If IDE employees were forced, by policy, to wear a tattoo of IDE’s most successful technology, it would be a treadle pump. No, we didn’t invent it. It was introduced to us by Gunnar Barnes working for LWS in northern Bangladesh; more than a few people have claimed subsequently to be the inventors but at best, they have been people who have re-developed or refined or re-adapted the pump to a local circumstance.

There are in fact lots of versions. The materials used for the pump and supports are some combination of metal and wood, often bamboo, sometimes plastic, and piston cups which might be leather, plastic or rubber. We have even seen cement versions designed for installations where the soil is saline and corrosive. But they all do the same thing; they lift irrigation water from depths up to 7 meters.

We estimate that around 2 million households in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have purchased and used this handy little suction pump in the past 25 to 30 years. IDE didn’t sell them all. That wasn’t the point. Our goal was to get them sold and working for farmers. So we set up supply chains and encouraged the rise of competition and blessed the birth of new marketing organizations.

The magic of irrigation is that it boosts agriculturally productivity through better nourished crops, and through additional crops in dry seasons of the year. The magic of this productivity means additional food for household consumption or for market distribution or both. In India these days, many users are seeing their net income increase by over $600 annually! The consequence of this is options:  the option to eat better and/or improve housing and/or educate children and/or acquire better health care and/or purchase additional farm assets.

Let’s be a little conservative. Let’s assume that the annual income boost is only $300 per year, and that the pumps are used for a minimum of 3 years. Do the math yourself to get the astonishing number of $1.8 billion in household income created over the years. Not bad for a little machine which costs less than one hundred dollars. We have been promoting the generation of “water streams;” in fact the real results have been “income streams.”

Still, our customers remind us that treadle pumping is hard work. Not as hard as manually lifting & carrying water, but still hard work. Both men and women use these pumps, and so do their children and their parents. They will do the work because of the benefit which results, but still they ask about whether their might be other options? Solar photovoltaic?  Diesel? Electrical?  Solar thermal? We are looking for the answer to that because poverty and food insecurity need to be efficiently and effectively banished! We will find these new technologies.

— Al Doerksen

In 2006, the World Food Program distributed 4 million metric tons of food to 87.8 million poor people in 78 countries. Consider the carbon footprint of growing 4 million tons of food, transporting it to 78 countries, and transporting, housing and feeding the army of experts who supervise its distribution. Now add the carbon footprint required to regularly distribute food and water to regions in chronic deficit, like China’s Yellow River Basin and India’s Deccan Plateau. In Mumbai alone, 79 water tankers made 222 trips daily this year to deliver water to poor people during the dry season. Add to this the carbon footprint of the $100 billion we spend each year in futile massive development projects, and a picture begins to emerge on the impact of poverty on carbon emissions and climate change.

But the impact of poverty on the environment goes far beyond climate change.

Continue reading here for further interesting, and perhaps contentious, connections Paul makes between poverty and “green.”

Priming a treadle pump in Copperbelt, Zambia



Users and schematics for the award-winning IDE Easy Latrine. Photos courtesy Jeff Chapin and IDE Cambodia.

What do a consumer technology product, an ecologically responsible laundry detergent, and a simple design innovation for an age old product have in common? They were all selected as winners of the prestigious Best in Show Award at the 2010 IDEA Awards for international design excellence.

Latrines are a decidedly unsexy topic, more likely to induce uncomfortable giggles than provoke innovative thinking. People in the developed world take access to sanitation for granted. Yet in most of rural Cambodia, lack of adequate sanitation causes more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Despite this fact, many villagers view purchasing sanitation equipment as an unnecessary luxury, partly because of the expense and difficulty of installing traditional latrines.

Jeff Chapin, a designer on sabbatical from IDEO worked with our IDE Cambodia team to tackle the problem. The solution? A low-cost sanitation system that villagers could build themselves using cheap, locally available materials. Each latrine costs about $25, and more than 2,500 have already been purchased and installed by villagers.

2010 IDEA Awards Gallery

Fast Company story

Best in Show judges video at fastcodesign.com

The prize of 500,000 Swiss Francs (about $433,050) will improve the project by recruiting and training an additional 36 advisors, generating approximately US $1.9 million in new income to positively impact 20,000 people in more than 4,000 rural households across Cambodia.

Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who presented the award to the IDE, said: “We congratulate IDE Cambodia on being the first to be awarded the Prize. The work they do is inspirational. The support and training from IDE ensures that all involved work together to create sustainable farming enterprises.”

Accepting the award, IDE Cambodia Country Director Michael Roberts said, “It is an honor to receive this recognition from Nestlé. The prize will help us further IDE’s mission to create income opportunities for poor rural households. We hope to leverage the Prize to reach more than 75,000 rural Cambodian households in the next few years. On a global scale this is still very small but we think there are big implications in what we are learning.”

The CSV Prize – which received more than 500 applications from 79 countries – was awarded during Nestlé’s Creating Shared Value Forum, an international gathering of leading experts in water, nutrition, rural development, and the role of business in society which took place in London on 27 May. The Prize was created to provide financial support of up to 500,000 Swiss Francs to individuals, NGOs, or small enterprises who offer innovative solutions to nutritional deficiencies, access to clean water, or progress in rural development. The prize money will be disbursed over a three-year period to assist in the scaling-up of the project.

Learn more about IDE’s Farm Business Advisor Program.

Watch Nestlé’s video on the award below.

What’s wrong with poverty alleviation? Well, nothing really, since there are some one billion or more people below someone’s definition of poverty. Without a doubt, poverty is repugnant and abhorrent, just like starvation and hunger is. It invokes a visceral reaction. The trouble with “poverty alleviation talk” is that it sees the world as 1 billion problem cases, and it is our task to (rid ourselves of the associated shame and guilt of this by setting out to) resolutely solve these billion problems. But it is curious that the beauty industry (probably larger than the aid industry) does not go around promoting programs of “ugliness alleviation.” Surely there must be a billion or more of such to be found too! No, the beauty industry responds to their clients’ aspirations of who they would like to be! The beauty industry does not focus (its promotional efforts) on the deficiencies of their clients but rather appeals to their dreams (I have no view on whether these dreams are legitimate or not). Likewise, IDE’s major program was aptly named “Rural Prosperity Initiative,” not “Rural Poverty Initiative.” We did so because we wanted to work on the “hope” side of our clients’ livelihoods, not the problem case orientation. This is more than nuances or mere words. If you are a poor person and I come to you to alleviate your condition, I have immediately turned that relationship into a somewhat paternalistic one. On the other hand, if you are a poor person, and I come to you to offer an opportunity—a partnership which will chase your aspirations for a better life—that is a fundamentally different approach. So we would rather talk about creating (modest opportunities for) prosperity than poverty….and it is so much more gratifying for all concerned, too.

— Al Doerksen, CEO of IDE

It’s clear that we received so much interest in this initiative as a result of what can be fairly termed a snowball effect occurring in vegetable gardening and small-scale urban farming over the last couple seasons here in the developed world.

On a project level, this year we’re hearing from even more individuals and orgs interested in collaborations with us, whether they be small NGOs in African villages working on entrepreneurship education, foundations in Asia promoting best practices in “Bottom of the Pyramid” BOP design, or larger agricultural concerns looking to give back to the developing countries they source from by supporting more sustainable income generation models we at IDE specialize in.

From this desk, I can definitely say that awareness of, and interest in, our work and model has grown exponentially from last year. The emails and phone calls are streaming in.

So, as a small inspiration for the fast-approaching gardening season here in the US, see below for a few photos from last season showing the grassroots nature of the support for our model of development — from the mountains of Colorado to the Mongolian steppe.

IDE donors at Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago set up an annual exhibit highlighting agricultural work in Africa.

Tim and Mary Taylor's elk proof, IDE drip-irrigated vegetable beds in the Colorado Mountains

Nick Gruber of Produce Denver packs up some harvested crops grown with IDE drip irrigation for his urban CSA.

Produce Denver's James Hale fills an IDE header bag in the front yard of a client who has given over land to their urban CSA.

Photo courtesy Jeff Chapin (wanderingjefe.blogspot.com)

Though most of our projects are focused on the agricultural value chain, even seemingly unrelated projects like our water and sanitation project in Vietnam can create new, sustainable sources of income for poor rural families.

The Dutch organization IRC – International Water and Sanitation Centre tells the story of Thuy Thanh Ky, a 43 year-old mason in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Unable to support his family through farming alone, Thuy started a successful business as a toilet mason, helping meet the increased demand for affordable, effective sanitation in rural Vietnam.

It’s interesting to note that Thuy was not initially chosen by his commune to be part of the group trained by IDE’s project. Not to be deterred, he was able to train himself after coming across IDE’s training manual. What a great example of the way IDE projects often spark rural entrepreneurship even outside of those we are able to directly impact within the original project itself.

Learn more at IRC’s website.

…Another technology that is meeting with great success is a simple, low-cost treadle pump that enables farmers with limited water supplies to irrigate their crops, utilizing every drop of water effectively. Our grant to International Development Enterprises has allowed more than 100,000 farmers in India to benefit from this technology.

Innovations that are guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure food security in the future. But technology is only one part of the puzzle. Small farmers also need training and resources to grow these enhanced seeds, and access to stable markets that offer them a fair price for their crops. That’s why we invest in each of these areas with our grant-making, to fund improvements across the agricultural value chain.

Our thoughts exactly. What do you think?

It seems self-evident that we should care about helping 2.4 billion people raise themselves out of poverty. But really, why should we? Most of us working in the field of development fall into that fortunate few: the richest 10 percent of people in the world. Is it altruism alone that motivates us to care about the fates of billions of individuals whose lives we know relatively little about? For some of us, perhaps. But for most, recent history has made it painfully evident that the fates of all nations are connected. As economic institutions and markets have become ever more globally linked, the peace and security of our nation and of all nations are inextricably interwoven. And the widening gaps between the “haves”and the “have nots” are not simply morally questionable—they also lead to greater violence and instability and further economic stagnation. As President Barack Obama cautioned the world in his Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo, Norway,“Security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive.”

As we slowly recover from the worst economic downturn in nearly a century, we would be wise not to ignore the spectacular opportunities to create jobs and profits and to spur more rapid economic growth by giving birth to dozens of Henry Ford sized new markets that serve 90 percent of the world’s customers. By investing in income-generating enterprises that provide access to basic human needs, we are investing not only in prosperity but also in education, health, and greater global security.

The strategies to get there are surprisingly simple. We need to start by recognizing the enormous market opportunity to create products and services that 90 percent of the world will pay for instead of limiting ourselves to 10 percent of the world’s customers. We need to start treating the poorest of the poor as customers, not as charity cases. We need to listen to those customers to understand their biggest, most pressing needs and build simple, affordable solutions; ones that can be easily maintained and which create profitable businesses for local entrepreneurs. And we need to do so by relying on business models that offer attractive profits to companies and commercial rates of return to investors. Most importantly, we need to galvanize and embrace the self-interest and enterprising spirit inherent in all of us—companies, investors, and poor people.

The most effective way to reach the world’s poorest people and to give them the chance to generate wealth and lift themselves out of poverty is to energize market forces, those same forces that have fueled enormous wealth creation in developed nations for generations.

The time to begin is now.

– Paul Polak, Peggy Reid, and Amy Schefer

“Without doubt, it has been a bad year for capitalism.

In the smoldering ashes of last fall’s Wall Street meltdown, the free-market system that has been as much a part of America’s foundation as our concept of democracy itself has looked to large segments of the population like a perpetual 1928-era crash waiting to happen.

Those who seek to enrich themselves are seen as greedy and destructive.

Government assistance is the new cool.

But in this holiday season, when many Americans are adding charitable organizations to their gift lists, a newly strengthening movement aimed at reducing world poverty ought to challenge the doubters and the haters.”

IDE is the key originator of that movement, and Plunkett judges our method a success amid the gloom.

The Sakala children with their harvest

Zambia’s rainy season began last week. Maize, tomatoes, and watermelon are being harvested now from Lusaka north to Copperbelt province where IDE trains several farmer groups in best agronomic practices. Tomato prices are down this month, but watermelon are now fetching high prices at market. A couple photos here show some harvest from the Sakala family farm on 20 November 09 outside Kabwe in Central Province. The Sakalas have wisely hedged, planting both tomatoes and watermelon, and Mr. Sakala has an additional field of tomatoes which are timed to harvest in December when tomato demand will be much higher.

Bennett of IDE Zambia helps Harrison Sakala load produce to take to market.

Below is text from AGFUND’s official announcement in Istanbul.

The Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND) announced the winning projects of its International Prize for Pioneering Development Projects, 2009, in the field of Development of Agriculture through Technology, at its meeting, which was held under the chairmanship of HRH Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, AGFUND President, on 14 October 2009, in Istanbul.

The Prize Committee approved three winning projects from among 39 projects from 33 countries on four continents:

The First Category Prize: allocated for “The role of international organizations in supporting the developing countries’ national policies and programs to improve agricultural output through adoption of innovative technology solutions” was won by PRISM (Prosperity Realized Through Irrigation and Smallholder Markets), implemented by IDE – International Development Enterprises in 10 developing countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Nicaragua.

The AGFUND International Prize is not only a developmental tool for highlighting successful examples and their propagation among peoples, but is also an instance of developmental support introduced by the Arab Gulf Program. The organization of the prize ensures the funds allocated are utilized to further develop winning projects, and to increase the beneficiary categories.

The AGFUND International Prize Committee membership is comprised of a number of renowned world figures, namely: Mrs. Mercedes Menafra de Batly, former First Lady of Uruguay, President of the All for Uruguay Foundation; Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP, Vice President, Foreign Affairs Committee, European Parliment; Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank; Dr. Y. Seyyid Abdulai, former Director General of the OPEC Fund for International Development.

Illustration: theatlantic.com/Quickhoney

We at IDE already knew that, but it’s nice to see that our Founder, Paul Polak, has been recognized in a special feature in the Atlantic this month.  In its first annual “Brave Thinkers” issue, the magazine lists 27 men and women “who have risked their careers, reputations, fortunes, and, in some cases, even lives to advance ideas that upend an established order.”  Paul joins a diverse group of honorees, including President Obama, Freeman Dyson, Steve Jobs, Morgan Tsvangirai, and South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Paul will be appearing at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver to celebrate the paperback release of his book Out of Poverty on October 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Read article at the Atlantic.com

I am an avid follower of TED podcasts. Now playing on my iPod is Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz, who, in her June 2009 TED address, cites IDE as an example of “patient capital” – her term for a third way between pure, market-driven capitalism and socially-driven philanthropy.

While her version of IDE’s history leaves a few gaps, her positioning of IDE in this in-between space is largely consistent with the way we view ourselves and the environment in which we operate.

One the one hand, there is a growing chorus of voices (interestingly, many of them from aid-recipient countries) proclaiming the massive failure of international aid to address poverty – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Economists Zambian Dambisa Moyo (‘Dead Aid’), Peruvian Hernando DeSoto (‘The Mystery of Capital’) and American William Easterly have all put forward compelling arguments for the scrapping or complete reformation of our current approach to international aid. Despite spending over a trillion dollars on aid to Africa over the past 60 years, we have seen little real growth, and in many cases even contraction and growing poverty. Aid has too often lined the pockets of corrupt officials, undermined local businesses by flooding markets with free or subsidized products and created a dysfunctional handout culture, where recipients’ ingenuity and creative energies are diverted into gaming naïve programs, rather than creating goods or services of real local value. Whether you believe in reform or wholesale abolition of international aid (if you have a couple of slack hours, check out the [June 2009 Munk Debate] in Toronto on the future of international aid), there is no question that the current system is broken.

On the other hand, while unfettered markets have tremendous power to create wealth – and are doing so for many formerly impoverished populations – they often bypass or ignore particularly vulnerable and poor populations. The truth is that many of the populations we work with – poor, rural families who depend on small parcels of marginal land for their livelihood – live with the reality of market failure. The farmers we serve are incredibly resourceful, hard-working and savvy. However, their communities are a high-risk proposition for most would-be investors and service-providers: poorly served by local communications and transportation infrastructure, subject to a variety of nuisance and exploitative policies and engaged in scattered production of low-volume, low-margin products far from major markets. This is by no means “low-hanging fruit” for businesses looking to fill a niche. At the same time, markets are where poor people already fight for survival. And we like the fact that markets, by definition, treat poor people as customers – listening and responding to their needs and priorities, rather than parachuting in ill-suited ‘solutions’ to grateful ‘beneficiaries’.

Novogratz’ definition of patient capital is investment that is risk-tolerant and long-term, seeking social return in populations – like poor rural households earning less than a dollar-a-day – that are notoriously risk-averse and focused on short-term returns. With the exception of a few, incredibly committed social entrepreneurs, willing (and able) to persevere in difficult environments and forego years of potential returns (like my friend Dan Ball of Forest Fruits Honey in Zambia), patient capital is a rare commodity in the open market. Organizations like Acumen – and IDE – stand in the gap between the social aims (but often limited effectiveness) of philanthropy and the power (but often limited social motivation) of the market.

I am often asked why – if IDE’s products are sold to farmers by local businesses and we emphasize the importance of viewing farmers as customers, not objects of charity – we are organized as a charity, seeking personal donations and grants from governments, companies and foundations. In fact, when Bill Gates visited IDE in India last year, his father asked exactly this question. Like Novogratz, we might describe the answer as patient capital. The money we receive as grants or donations allows us to invest in creating products and services for marginal populations that might be considered too risky or otherwise unattractive to businesses. We are not using the money to give stuff away, but we are able to make investments that might not be possible for a business driven by next quarter’s income statement.

These investments include research and development – designing and bringing to market new or modified products that meet the needs of poor customers, marketing – getting the word out among difficult-to-reach communities, training – helping farmers and local service providers develop the specialized skills they need to succeed, and connecting – linking farmers to better markets for what they can produce (a ‘dating service’ for small farmers and prospective buyers). We have demonstrated that, with these investments, formerly subsistence farmers can move into a thriving cash economy, creating wealth for their families and for a growing local service industry that sustains and drives further growth.

As Novogratz says at the end of her talk, this is how we “…build solutions that start from the perspective of those we are trying to help, rather than what we think that they might need.”

A group of Zambian smallholder farmers recently presented IDE CEO Al Doerksen with a live chicken and a cabbage while on a visit to their community—Twikatane, Ndola District in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia.

IDE CEO Al Doerksen with his prize

The award was made in the context of a visit to the area from a group of British Columbian IDE donors, and was an expression of respect and appreciation for the support received from them.

42 Twikatane farmers have each purchased the IDE developed, Zambian made “Mosi-o-Tunya” brand treadle pump which just hit dealers earlier last month. These pumps, along with training in improved farm methods and links to output produce markets, have enabled the farmers to realize increases in their annual income ranging from $200 to $800 per household.

“This was one of the most moving awards I have ever received,” said Doerksen. “The live chicken was equivalent to several days’ income for the group, and reinforced the fact that we are not just selling pumps—we are creating income opportunities which can allow for additional on-farm investment, send children to school, and provide for three meals a day.”

The visiting group was accompanied by IDE Zambia Country Director Keith Henderson, Director of Operations Ken Chelemu, and Aggie Chama, Team Leader for the RPI Copperbelt project. All were impressed and moved by the warm, ululating welcomes they received in spite of the deep levels of poverty that exist in rural Zambia.

When asked what he would do with the chicken, Doerksen said he would be taking it to Denver to let it range freely throughout IDE’s head office. International flights and border crossing formalities may have frustrated his plan, however.

“Our case studies confirm that water used at and around the homestead for multiple purposes brings substantial benefits to people’s livelihoods. Provided services are well targeted, homestead-scale MUS is a way of achieving a more integrated set of poverty impacts than conventional water services. Homestead-scale MUS empowers women and is accessible to the poor and is likely to be the best way to use water to contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

You can read an executive summary or download the full report here.

An IDE treadle pump in use in Myanmar

Voice of America reported on IDE’s success promoting the treadle pump in a recent development report.  Karen Leggett’s story “The Importance of a Simple Water Pump,” written in simplified English for audiences less familiar with the language, was broadcast August 16. You can read a transcript or listen to the story here.

Ebebe, a farmer participating in the apple growing project

British fruit drink company innocent drinks (through its innocent foundation) works with organizations in the countries where its fruit is sourced in order to create sustainable futures for impoverished rural families. IDE-UK and innocent have partnered on a project that helps small farmers in Ethiopia start to grow apples which can be sold at market to generate additional income.  So far, the project has helped 226 farmers get started in the apple business; it’s a great example of IDE’s method in action. Read more about it at innocent drinks’ blog.

“Human-centered design has always been IDEO’s approach to creating innovation,” says HCD Toolkit project lead Tatyana Mamut. But it was the Gates Foundation’s work in developing nations where IDEO saw an opportunity to apply their three core values for sustainable design: human desirability, technical feasibility and technical viability. “What we’ve done with this toolkit is taken the basic structure of that methodology and turned it into a process that makes it applicable to the developing world.”

Read article at FastCompany.com

–What We’re Learning, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

At IDE, we often talk about the necessity of listening to our customers–small-plot farmers in developing countries–in order to develop income generating products which are useful and affordable. As part of our Rural Prosperity Initiative, we collaborated with the design firm IDEO (no relation) to develop the Human Centered Design Toolkit, a set of tools that can be used by organizations to better listen and respond to farmers and translate their experience and expertise into new design solutions.

Read more about it at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s website.

Download the Human Centered Design toolkit at IDEO’s website.

Having worked in the food aid “industry” for some years, and having written extensively on “food security,” I am interested in what is really being said.

The report did not say one billion people are malnourished, although undernourishment can certainly lead to that. The report also did not say one billion people are starving — in technical terms, an acute form of hunger in which the body begins to actually feed on itself for nourishment. Thankfully, the report did not suggest that lack of food production or availability was the issue, although it was observed that “domestic staple foods still cost on average 24 percent more in real terms than two years back. The report did speak to a spike in food insecurity.

My favorite definition for food security is “access at all times to enough food to live an active healthy life.” FAO gets it right when they observe that the poor are less able to purchase (ie, access) food especially where domestic markets are still stubbornly high….”the incidence of both lower incomes due to the economic crisis and persisting higher food prices has proved to be a devastating combination.

So fundamentally IDE is a food security enterprise. Why is this true? Because of our focus on incomes (which provide access to food supplies/markets) and on agricultural production (which either increases direct access to food for consumption, or which increases local supply, which on a larger scale brings down prices).

In the report, several factors contributing to the widespread decrease in food security are listed, in particular those related to the global economic crisis:

• A 32 percent decline in foreign direct investment in developing countries
• A 5–8 percent decline in foreign remittances by foreign migrant workers
• A reduction of about 25 percent in official development assistance (ODA)
• Increases in risk premiums for lending money to developing countries
• Decrease of 5–9 percent in international trade (depending on whether you ask IMF or WTO)

Some of the countries mentioned in the report include Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Zambia, all countries in which IDE has a presence. See the full news bulletin here.

— Al Doerksen, CEO of IDE

Today the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) announced that, for the first time in human history, more than one billion people worldwide are suffering from hunger. This is a sobering, even frightening statistic. It’s also a dramatic reminder of why IDE’s mission is so important.

IDE’s PRISM methodology confronts the very structural basis of hunger by enabling poor rural households to increase their income through micro-irrigation, high-value crops and better access to the value chain. The increased income allows families to purchase food and to acquire improved inputs for their farm production. The hunger cycle is broken.

Today’s FAO press release has a table listing the main effects of the current economic crises and household responses in five sample countries. Four of the five are places where IDE has programs: Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua and Zambia.

What are the FAO’s recommendations for solving the present crisis? Here is an excerpt:

“In the short term, small‐scale farmers must be given access to indispensable means of production and technologies ‐ such as high‐quality seeds, fertilizers, feed and farming tools and equipments ‐ that will allow them to boost production. … In the medium and long terms, the structural solution to the problem of hunger lies in increasing production particularly in low‐income food deficit countries.”

This is PRISM. This is exactly what IDE does. Let’s get on with it.

— Bruce McCrae, IDE VP/Asia

So, with the upsurge in the Northern Hemisphere’s interest in sustainable, urban, and other small-scale agriculture, we thought we’d get a little spillover curiosity in a kind of reverse technology transfer. That turned out to be an understatement. We have just sold out of our kit supply here in Denver, and there are now 44 new small-scale farmers in our network using drip irrigation. Most are here in the US, but we’ve sent kits as far as France and even to a Peace Corps volunteer who will be doing experimental drip with farmer friends in the grassland steppe of Northern Mongolia.

Among several individuals here in Denver, an urban farming company, Produce Denver, is now using our systems in various restaurant rooftop gardens, greenhouses, and front yards given over to vegetable crops for an urban CSA they offer. So, if you happen to find yourself at a Denver restaurant famed for its commitment to using fresh, local ingredients this season, there’s a chance you’ll be dining on local produce grown with IDE drip irrigation.

Needless to say, this response—this connection from local to global, back to local again—has me very excited for the growing season. Aside from the obvious benefit to people’s gardens in our industrialized part of the world, I’m hoping the recipients of these donor kits will also gain a better understanding of what it takes to make a living off the land. Even with drip irrigation, it’s a lot of consistent hard work and determination.

We’ll be checking in with our local farmers throughout the season, posting photos and reports here. And, stay tuned for tasting reports on heirloom melons, squash blossoms, Roman radicchios and other “high value” crops from my own IDE drip-irrigated garden.

— A.G. Vermouth, IDE Director of Communications

Entrepreneurial aid schemes should focus on rural businesses as much as urban ones, says Lewis Temple

The Guardian, Wednesday 10 June 2009

Alex Duval Smith describes a “new trend” sweeping the aid scene in Africa to “put money on the continent’s entrepreneurs” (Is trade, not aid, the answer for Africa?, 25 May). I work for a non-profit organisation called International Development Enterprises, which, over the last 28 years, has enabled 17 million rural people in Africa and Asia to work their way out of poverty. IDE designs affordable irrigation tools such as treadle pumps, mass markets these to small farmers through the local private sector, and helps the farmers diversify into cash crops and get their produce to market. So while our approach is getting more attention now, it is not a “new trend” – it has been tried and tested over many years, with measurable results.

The article reports that critics of the Africa Commission’s new $3bn guarantee facility – “an initiative of the Danish government … to mobilise loans for small businesses” – say it will ignore the majority of the Africa’s entrepreneurs, the small farmers, as its “focus on entrepreneurs implies that it will help urban businesses”. I, too, am concerned, not only because 65% of Africa’s population is rural, but because the great majority of extremely poor people depend on agriculture for their income.

Yet the Danish development minister, Ulla Tornaes, is quoted as saying that “farmers need to become businesslike … we cannot dictate to African countries on agriculture”. Why is enabling small farmers to benefit from access to appropriate technology, credit and support “dictating” on agriculture? IDE’s work over nearly three decades demonstrates that even dollar-a-day farmers scraping a living on tiny plots can be entrepreneurial, and should not be ignored by schemes such as this.

I am writing in Ziway, a small Rift valley community three hours’ drive south of the Ethiopian capital. I am here to visit projects and meet small farmers, the people usually worst hit by Ethiopia’s frequent droughts and famines.

Among them is Tadesse Mekuria, a small farmer who has made the journey from poverty to prosperity. He demonstrates the entrepreneurial drive exhibited by many African farmers. A year ago he scraped a living, earning 50p a day as a tailor. He could only grow a little grain on the small plot surrounding his house. When trade was bad he had to accept food handouts from aid agencies.

In December last year, he bought a rope-and-washer pump with a micro-finance loan for £40 through an IDE project. He is now growing onions, pepper, kale and carrot on his 1,000 square metre plot. This has already enabled him to generate £320 in new income, which paid for the loan for the pump many times over. He is planning to buy more land and does not expect to ever have to become a “beneficiary” of charity again.

The “charity” approach to aid is disempowering and disrespectful. Treating people as passive “beneficiaries” has not had a sustainable impact on poverty. Rather, listening to poor people, learning about their lives and investing in viable businesses that respond to their needs has potential in urban and rural Africa.

• Lewis Temple is chief executive of IDE-UK

The focus of this year’s WWD observance is transboundary waters and water sharing opportunities.

IDE’s book, researched and written by Monique Mikhail and Bob Yoder, provides a comprehensive study on the practical implementation of multiple-use water services (or MUS) in Nepal and India.

What is MUS? Basically it’s a concept for low-cost water sharing systems that allow poor rural communities to access clean water for domestic needs and agricultural needs from the same source. MUS used in conjunction with IDE’s micro-irrigation systems allows for production of income-generating, high value crops using half the water that traditional farming methods use.

The book outlines clear ground rules for cooperation on implementing a gravity-fed community system design in the middle hills of Nepal, and discusses the legal, political, financial and institutional barriers and opportunities to scaling up larger MUS systems in India.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can download a PDF copy of the book, “Multiple-Use Water Service Implementation in Nepal and India” here (8MB PDF).

For more on World Water Day, check out the site here.

And, if you’re interested in participating locally, some events are listed by country here.

Treadle pumps

Work continues in the development of a lightweight, low cost pump for use in Africa. Twenty test units were recently distributed to farmers in Zambia for field testing, and a systematic review of pump components is underway to select the best features for cost and performance to incorporate into a new design.

Rope pumps

IDE’s standard model of hand-cranked pump has been redesigned, resulting in very satisfactory performance. We are also continuing development of a pedal-driven model. The results so far are very promising, and prototype testing will be complete early this year.

Solar powered pumps

We have two solar powered steam engine pumps running successfully in the laboratory that are now ready for testing under field conditions. We’re working on modifications which will further reduce the cost and achieve higher overall solar input-to-water delivery efficiency.

Wind powered pumps

A study of available designs did not identify any off-the-shelf windmill designs for small plot irrigation, but several design options could potentially modified for irrigation pumping. A prototype windmill-driven pump will be tested in Ethiopia in early 2009.

Water storage

We recently began trial production of 3,000 200-liter hanging header bags to feed drip irrigation systems, and are currently testing them for durability. Later this year, we will begin testing them on farms and getting farmer feedback. A 10,000 liter water storage bag made of high density polyethylene material costing $125 has been successfully tested. In Myanmar, bamboo-supported plastic tanks are being tested on more than 150 small farms. In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, protoype versions of these tanks proved essential to relief efforts.

IDE runs a small factory for producing these affordable water filters here just outside the town of Kampong Chhnang in the province of the same name. SInce Kampong Chhnang is pretty close to the center of the country, it makes sense for distribution, but the province has also long been known for the ceramic vessels it produces. In fact, IDE’s filter factory is just down the dirt road past the area’s “pottery village” where tourists are sometimes taken to view the local ceramicists’ techniques and styles.

We’ll have two days of shooting at the factory and around the villages in the area, looking for random houses that have a CWP visible from the road (or path) and asking the residents how they like their CWPs. Certainly nothing as effective as a few old-school testimonials to help sell “product,” especially when the people are real and the product is a genuinely valuable tool that directly addresses a household’s health and productivity.

What would be the equivalent product here in the US? Something that saves a significant amount of time usually dedicated to gathering fuel and tending a fire for boiling, lessens smoke pollution in the house and the rest of the neighborhood, decreases cases of water-borne illness by more than half, and costs maybe four or five days worth of personal income. A bicycle? That’s getting to be the closest equivalence here with the cost of gasoline these days, but it pointedly leaves out the water-borne illness issue, especially as it affects children. Since we’re not nearly as attuned to clean water issues in our daily lives here, what would be the equivalent concern? And, if we can’t readily imagine what that might be, is the world headed not closer to a global culture, but further from it? Discuss.

— A.G. Vermouth, IDE Director of Communictaions