Africa is Growing
Africa is Growing
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own as a private citizen, not a representation of Purdue University, the United States Government, any other country, or any of its agencies.
While I was designing the next generation of GroPods (an automated, aeroponic appliance that grows vegetables in consumer’s homes) at Purdue University during the summer of 2017, I received an email from someone at the Purdue Foundry asking me to be a mentor for several African students on campus that summer. They were brought to the United States through a Department of State Exchange Program called the Mandela Washington Fellowship. This extremely competitive program paid for the travel and living expenses for only the most motivated African students to stay at American universities for several months while refining their own entrepreneurial ideas, and making connections with American professionals.
Over the course of the summer, I was able to lend my own entrepreneurial skills to these students, so they could deliver a clear business pitch to investors, customers, and industry partners. When the summer ended, they returned home, and I moved back to Evansville once my apartment lease ended. Several months passed, and I received an email from an inspiring fellow that I met in the program named Delia Diabangouaya from Togo, Africa about a reciprocal exchange grant opportunity that funded the American professionals to go to the home country of the African fellows to work on a project that generally improved the life of the residents. Delia is a graduate student and Quality Manager at Choco Togo, the first chocolate factory in Togo.
Together, we completed an application that entailed an open-source project to deploy low cost aquaponic farms on rooftops across the capital city of Lomé. Aquaponics is a method of growing plants hydroponically (without dirt) connected to a fish tank to organically fertilize the crops through the fish waste in a symbiotic relationship in a region where synthetic fertilizers are difficult to source due to a complex supply chain. The purpose of this project is to educate the togolese students about sustainable, hydroponic and aquaponic farming through a lecture, and hold a hands on workshop to build a aquaponic farming system to provide both food, and an educational demonstration for future students.
Although agriculture accounts for 28.2% of Togo’s GDP, it has struggled with capital shortages to purchase irrigation equipment and fertilizers, which in turn, reduces the nation’s potential yields. This has created a need for sustainable agricultural methods that will increase yields without requiring extensive capital investments. There has been an explosion of investments for hydroponic facilities in the US, but they cost several million dollars. This growing economic trend is expected to create employment opportunities for students knowledgeable in hydroponic farming, but low-tech hydroponic systems built from available materials can achieve a similar result if conducted on network of decentralized locations. Despite traditional farming methods consuming most of our resources, and catastrophes such as droughts and chemical contaminations raising the price of edible produce; hydroponic farming is the most viable solution. Hydroponics allows plants to grow three times faster without soil in a nutrient medium while using 95% less water without pesticides. By the end of the century, the African population will double, reaching 4.2 billion of people or 25% of the global population (UNICEF). This population increase will leave less land for agriculture and potable water needed to grow. Upon completion of the project, the university and some makerspaces will continue the project research, and adapt it to the local realities.
After several months of patiently waiting through the competitive screening process for countless applicants, we were informed that our grant application had been selected for funding! I immediately purchased a flight ticket to Togo for the month of April in 2018. Upon arrival in Lomé, Togo we immediately went to meet farmers in rural locations to assess the problems they were facing, and learn from their expertise. The core focus of the mission was to fight food insecurity, not necessarily spread hydroponics, so we wanted to be absolutely certain that hydroponics was the most viable solution to increase yields. We were able to identify the following reasons as to why farming outputs were so low when compared to the yields of American farms, and then considered all possible solutions.
Poor irrigation.
African farmers had difficulty bringing water to crops during the dry seasons and taking the water away during both rainy seasons.
The solution to the lack of resources to build complex irrigations would be for Togo to rapidly industrialize, and begin producing their own plumbing materials in factories instead of using recycled parts that fail after constant use. Unfortunately, this is unrealistic, and may cost billions of dollars to not only build factories, but to also educate the workforce for new, industrial jobs so it can sustain itself without foreign aid. I saw old farming equipment laying around that had been donated to Togo through foreign aid. Without the trade skill knowledge needed to repair these complex mechanical devices, they are left to rot and corrode in fields across the country.
Low Productivity.
Farmers endured low yields due to the unavailability of fertilizers and pesticides.
The solution to the lack of chemical inputs needed to maximize the efficiency of the land would be to start using these compounds immediately. However, these inputs are manufactured far away from Togo, so the long supply chain made the prices unobtainable to subsistence farmers (Products are intended to provide for the basic needs of the farmer, with little surplus for marketing. Farming that brings little or no profit to the farmer, allowing only for a marginal livelihood.) Additionally, pesticides and fertilizers pollute waterways through runoff, disrupt ecosystems, and kill off other food sources and predators to mosquito larvae such as amphibians. Anything that may increase mosquito populations is extremely dangerous in Africa where malaria is still a major health concern. Some experts correlate the rise of Brazil’s agricultural output with synthetic chemicals to the loss of mosquito predators such as amphibians from pollutants disrupting ecosystems, and the eventual Zika Virus outbreak.
The more we looked into why farming was not driving an economic resurgence in Togo, I discovered a horrifying cycle that everyone should be aware of. The cycle below shows how foreign intervention and aid often creates a cycle of dependency that ultimately causes more harm than good. I will never forget being told to stop donating to Africa, but to start investing in Africa.
To make matters worse, leafy green vegetables have a lot of surface area, and are low to the ground which makes it very good at trapping bacteria, or other pathogens in their crevices when fecal matter is used as manure to fertilize the crops. This attributed to E Coli outbreaks that could lead to diarrhea. According to the World Health Organization, diarrhea is one of the top ten causes of death in the developing world. In search of a solution we asked ourselves, “Is hydroponics really the best solution for the Togolesse and Africans as a whole to feed themselves?”. For validation, we looked towards one of the most successful agricultural countries in the world.
This map shows a size by size comparison of the United States versus the Netherlands. The US is 3.797 million mi², and the Netherlands is 16,412 mi². Despite the size difference of the Netherlands being less than 0.5% the landmass of the US, the Netherlands is the largest food exporting country in the world, second only to the United States. This is due to their extensive network of hydroponic green houses and vertical farms after the country collectively vowed to not let another famine occur after the tragedies caused by famine in World War II. The dutch agricultural model can be replicated elsewhere in the world if the technologies can adapt to new environments.
At this point, we concluded that a low-cost aquaponic farm could be a viable solution to not only break this cycle of dependency, but to give farmers food that was safe to eat, eliminate their dependance on favorable soil quality plus vast amounts of water needed to grow, and the freedom to pursue education for new trade skills instead of constantly working in the fields. Delia recruited a friend who worked as a plumber (Hippolyte Awadi) and the students at Togo chapter of IAAS (International Association of Agricultural Students: Marc Ptcholo, Kombaté Yendoukoa Nawanti, Abra Rosaline Tsekpuia, and Fo-dimit Kozier Nodjigno). We spent an entire day brainstorming possible farm designs at the University of Lomé.
Designing the farm was only a small aspect in the total challenge. The farm needed to be low-cost, energy efficient, robust, and most importantly, made up of readily available materials anyone in Togo would be able to source or substitute. We then set off for the marketplace to find out what materials are available, and how much they would cost.
I quickly discovered that there was a “visitor tax” imposed on foreigners in the marketplace, but I was fortunate to have industry experts who not only knew where to buy the materials, but how to negotiate good rates. Once we sourced all of the necessary materials, we scheduled lectures at the University of Lomé and a makerspace called WoeLab. Each lecture was broken into two parts over two days. First, I introduced myself and covered the fundamental aspects of operating an aquaponic farm. The second day consisted of a hands on workshop that was documented in detail on our open sourced design page. The workshop covered technical concepts about flow rates, pipe sizes, pH balances, among other things that are difficult to translate into other languages. Togo is a French speaking country with over 7 million people who also speak over 30 different, native tribal languages! During the lectures, many of the students and villagers looked back at me with blank faces, and I became concerned they would not retain the information I was trying to give them.
Then something unexpected happened in this moment of doubt, Hippolyte Awadi (the plumber who guided our purchasing decisions in the market) and Abra Rosaline Tsekpuia (the student in IAAS) stood up, and both began to teach the lectures in their native languages.
At this point, my stay in Togo was nearing its end, but the project was deemed a successful knowledge transfer that is now feeding many, and being incorporated into the education of countless students who will build their own versions of the design, and may even start their own companies installing these systems, or selling the produce they grow. We were even granted the honor of presenting our progress to the United States Ambassador to Togo, David Gilmour at the US Embassy after building two seperate farms.
Upon returning home to the United States, we raised additional funds to build even more educational farming models at rural villages. I was ecstatic to receive pictures through WhatsApp about the farm updates and regular harvests completely independent from foreign aid.
Our fight to end hunger is far from over, but we are making great progress in teaching the resilient African people how to grow their own food independent of external supply chains.
I am happy to announce that we have won a second State Department grant through the same program to expand farming operations into Northern Cameroon with Daliwa Joseph Bainamndi for the month of February 2019, and I will publish more articles as we continue growing to become the world’s largest farm without owning a single acre of land!