillside farmers in rural areas. Once the farmers pick the mangoes, they place them in panniers which are then transported by donkey down the steep hillsides to the collection points. Workers then empty the fruits into flat bed trucks that transport them overland by rough road to Port-Au-Prince. Severe bruising and heat exposure result in significant spoilage, preventing 40% of the crop from being sold.
Sources:
Haiti’s Woes Are Top Test For Aid Effort, The New York Times
Organization for the Rehabilitation of the Environment
Fintrac
Photo Courtesy of James Morton
A better bike for the world’s poor
May 9, 2009
Affordable and reliable transportation facilitates economic activity and improves access to services like education and healthcare. For BoP communities, the lack of public transit systems and the high price of private transportation cause a significant reliance on informal forms of transportation such as bicycling.
The most prevalent bicycle in African, Asian and Latin American BoP communities is the Roadster. Designed in early 20th century Britain, this bicycle is intended for weekend pleasure riding and is ill-suited to the heavy loads and poor roads of the developing world. The importation of these bikes from Asia nearly triples their price, rendering them unaffordable to the poorest segments of the BoP.
Research shows that as BoP incomes rise, spending for transportation increases rapidly and disproportionably. This illustrates the importance with which transportation is viewed and speaks to an underlying desire for improved products and services in this sector.
Sources:
The Next Four Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid, The World Resource Institute
The Bamboo Bike Project
Refuse management is a major problem in slums worldwide, causing illness and diminishing quality of life. In tropical areas, piles of garbage collect rainfall and the stagnant pools breed malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Gastro-intestinal diseases such as diarrhea arise from drinking water contaminated by refuse. In an attempt to clear the garbage, residents will often burn the mounds of waste, causing a high incidence of respiratory illnesses and the release of harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.
Waste Concern, a public, private and community partnership in Bangladesh has responded to the lack of refuse management in Dhaka’s slums. The organization localizes value creation by employing slum dwellers to collect waste, process the organic components into compost, and sell the product to local farmers. Though 70% of the organization’s clients subsist on less than $2 a day, they are willing to pay a fee for house-to-house collection of waste. This shows that low-income communities value refuse removal, and are willing to support a system if the opportunity exists. With 2 billion people projected to be living in slums by 2030, there is significant potential for waste management market growth.
Sources:
Slum Health: from Understanding to Action
Converting Urban Waste into Resource: A Decentralized Approach
Waste Concern
Reducing fish spoilage in West Africa
March 24, 2009
Fishing plays a significant role in the West African Bottom of the Pyramid food sector, affecting both local producers and consumers. Considerable value can be created for this population by improving the packaging and storage of dried fish products.
In Western Africa, the BoP segment is heavily involved in the fishing industry, working either on industrial fleets that catch high-end fish for European exportation, or more commonly as small-scale fishermen that catch low-value pelagic species for regional consumption. In coastal countries such as Ghana, fish are a vital natural resource and account for 80% of the animal protein found in peoples’ diets. In inland countries like Mali, fish remains an important source of nutrients and comes from either fresh-water fishing or intra-African trade.
The lack of cold storage facilities in Western Africa combined with the poor network of roads serving the rural areas hamper fresh fish consumption. Instead, fish is most often cured by dry-smoking, a process undertaken by women in the community. If stored properly, dried smoked fish has a shelf-life of 6-9 months.
Currently, dried fish is stored in either jute or propylene bags and transported in hand-woven baskets. These materials control neither the ambient temperature nor humidity, and render the fish susceptible to moisture and foreign organisms. Infestation of insects and microbial agents are the most common causes of fish spoilage, and in Nigeria alone some 40% of the annual fish catch is lost due to poor packaging and storage. Local fishermen spray dried fish products with unregulated insecticides throughout Western Africa, a behavior that reduces the fish’s value by hindering exportation and posing a health threat to local communities.
Regional malnutrition underscores the need to maximize yields from the West African fisheries. Improving the current methods of packaging and storage will augment fish yields, increasing the fishermen’s profits as well as stabilizing supply to the consumer. Greater fish yields will also enable subsistent fishermen to sell their surplus and become engaged in the formal economy.
Sources:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:
- ‘Proceedings of the symposium on post-harvest fish technology’
- ‘A study of the trade in smoke-dried fish from West Africa to the United Kingdom’
- ‘Fermented fish in Africa: A study on processing, marketing and consumption’
African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development
Progress and the demise of the dry toilet
February 12, 2009
Modernization hit Ladakh in 1971, when the Indian Army’s roads reached the mountain kingdom and opened it up to the outside world. Delhi’s central government imposed western models of progress on Ladakh in an effort to develop the region. Tourism and the abandonment of village life have resulted in a population boom in the valley capital Leh, putting a strain on scarce resources.
This dynamic has impacted all aspects of life in Leh, not least of all in the realm of sanitation. Traditionally, Ladakhis use the chaksa, a two-storey dry composting toilet. The toilet requires no water and is ideally suited to the arid Himalayan climate that receives only 15cm of water a year. Furthermore the system works in balance with the region’s agricultural needs as the decomposed waste is removed once a year and given to farmers as manure.
As Ladakhis’ lifestyles change and traditional practices are undervalued, the chaksa is increasingly viewed as too labor-intensive. Mounds of soak (sawdust, straw or ash) are required throughout the year to suppress the waste’s odors, and unless a deal is struck with nearby farmers, the clearance of the waste is considered too costly.
Tourists often find the squat toilets uncomfortable, and as a result flush toilets are installed in the town’s hotels. With no current sewer system, the septic tanks and sewage pits are rapidly filling and threaten to to contaminate Leh’s streams and springs which until recently were potable.
Is it possible to create a system that can effectively deal with the increase in solid waste, work in balance with the region’s ecosystem and be tourist friendly? Can a solution be created that regards ‘progress’ and ‘tradition’ not as incompatible, but instead as mutually reinforcing?
Sources:
