We have an urgent request from our Sri Lanka Institute for Simplified Hydroponics for assistence in helping the nearly one million left homeless by the recent earthquake on Dec 26, 2004.
Proposal to help homeless population in Sri LAnka obtain greater income and food security.
Current estimates of the people left homeless by recent events in Sri Lanka are about 580,000 people, and about 109,680 families.Our proposal provides training for 16,625 families in building and operating microgardens.
The Institute of Simplified Hydroponcs is proposing home hydroponic gardens for homeless families in Sri Lanka. These gardens have been in existence since 1986 and are now being used in 16 countries to help families in poverty gain food security and income.
The progress of this technology has largely been through the support of UN FAO for individual projects and UNDP for projects in areas of crisis.
In 1995 a UNDP supported project was developed for the 50,000 people made homeless by an earthquake in Armenia Colombia. This project was first implemented by the Institute of Simplified Hydroponics woith seed money and then funded through the UN. The project continued with funding until Dec 2003 and so we have had prior experience with using this technology to help people who are homeless after a distater. To put it into perspective, the 50,000 homeless in Colombia is only 5% of the numbers requiring need in Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka we have a Institute of Simplified Hydroponics that was created in 2002 and began its first community project this year. The Institute is Sri Lanki ISH, or LISH is currently working in projects in the area of Colombo, introducing the technology to families in need. The center has received funding from USAID to train the current director, Susil
Dr.Susil Liyanarachchi was the Projects Director of Intermediate Technology Development Group, South Asia Operations. He is now the full time director of LISH. USAID funded him in being trained by the Mexico ISH in how to set up an Institute and train people in the technology.
Proposal
Stage 1:
Send simplified hydroponics expert Cesar Marulanda to Sri Lanka starting May 1 to teach 26 mastertrainers in a month long training course in Colombo. The people who are trained are sent by NGOs working in the area.
FAO Emergency Proposal for LISH
Minister of Agriculture Proposal
Proposal for NGO to set up training center
The curriculum needs translation into two local languages, Sinhala and
Tamil. Duration of the training is one month. This is a very comprehensive training.
Trainess will be selected from among the NGOs affilitated to LISH. Such as
BasicNeeds, Sarvodaya SEEDS having islandwide network of village societies, ITDG,
OISCA and also from other local NGOs.
NGOs listed as working in Sri Lanka per government
Stage 2:
Production of 15 hours of video tapes to educate beginning garden owners in the technology. This includes previous video from projects in the past, and some new video. The produced videos can be used for DVD publication and broadcast on local televison. They will have a broader application for future projects around the world.
Rationale:
There are an estimated 1 million homeless, and if the project attempted to educate each in a home garden course it would take capital investment and resources of human trainers beyond the capacity of the funders. So the most logical step is to provide training through video that can be played in community areas and through broadcast. This was the method employed in Cuba to introduce organoponics as a
food security project as well as organic techniques for soil based agriculture. Now 40% of the food in Cuba is produced employing organoponics and organic culture.
The television broadcast allows for participation of people in all of Sri Lanka, not just those made homeless by the earthquake and tsunami. This allows for an equity for the other people in the country also in marginal conditions, reducing the potential for jeolousy found in other projects where participants are selected.
Objective:
To produce 15 hours of video that can be viewed by people in homeless or marginal conditions that helps them produce their own food.
The videos include instruction in simplified hydroponics, organoponics, rainwater harvesting and building and operating a solar stove.
The videos will be offered for broadcast to be viewed in the affected areas of the country. This is partly necessary because portions of the area are unsafe to travel.
Cost:$15,000 with $30,000 already donated through International ISH. Stage 2 can be concurrent with stage 1
Stage 2 Detail
Stage 3:
The Master trainers set up training centers in permanent camps, complete with demonstration gardens. They train 25 local trainers each, so 625 local trainers will be trained in a one week long training session.
Stage 4:
Each local trainer trains 25 families in microgardens. They then support the families as they learn the technology. Each family receives the suppies to operate a 10m2 garden for a year. This size garden should provide an average of 1 kilogram of fresh vegetables a day.
Objective: To begin the training, and through this process begin the process of starting community groups with local expertise in the gardens.
This part of the project can be as large as the donations and resources make possible. The 16,265 families trained requires a investment of about $190.00 per family.
This is the ojective that will require kits for each garden owner including seeds, nutrients and some supplies.
Family garden kit - The initial garden is about 10 square meters and cost about $70.00 to build. It should produce about 1 kilo of fresh produce a day and have a life of 3 years or 1095 kilos of food produced.
Family garden supplies kit - A kit of seeds and nutrients to last for a 3 crop period of one year for 10 m2 cost $70.00,for 365 kilos of food produced.
Simplified hydroponic culture as compared to organic agriculture.
Pesticides and herbicides
In simplified hydroponics we do not allow any commercial pesticides or herbicides to be used. All insect control is based on traps, prevention and organic homemade sprays.
The simplified hydroponic gardens, by construction, eliminate soil born insects and diseases, and ground based pests such as moles. There are no weeds because an inert growing substrate is used above ground.
There fore the issue of herbicides is resolved. They are not needed at not allowed.
Flying birds are a problem in the garden and controlled by prevention. This amounts to barriers such as cassette tape hung from the tops of the growers like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Flying insects, and pests such as aphids and white fly are a problem in the garden. These are controlled by erecting large yelllow pllastic sheets with motor oil used as a trap, and preventive sprays such as garlic. When pests are spotted they are sprayed with a soap spray sometimes mixed with herbs or flowers.
In our seventeen year experience of operating these gardens we ahve not had to use pesticides or hericides to control pests.
There are certain crops such as watercress that have a type of pest which makes growing this crop in simplified hydroponics risky. We recommend eliminating certain crops in some areas due to insect control difficulties.
The Institute of Simplified Hydroponics complies with pesticide and herbicide use prohibitions of organic farming.
Fertilizers
Where ISH differs from organic farming is in the use of fertilizers.
International ISH recommends two basic forms of hydroponic nutrient, inorganic and organic. Both foprms of fertilization are taught to the students who then have options to use either or both.
The practice of organoponics, a subset of simplified hydroponics, uses only organic fertilizers.
The rationale for this is that both types of fertilizers may be necessary in the future to provide food for the world popuation. In the experience of Cuba, 40% of the nations food supply is grown organically. Certainly there is
an important part of every garden to compost all garden and household wastes to recycle and retain that 40% of production.
In Cuba, 60% of the food is still produced with inorganic fertilizers and the organic production is dependent upon materials such as sugar cane waste and animal fetilizers that come from that inorganic production.
So simplified hydroponics recommends that when possible, garden owners in extremely marginal conditions start with inorganic fertilizers to end hunger and then all learn to recycle agricultural wastes through a warm farm to also p[roduce organically.
In some villages such as our project in Zimbabwe, all hydroponic crops are produced with organic nutrients. This is because organic fertilizers are very expensive and hard to transport, and there is a ready supply of argiculture wastes and animal manures that can be used to make a hydroponic nutrient.
In the Sri Lanka project, inorganic nutrients will be provided for the first year of operation and organic methods will be used to establish worm farms and composting for some organic production in the second year.
Where animal wastes are abundant or an existing commercial agricultural crop exists to provide organic inputs, organoponic will be recommended in the second year.
Inorganic fertilizers
A hydroponic fertilizer differs from commercial agricultural fertilizers in that it must contain all 13 minerals required by the plant. These also have to be in soluble forms and in quantities the plant requires.
In instruction, when inorganic nutrients are taught, we provide recipes for making these nutrients from commercially available agricultural feetilizers such as potassium sulfate, potasssium nitrate, and calcium nitrate. The nutrient also contains very small amounts of copper, zinc, iron and other trace minerals required by the plant.
Each student participates as the inorganic nutrients are made up from fertilizers so they are aware of how to produce this nutrient themselves from available materials.
