Jorge Zapp, a mechanical engineer for Gaviotas, designed a hydroponic garden in Jerusalen, a community located near the Ciudad Bolivar section of Bogota, Colombia in 1985.

Hydroponic growers made from small containers and discarded wood pallets were placed on rooftops, balconies, stairs, and any available space in the sun.  Pallets were placed on roofs with the top slats removed.  Plastic sheeting lined the pallets and rice bran was used as a growing media. 

Donated and recycled materials used included rice bran from a mill, wooden crates from an auto parts shop, and recycled polyethylene from commercial flower growers, reducing construction costs to less than $5.00 per square meter.  Hydroponic nutrients were supplied by the funding agency costing about $9.00 per year, about 2.4 cents per day. 

The project included 130 poor urban families where 90% of participants included mothers and homemakers.  The women earned up to three times more than men working in semi-skilled jobs.  They produced 30 types of vegetables in their hydroponic home gardens, and utilized surplus, overripe or less than perfect foods for family use.

Participants sold their produce to a supermarket cooperative under a contract established by the funding agency.  Produce was delivered weekly, weighed and cash payments were received by the participants.

The project suffered when the funding agency withdrew their marketing contract support and funds for providing inorganic nutrients to the project. 

Jorge Zapp refers to hydroponic science as "Popular Hydroponics".  Zapp describes his design as "a low investment economic activity with low input costs, that does not require large spaces, heavy nutrients or concentrated input.  But it does require continuous technical support."  Zapp suggests that success "requires knowledge on the part of the user, technical assistance to identify optimum nutrients, adapting traditional products to the hydroponics technique, and identifying solutions to physiological, environmental, health and other problems." 

Referenced Publication:  Zapp, J. 1992. Cultivos sin terra. Hidroponia Popular. Proyecto regional para la superacion de la pobreza. PNUB-UNIFEM, Colombia.
 

Observations:
Hydroponic technology produced a daily fresh food source and market commodity which generated a substantial weekly household income. 
 

Discussion:
The Jerusalen project serves as successful hydroponic gardening model for developing communities, demonstrating a viable solution to extreme poverty.  This project proved urban hydroponic gardens can be successful when a very inexpensive or free nutrient is available. 

Hydroponic gardens do not require electrical pumps, expensive nutrients, testing equipment and other mechanical and energy expensive devices.  In hydroponics, plants grow without soil and nutrients (organic or inorganic) are added to water, and is easily recaptured for reused.  Where soil is not available, of poor quality or contaminated, hydroponic gardens produced an abundance of food and economic opportunity for the participants. 

Jerusalen families benefited by producing their own food at home and generated a substantial household income for many years, well beyond any production and funding costs.  Women were the predominant participants (90%) and benefited substantially by their active participation.  Children received a direct benefit in the form of daily fresh foods from these hydroponic home gardens. 

It also suggests the need for marketing contract support (to established cash market for produce) and a purchasing cooperative (for obtaining the project's resource requirements), to sustain the project if and when funding agency participation ends.  These two factors provided highly valued information for future projects and a great deal of knowledge has been gained from the Jerusalen project.

2.0 REGIONAL RESEARCH RECORD: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
2.1.ii  Hydroponics Production, Colombia 
A very important experience with hydroponics production in Colombia should be underscored, which presently is not well known throughout Latin America (although this is not the case in Central America). It is based on low capital input and is labor intensive (contrary to what has been achieved in Europe, the U.S. and other countries where hydroponics is practiced). It is also based on the reduction of production costs, minimal land requirement, and the absence of problems with contaminated water.

3.1.vi  COLOMBIA
ASOCIACION DE PRODUCTORAS DE HIDROVERDURAS DE JERUSALEN
(APROHIJE) (Hydroponic Producers' Association of Jerusalen) 

APROHIJE is the foremost Latin American institution devoted to the development of small scale hydroponics based on commercial fertilizers and chemicals. It has carried out projects in close cooperation with the Municipality of Bogota and the Social Foundation of Colombia.

4.1.i  Popular hydroponics 
Popular hydroponics have been initially implemented in Bogota, Colombia, with the technical support of PNUD (Regional Project for Surmounting Poverty). This project demonstrated the popular hydroponics possibilities in water, air and substrates as applied in those social sectors of low economic means. Popular hydroponics were mainly administered by women (90% of the total). This is a low investment economic activity with low input costs, and does not require large spaces, heavy nutrients or concentrated input, but which does necessitates continuous technical support. 

Although this is an activity demanding individual responsibility, it unifies the family since parents and children participate equally in the production process. Hydroponic production has not only increased and diversified food consumption but has also generated income through the marketing of products. 

Finally, agricultural techniques which are LABOR INTENSIVE should be stressed, since African and Latin American countries are characterized by great unemployment and a work force with little training and by scant financial support.  There is need for greater training-technification of the work force and lower financial costs since capital is the lesser available resource.

IV   PROSPECT 1996 – 2005
Youth in South central Los Angeles, the South Bronx in New York City, Cabrini Greens in central Chicago and in many smaller cities in the US are taking up agriculture as enterprise.

In New England 19th century textile mills are being converted into mushroom caves, fish tanks and hydroponic green houses. In old England the steel mills of Sheffield are generating jobs and fresh vegetables that compete in the market with imports from warmer climates. 

In the Western Hemisphere, the Interamerican Foundation (IAF) was funding urban agriculture production, research, and training in Chile, and contributed to world class models.

In Peru, Oxfam and others were supporting women's community gardens. This effort has expanded to producing for community kitchens, for market, and a national program supported by the national and local governments (HUFACAM). Lately, it has done outstanding work in hydroponics and guinea pig rearing (REDE).

The rapidly spreading "popular hydroponics" movement in Latin America -- in at least eight countries -- began with an early 1980s UNDP funded project in the Ciudad Bolivar section of Bogota, which houses about one million squatters. It is now being supported by FAO and several other development cooperation organizations.

The next decade will witness a continuation and wider spread of the dramatic improvement of urban agriculture technology. In the past decade, the most remarkable advances have been in aquaculture and hydroponics. As the agricultural scientists focus on plant and animal crops appropriate to urban situations, increases in yields will occur. We may expect that the recent revolution in shrimp culture will spread to other aquatic crops, and that the revolution in hydroponics will spread to other small scale production methods.

A case in point is the Jerusalen Hydroponic Vegetable Cooperative.  This organization has a nine member board of directors (six producers and three marketing experts). All producers are self employed and sell their product on a firm weekly schedule, which they have designed, to a known sales outlet. Another example is the Urban Food Foundation in Manila, where 500 small producers own a meat processing and marketing facility which sells directly to retail outlets. With the virtual corporation there is no need for large farms or for layers of middlemen in the urban agriculture industry.

4.3 Popular Hydroponics (See Footnote 4) 

Research problem: 

One of the main obstacles affecting urban agriculture, as practiced by low income families in Latin American countries, is water contamination. This problem has been explained in depth in the previous section.  Other problems include: scarcity of land or spaces suitable for urban agriculture (due to increasing rural urban migration; urban congestion and high demographic density); exhaustion or waste of current agricultural urban lands (due to over exploitation); or the long distances where other suitable, vacant, farming lands are located. 

Objectives: 

     a) to determine the social, economic, agronomic and marketing feasibility of producing vegetables, either as a group of products or individually, by popular hydroponic principles applied by low income population in urban and semi urban areas; 

     b) to formulate a Popular Regional/National Hydroponics Program which is able to articulate, support and promote, over the long term, the efforts and activities of the different institutions which are participating in the said program.

Implementation: 

Hydroponics is a farming method based on aerated water or substrates saturated with nutrient solutions, requiring several steps for its correct implementation. 

Education and training in hydroponics techniques, together with reference material and measuring devices.  Training in adapting the technology to the physical and climatic conditions of each city/region where the project would be installed, and to the characteristics of products
consumed at each locality. 

To promote in each region a minimum basic knowledge to motivate the interest of urban farmers in the hydroponics technique to then be able to detect and formulate specific projects.  Preparation of massive dissemination popular hydroponics programs (by establishing demonstration vegetable gardens at the institutional and group levels) leading to the alimentary self-sufficiency of low income families. 

Support and follow-up experiences based on models adapted from other countries.  Joint work among international institutions (PNUD), governments, NGOs and associations of producers to achieve better operational results.

In synthesis, it can be said that to become an efficient hydroponics producer requires knowledge on the part of the user, technical assistance to identify optimum nutrients (inputs), adapting traditional products to the hydroponics technique, and identifying solutions to physiological, environmental, health and other problems. 

Similarly, hydroponics is an activity in which all members of low income families can participate, without requiring large free spaces, and with definite nutritional and economic benefits for the household should some of the products be sold, with the added possibility of feeding (with food wastes) small domestic animals raised in the household.  Water recycling and popular hydroponics are closely interconnected with improving the environment and with achieving sustainable development. 

Footnote (4):  Although hydroponics is known throughout the world, it is not generally known or practiced in Latin America, with the exception of Colombia and some small regions in Central America where it is being promoted with excellent results.

1.  The gardens must be made from local materials, not from something imported.
2.  They must be inexpensive to construct, preferably using recycled materials 
     approaching no cost at all. 
3.  They must have a very low weight per area of growing space.
4.  The emphasis should be on obtaining satisfactory production with minimal inputs.
5.  No instruments or analyses should be needed for routine operation. 

People often get excited about hydroponics for third world situations.  I have never been among them.  Hydroponic systems tend to be expensive, require energy and equipment for circulation of the water to get oxygen and nutrients to the roots, and demand close monitoring of nutrient concentrations.  Its value is in situations where expense of production and price of product are very high, e.g. growing winter greenhouse tomatoes near a large northern city.  The 3-or 4-fold yield increases from high-technology hydroponics may pay in such situations.  I am unaware of many third world situations in that category, especially which would involve peasant farmers.  Also, if a pump breaks down where parts are unavailable or the power goes off, the entire planting can be lost.
 

Observations:
Dr. Price's evaluation is based on misunderstandings of the fundamental principles of hydroponic science. 

Discussion:
The ECHO criteria for above-ground gardening does not address: 

• environmental impact and rehabilitation
• energy costs and impact, including human labor
• potential to sustain resource requirements
• potential for economic opportunity 
• educational resources and teaching techniques
• cultural and community acceptance
• gender impact

1.  Utilized local materials.
2.  Used no cost, inexpensive and recycled materials for low cost construction.
3.  Used rice bran as a very low weight per area material.
4.  Excelled in production to support economic development and provide a food source
     for participants and their families with minimal input.
5.  Did not require or use expensive instruments or analyses for routine operation.