Greenhouses for the desert?

Newsweek recently wrote an article about the future of farming. I came across some thought provoking claims that I will summarise.

1. The world has focused on rice, wheat and corn in calorie production, but a few other crops produce more calories (and nutrients) per unit of land, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.
2. The Tabernas desert in Spain grows more than half of Europe's fresh vegetables and fruit with the help of greenhouse controlled environment. 
3. Plants grown in controlled environments using artificial light (so-called pinkhouses) grow 20% quicker than outdoor grown plants, and require fewer resource inputs.
4. Crop rotation practices not only help lands recover nitrogen naturally, but also serve to diversify rural diets and thus provide more complete mixes of nutrients (something I tried to echo in a previous post).

Now I know why the cherry tomatoes I eat come from Spain!

Greenhouses have been around for a long time now, and it should come as no surprise that high-tech controlled environment farming has been seriously considered and implemented in land-starved cities. 

Unfortunately hurdles to be faced are large. Newsweek reported that controlled-greenhouses are far less suitable for growing staple crops like rice, corn and wheat, given that their prices are so cheap, that additional costs from investment may be impossible to recover. According to farmers they've interviewed, even farmers in developed countries worry about making ends meet despite all the increased yields and efficiency brought about by technology. If crop yields across the world increase, food prices may tumble. This may be a good thing for some of the world's poor, but many farmers may themselves may be priced out of the business, and the global poor who rely on cash crops and employment on farms may also suffer greatly. In Africa as well, it may be impossible to transplant the exact same technologies used in the west due to costs, lack of transport networks, or lack of electricity and water.


Perhaps one possible solution may be to gradually encourage Africans to produce more higher value cash crops using technology grants and collective practices to increase their market power and ensure that their crops are sold quickly whilst they are fresh.

What is really interesting about these greenhouses to me is not the faster rate of growth per se, but the input savings that may be had! According to Newsweek, pinkhouse plants "need 91 percent less water, negligible fertilizer and no treatment with herbicides or pesticides".

It may just be me, but I expect resource savings to be compounded when applied to desert or semi-arid climates in Sahelian or Sub-Saharan Africa. Less growth time obviously means that  plants stay planted for shorter lengths of time and lose less water to evapo-transpiration. A greenhouse environment can mean that high yielding, expensive varieties can be grown without associated costs in protecting them or wastage of fertilisers.

Controlled environments could mean that plants can be grown throughout the year. We may not need large, industrial scale warehouses, perhaps plastic, aquarium sized containers with rollers can be pushed into the open during the day and kept watered with low yielding wells. Perhaps the evaporated water within the greenhouse may be somehow gathered and used as filtered water?  

While high-tech farming has generally been thought to be the domain of rich countries only, I suspect that high-tech doesn't necessarily need to remain high-cost. I will be sure to follow up with a more in depth post about technologies that may potentially play a role in the future of African farming.



Stay starchy,
Mr Cassava

A proper diet?

People who know me in person tell me I can be a little food obsessed. Maybe that's why I own this blog now? Anyways, thinking about food can be very different from worrying about agricultural issues. But it is a close relationship, as top chefs will tell you... or maybe an African farmer?

Many farmers consume some of their produce, it won't constitute the main bulk of their meals. Specialists may grow a cash crop or herd livestock, rather than farm different crops as a source of food for the family. In Africa and other developing nations though, there is more subsistence farming, where the bulk of crops grown is for private consumption, and only the surplus sold to markets. No working means no food (very literally).

Could this put them at risk of nutritional deficiency? African farmers already diversify their crop to cope with climate risks, but could even more diversity in their food supply help build a more nutritious diet?

Everything in moderation.

In terms of protein, plant proteins are usually comparatively lacking in one or more essential amino acids (so called incomplete protein). Research finds that the quantity required of food pairs (for consumption) to meet recommended nutritional intakes is lower than the quantity required from single foods. Apparently, you should have your tomatoes with sweet corn (Mexican food anyone?). And who could have guessed sweet corn and cherry were an item.

Hey I didn't know food pairing was something useful to me. I mean, I'm not a gourmet chef.

Africans tend to grow a selection of hardy crops, or whatever the soils permit, and may not always have the resources to consume meat proteins. Insect protein however, can be a major, or at least complementary source of nutrition. Did you know that (wait, hang on to your seats) 2 billion people around the world regularly eat bugs.

          "Markets in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, boast an abundant            year-round supply of caterpillars, and the average household in Kinshasa eats approximately              300 g of caterpillars per week"

- Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (2013)

Cool things have already popped up in the world of food research. Apparently, Indian food tastes good because it actually combines ingredients and spices that have conflicting flavours. Perhaps it would be nice to actually have someone study food pairings and nutrition in real case studies and contexts.

Personally, I think that when times get tough and crops fail, the last thing on the minds of most people would be food pairing. Could ethical issues be raised if farmers were encouraged to grow a more a balanced and nutritionally complete diet at the expense of calories? What could we do if water availability limits the type of crops grown (see my previous post)? As always, we find no simple answers, even if ideas themselves are at hand.

So there we have it, we need diversity in food, not just for taste, but for health as well. If you thought that was cool let me know in the comments section.



Stay Starchy,
Mr. Cassava


Images used:
Original USDA food pyramid (1992), http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/Fpyr/pyramid.gif
Michael Durr (2009) http://upcomingdiscs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/oryl-owl-ya-rly.jpg

Hello readers, Mr. Cassava is here with an inaugural blog article about:

The water problem in African agriculture

Many people might have think of Africa as a dry and arid continent with yellowing grass in the savannas. In fact, an estimated 83% of freshwater withdrawals in Africa is used on agriculture according to Wada et al. (2011) a figure matched only in Asian countries. In some countries, such as Egypt, Sudan and Zambia, even intensive levels of farming are achieved with the use of fertilizer and irrigation (basically large quantities of water sprayed onto the crops, especially on dry days).

This high percentage of water used on agriculture is largely because African nations are, on the whole, not as industrialised nor as urbanised as elsewhere in the world. The rural people especially survive on agriculture (and animal husbandry or fishing) for cash or food while working on small scale farms. We can tell that agriculture is indeed important for the basic sustenance of many Africans, and to a smaller extent, the people elsewhere around the world who import African food, coffee and cocoa.

The thing is, Wada and his co-authors also wrote that the amount of water used by Africans is barely 30% that of Asians, per person. There are some negative implications for hygiene and health. To give some perspective, in the dry seasons, some rural poor may use the equivalent of a normal 500ml bottle of water for hygiene per day. Why do so many rural Africans need to compromise so heavily on hygiene and health? 

Hygiene in dry parts of the world does not involve facial cleansing with pimple cream after.  

They simply needed the water for growing and cooking food. To be forced to make such compromises may be a way of life for many, but it highlights a few things.

1. In times of drought or low water supply, crops or animals must be given priority presumably because households have almost no spare cash or food supplies, and can't afford to lose their crops. 
2.  If households are barely making enough profits or growing enough food while operating at the limit of their water supplies, then they will be vulnerable to shocks in water availability.

I find the warnings of vulnerability faced by many rural Africans which are echoed by the IFAD (2011) and independent researchers highly appropriate. Combine No.2 with climate change, which may have unpredictable effects on weather and rainfall, as well as direct effects on crops in terms of heat, and we begin to see some of the difficulties of farming in Africa. Add on knowledge that rainfall and river discharge in Africa vary greatly from year to year, and we have the makings of a water problem in African agriculture.

  

The water problem in African agriculture does not end here though, so you have to stay with me, Mr. Cassava, for the next installments of the blog. As for what topics they may be on, well, I don't know yet, because I'm learning with you guys.

Stay starchy,

Mr. Cassava

Links and pictures used

1. http://www.betcheslovethis.com/files/uploads/slideshow/tap2.gif