China’s Outsourced Airliner Development Model

Many emerging-market countries in the global South have built up substantial foreign currency reserves. Much of this has been a response to past foreign currency crises, particularly the Asian Crisis in the late 1990s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis).

But what to do with this often vast wealth? How should it be used to improve economies, human development and people’s lives?

China — whose foreign currency reserves reportedly total US $3.7 trillion — is showing one approach, using the wealth to build industrial capability in sectors traditionally associated with more developed countries, such as aircraft manufacturing.

China is seeking to build a commercial airliner able to compete with the sector’s longstanding giants, Boeing and Airbus. To ensure it can do it to the highest global standards, it is outsourcing much of the parts manufacturing to the best around the world, while keeping the overall design and assembly in China.

Comac, or Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (http://english.comac.cc/products/ca/pi/), is located outside Shanghai, China’s rapidly growing global business hub. The modern Comac factory is working on building China’s first commercial airliner, the C919. It is also making a smaller jet, the ARJ21.

Comac calls the outsourcing method an “airframer supplier” model. Suppliers provide the components, and Comac designs and assembles the plane.

Countries making the parts include the United States, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland and Japan.

Comac’s dream is to graduate to the top tier of global aircraft manufacturers alongside Boeing and Airbus, which together account for 70 per cent of the global commercial airliner market (Fortune).

At present, this is just an aspiration, with a detailed life-sized plastic model of the C919 – right down to the intricacies of the cockpit instrument panels — all there is to show for the project.

Founded in 2008, Comac ambitiously aims to be making and selling commercial airliners within a decade. State-owned Comac is an amalgamation of various aviation companies, as previous efforts to make a commercial airliner in China had failed. China has invested US $3 billion in the venture.

The name, C919, breaks down as C for China, 9 because it sounds similar to the Chinese word for forever, and 19 because it will carry 190 passengers.

The idea is to target the city-to-city aircraft market which is dominated by Boeing’s 737 and  Airbus’s A320.

China saw huge aviation growth in the first decade of the 21st century, and is expecting that trend to continue. The country is on track to surpass the United States for airline-passenger traffic by 2032 and is already the world’s second largest market (Fortune).

To feed this fast-growing market, China will need an estimated 5,580 new planes by 2032, costing US $780 billion in today’s prices (Boeing).

China has decided, rather than committing this vast investment to purchasing all the aircraft from overseas manufacturers, to instead use this wealth to build a competitive aircraft manufacturing industry to rival the big leaders. This would create jobs in the country and create a multiplier effect as airline industry investment helps the domestic economy.

China already has years of experience manufacturing aircraft parts for foreign companies. Comac makes the tail section of Boeing’s 737, as well as manufacturing cargo door frames for the Airbus’ A320.

More importantly, since 2009 China has assembled A320s for Airbus under license in Tianjin — 130 of them to date (http://www.airbus.com/company/worldwide-presence/airbus-in-china/).

The C919 is similar in some ways to the Airbus A320. They have similar dimensions and are made from similar materials. Comac has hired over 100 foreign experts to help with the project, to ensure quality control meets global standards.

By trying to compete with the world’s best, China is entering a very competitive and complex marketplace. The complexity of modern aircraft (an average of 4 million parts in a typical commercial airliner) means there is no room for mistakes or cutting corners. And this is where China has to change its reputation. The country has experienced several high-profile manufacturing failures due to corner-cutting and corruption. These have included tainted milk products, poorly constructed buildings that collapsed, and high-speed train crashes.

The C919 is an opportunity to show high standards and high quality can be the norm in Chinese manufacturing.

In the 1970s, China designed and built the Y-10 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Y-10) in Shanghai, modeled on Boeing’s 707. But it was a failed programme, shut down after the plane flew once.

Those behind the new plane acknowledge that this is a learning experience for China: “Comac must learn how to walk first before running,” Comac chairman Jin Zhuanglong told Fortune magazine.

“I’ve always maintained the point that we won’t be a big challenge for Airbus or Boeing in the short term,” said Jin, who used to work in China’s satellite and spacecraft industry.  “But in terms of some single product, we might be competitive.”

There’s no doubt that China needs planes. China will have constructed 80 new airports between 2011 and 2015 (China Daily). It has already received 1,000 Airbus planes for domestic carriers, quickly bringing fleets to international standards.

State-owned airlines, including China Air, China Southern and China Eastern, dominate 80 per cent of flights. All stand to be a ready market for the C919, which will sell for around US $75 million – US $10 million less than the next generation Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 (Fortune).

Ireland-based budget airline Ryanair is considering being the first Western airline to purchase the C919.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is confident people will fly on a Chinese-made plane: “Ninety-nine percent of my passengers don’t know what kind of aircraft they are getting on,” O’Leary told Fortune. “You trust the Chinese to make computers and medical devices, and the question is, Would you get on a Chinese aircraft? Of course!”

Brazil has shown it is possible. The Embraer (embraer.com) aircraft company, based in São José dos Campos, is now a US $6 billion a year success story that has won the public’s trust.

Comac’s C919 project is a risk, but the rewards could be enormous.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: May 2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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The BRCK: Kenyan-Developed Solution to Boost Internet Access

Using the Internet in Africa has its challenges, as anyone who has worked there knows. Issues can include weak Wi-Fi signals, slow Internet service providers, electricity outages and power surges that can damage or destroy sensitive electronic devices.

Power surges (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/surge-protector3.htm) can occur for a variety of reasons but are usually a sudden surge in the current flowing to the wall outlet from the power mains. They are common in developing countries, and can be tragic for electronic devices.
Most electronic devices are designed for use in developed countries where people can take the power supply, and ubiquitous Internet access, for granted. This affects the way devices are made. Designers will assume many things are available to users and build the electronic devices accordingly. But for users in Africa and across the global South, what seems easy in the developed world is fraught with frustration and wasted time.

This is a big obstacle to economic development and places people in Africa at a disadvantage in the modern world of fast communications.

One initiative is out to transform this experience for the better with a made-in-Africa solution that is being modified based on real-world experience and user feedback.

The BRCK (brck.com) bills itself as “your backup generator for the Internet” and is intended to address the problems of finding a reliable Internet connection, staying online in a power blackout and saving devices from destruction when there is a power surge.

Anyone who has tried to use a laptop computer to upload some photographs in Africa will know the frustration felt when the Wi-Fi signal drops away. The BRCK hunts around for the strongest signal and grabs it so the user can carry on working.

Built to be robust and take knocks and bruises, it is a sleek, black plastic brick-shaped device with the letters BRCK elegantly embossed on the side.
The BRCK can function as a hub for up to 20 devices, with a built-in Wi-Fi signal able to cover multiple rooms (so a team can work off a single Internet connection), a battery that can last eight hours, a 16-gigabyte on board memory hard drive, and software to allow for remote management  by apps on other devices such as smartphones. While it is not able to speed up an already poor connection or increase low bandwidth, it can “scavenge” around to find the strongest signal and hop to it right away. It can work with Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 3G and 4G networks.

If a blackout occurs, it quickly switches to the onboard battery without forcing a re-boot of the computer.

It has been developed in Nairobi, Kenya and the first plastic prototype of the BRCK device was milled at the Fab Lab Nairobi (http://fablab.uonbi.or.ke/) using a 3D fabricator machine.

The BRCK’s makers describe it as a tool “trying to create ubiquitous Internet” and an “enabler of the Internet of things.” The BRCK is designed around the changing way people work and access the Internet, frequently moving from place to place. People now don’t just rely on one device but have many – a mobile phone or smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, an iPod or other device.

A Kickstarter fundraising campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet) gives more details on the origins of the project and offers many ways to support the different stages of development, right up to mass manufacturing of the BRCK.

One application of the BRCK is for research. It could be deployed to gather data at a field site, then connect via the Cloud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing) to pass data back to a lab at a university in another country for analysis.

The BRCK is being built by Ushahidi (ushahidi.com), a non-profit technology company that makes open source software and made its name with the crowdsourced mapping platform it built during the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008. The Ushahidi platform has been deployed around the world since in many crisis situations.

Founded by David Kobia, Juliana Rotich and Erik Hersman, the Ushahidi team is focused on “building tools that improve the way information flows in the world.” It is about making tools to help people communicate in the most difficult places.

BRCK comes with a visually appealing website that makes excellent use of the BRCK’s ebony good looks.

The website boasts: “If it works in Africa, it’ll work anywhere”.

The ongoing development of the BRCK can be followed on the website’s blog: http://www.brck.com/2014/01/they-case-for-engineering-brck-in-africa-part-1/.

“The idea is to build a company around the product rather than just do a one-off product – and to gradually improve the product through new versions,” said BRCKs chief technology officer Reg Orton.

“Our engineers are based in Kenya now – we are not based in China, we are not based in the (Silicon) Valley. What that means for us we are able to go out there and (be) able to see the problems directly.”

The BRCK can be ordered online and will be available for sale soon, according to the website.

More on cloud computing trends from UK Web Host Review: https://www.ukwebhostreview.com/blog/cloud-computing-trends/

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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Women Empowered by Fair Trade Manufacturer

There is sometimes a great deal of negativity surrounding the issue of manufacturing in Africa. Some claim the risks of doing business are too high or that the workers are not motivated enough. But one garment manufacturer is out to prove the skeptics wrong. It pays decent wages and gives its mostly female workforce a stake in the business in a bid to drive motivation and make it worthwhile to work hard.

Liberty and Justice (http://libertyandjustice.com), one of Africa’s newest fair-trade garment manufacturers, is drawing attention for the way it is transforming women’s lives. It is also giving opportunities to a group often ignored by employers: women over the age of 30.

Liberty and Justice has factories in Liberia and Ghana, and 90 per cent of its workers are female. The company says it pays 20 per cent higher wages than the industry norm, and gives employees collectively a 49 per cent stake in the enterprise.

The global fair trade market – in which producers are guaranteed a minimum fair price and goods are marketed under the Fairtrade logo – has been growing year on year since it was established in the late 1980s.

The brand and certification process is managed by the Fairtrade Foundation (fairtrade.net) and is considered the most recognized ethical mark in the world.

More than 1 million small-scale producers and workers around the world participate in the Fairtrade system. As of 2013, fair trade has become a 5 billion euro-a-year (US $6.79 billion a year) global movement.

The label can be found on more than 30,000 products, ranging from tea to bananas to sugar and chocolate. It benefits more than 1.35 million farmers and workers around the world.

Liberty and Justice specializes in “high-volume, time-sensitive, duty-free goods for leading American clothing brands, trading companies, and other importers who care about exceptional quality, on-time delivery, social and environmental impact, and geographic diversity.”

The company wants to “transform the apparel supply chain from worker exploitation and environmental degradation to partnership and sustainability.”

Liberty and Justice was established by Chid Liberty (http://libertyandjustice.com/#about), the son of an exiled Liberian diplomat. His life had been a privileged one living amongst Africa’s overseas diplomatic community.

“I thought Africans drove (Mercedes) Benzes and dressed up every day and went to the best schools,” he told Fast Company magazine. “It even messed up my orientation on things like race, because we had all different kinds of people working in my house as a kid – German, Indian, Turkish – and all of them were serving us in some way. So I just kind of grew up thinking that Africans were at the top of the food chain.”

Living in a prosperous bubble in Germany, he had an awakening to the real conditions in Africa when he was in the seventh grade: “When I read only 2 per cent of people have a telephone, I was so confused,” he said. “I started to really understand my place.”

After the death of his father, Liberty started to wonder about life back in Liberia. He had moved on to working in Silicon Valley in California, helping technology startups get funding. Inspired by Liberia’s President Ellen Sirleaf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Johnson_Sirleaf) and the end of the country’s 15-year civil war, he thought: “‘All right, well, I think I can apply that skill to providing economic opportunities for women.’ And decided to come here and try, in an industry that I knew absolutely nothing about.”

In 2010 he and Adam Butlein founded Liberty and Justice fair-trade apparel manufacturer. The company now makes tops and bottoms for brands such as Prana, FEED Projects, Haggar and others in the US.

“We really try to be worker-focused,” Liberty said. “And we actually think that’s what gave us a cutting edge at the end of the day: having really devoted workers. People don’t really believe in these types of factories in Africa, because they believe that African workers aren’t motivated. I think that’s hogwash.”

The company faced a dilemma common to any manufacturing enterprise trying to make goods for the highly competitive global export markets. How to produce the garments fast enough? A consultant had advised them to only hire young women. But Liberty and Justice had hired women in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Rather than firing everyone, the company decided to invest in the workers’ skills and get productivity to where it should be.

“These older women really set the culture of the Liberian Women’s Sewing Project, our first factory,” Liberty said. “They come to work an hour early – we never asked them to do that – they pray and sing together before they get on the machines, they’re very serious about the details of how your uniform should look, and you just wouldn’t have gotten that out of a bunch of 19-year-old girls the first time.”

Liberty and Justice expanded to Ghana in 2012 and launched the Ghanaian Women’s Sewing Project. It had to adapt to how things are done in Ghana, and that was a steep learning curve.

But the company has learned a great deal about how to succeed in Africa as opportunities increase alongside growing wealth and incomes.

“You could easily get squashed in Africa if you don’t know the right people. You’ll just get sent down rabbit holes every day,” Liberty said.

“In Liberia, the World Bank reports that about 40 per cent of children are enrolled in school. Among the women for whom we provide jobs, 98 per cent of their children are in school. So to me it’s very clear: You give a woman the opportunity to work, and her priority will be putting her kids in school.”

And he believes this is just the beginning of something big. As LIberia recovers from civil war, it will lead to an economic and innovation renaissance that will filter out across West Africa.

“I really think that the opportunities for innovation are right here. And once we get the social finance opportunities right, I think you’ll see a little West African impact renaissance happening. There’s still a lot of work to do. I hope Liberty and Justice can be a small part of that.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-march-2014-published

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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“Pocket-Friendly” Solution to Help Farmers Go Organic

Interest in organic food and farming is high, and organics have become a growing global industry. The worldwide market for organic food grew by more than 25 per cent between 2008 and 2011, to US $63 billion, according to pro-organic group the Soil Association. That is an impressive accomplishment given the backdrop of the global economic crisis, and evidence that people value quality food, even in tough times.

One Kenyan company is hoping to help farmers benefit from this global surge in interest in organic food. The company is selling a healthy alternative to chemical fertilizers and is hoping it will soon be able to source its products in Kenya, too.

BioDeposit (http://biodeposit.lv/index.php?page=elixir-3) sells soil conditioner and natural fertilizer made from two ingredients: peat found in marshlands and silt dredged up from lakes, which is called sapropel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapropel). This naturally occurring resource is rich in all the elements required for abundant crops and has the added benefit of not poisoning the soil and water table when used on farmer’s fields.

It is sold as a solution to the multiple pressures hitting farmers, from chaotic weather patterns to soil damage and decreasing yields. It offers a way to boost farm productivity without damaging the soil in the long term.

In 2011 the amount of farmland that was organic reached 37.2 million hectares in 162 countries – but this is still just 0.86 per cent of the world’s agricultural land (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements). If BioDeposit has its way, Kenyan farmers could help to grow the number of hectares being farmed organically.

Presenting the solution in October 2013 at the Global South-South Development Expo (southsouthexpo.org) at the headquarters of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, BioDeposit communications and media chief Nelly Makokha (http://ke.linkedin.com/pub/nelly-makokha/29/a08/634), explained that the company is hoping to bring the technology behind BioDeposit to Kenya, if they can get permission.

At present, the source materials for the products are dredged from lakes in Latvia in Eastern Europe. Because of the political structures of Kenya, it means a long political process is ahead to gain permission to dredge any of the country’s lakes. BioDeposit’s Latvian scientists conducted research on the potential for Lake Naivasha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Naivasha) in the Rift Valley and claim it has enough deposits to provide Kenya’s farmers with organic fertilizer for the next 200 years.

“If the government agrees, the fertilizer is basically cheaper than any other fertilizer the farmer [will] have ever used in a long time,” said Makokha. “It will be pocket-friendly for them. As they earn more money from the more yields, they are spending less on the fertilizer.

“Our slogan is ‘smart agriculture for health and wealth’  – health in terms of you become organically grown, and if you are looking for organic certification, we will organize that for the certifiers. Right now most countries are looking for organic food and cannot find it.

“So when you become organic that means you earn more money on your products so it means you are healthy and you are wealthy!”

The fertilizer comes in 12 milliliter packets that cost 200 Kenyan shillings (US $2.30). A farmer would need two packets for each quarter acre of farmland.

Based on a Russian discovery from the early 20th century, BioDeposit draws on naturally occurring resources.

Its products include BioDeposit Agro, described as a “biologically active soil conditioner,” and BioDeposit Elixir, described as a “humic plant growth stimulator.” The Elixir is a “sustainable, water-soluble” concentrate made from peat and can be used to soak seeds prior to planting, increasing the germination cycle. For the farmer, it means more seedlings in a shorter time. It also can be poured on compost piles to boost humic content to speed compost decay. Peat is formed from above-ground marsh plants, either on the surface or under a layer of water.

BioDeposit Agro is made from sapropel from the sediment at the bottom of freshwater lakes. It is a renewable, naturally-occurring resource as it has been formed from the accumulated settling of plants such as reeds, algae, trees, grasses and animals over time as they decay.

Unlike other chemical fertilizers, using the BioDeposit product does not require special protective clothing and does not harm human health. Children are also not at risk if they accidentally ingest the product.

“Most farmers have small farms – quarter acre, half acre, at most three acres,” said Makokha. “For a quarter acre you spend five dollars and you get more yields. Two of them would be approximately five dollars – that’s enough for a whole season – so it is pocket friendly.”

And if the company is able to harvest the material in Kenya, it would be even cheaper.

“You can imagine if we dredge here – probably (get the cost down to) a dollar – so it makes more sense for the farmers.”

The dredging has another positive impact: it helps with managing flooding by making the lake deeper once the silt is dredged out, making life better and safer for people living nearby.

BioDeposit has been operating in Kenya for a year and, Makokha said, “the response is awesome.”

BioDeposit organizes workshops for farmers through cooperative societies, helping to guide farmers through the whole process of becoming organically certified.

The company believes its products will help avert problems such as what happened recently when the European Union prevented some flowers – a major source of overseas income for Kenyan farmers – from entering the EU because of banned pesticides.

Cleverly, BioDeposit does most of its business digitally through mobile phones. It conducts its business with sales representatives by phone and conducts training by phone as well. All payments and bank transfers are done by phone using the M-PESA system (http://www.safaricom.co.ke/?id=257).

“It is the easiest way to do business in Kenya,” said Makokha. “Everybody right now owns a mobile phone. When we get the M-PESA, we transfer directly to the account. You get the money and transfer to the bank account and you are done, very easy for everybody … doing wonders for us.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

Like this story? Here is a dirty secret: this website is packed with stories about global South innovators. We spent 7 years researching and documenting these stories around the world. We interviewed the innovators to learn from them and we visited them to see how they did it. Why not use the Search bar at the top and tap in a topic and see what stories come up? As for my work, I have been involved with start-ups and media ventures since the early 1990s. While most tech entrepreneurs were either still in their nappies in the 1990s (or just a drunken night away from being conceived in the 2000s), I was developing content for this new thing they called the "Internet". In the years since I have learned a great deal about innovation and digital and have shared these insights in the stories on this website as well as in the 5 issues of Southern Innovator magazine. So, stick around and read some more!    

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xIzkBgAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+Cheap+Farming+Kit+Hopes+to+Help+More+Become+Farmers&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-march-2014-published

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

The first five issues of Southern Innovator. The highly influential magazine was distributed around the world and each issue was launched at the annual Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo hosted by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

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Cheap Farming Kit Hopes to Help More Become Farmers

Food security is key to economic growth and human development. A secure and affordable food supply means people can meet their nutrition needs and direct their resources to improving other aspects of their lives, such as housing, clothing, health services or education.

One solution hopes to boost productivity for small-scale farmers and make agriculture a more attractive income source to the young and poor, by making it possible to grow food year-round. Kenyan social enterprise Amiran Kenya is selling the Amiran Foundation Kit (amirankenya.com), a simple-to-use greenhouse farming kit. As well as helping people grow both food and their agricultural business, Amiran Kenya hopes young people will also buy the kits at a discount and then sell them for a profit to others.

The technology to grow food year-round is already available, but it is generally expensive to set up. This cost is usually prohibitive to the poor and young: two groups who could really benefit from the income. And if young people in Africa learn the basics of farming, in time they could expand and develop into agribusinesses and benefit from the growing food demand on the continent.

Africa, a continent undergoing significant economic change, has yet to fully realize its potential as a producer of agricultural products to feed itself and the world. Africa currently has a labour-intensive but very inefficient agriculture system. While many Africans either make their living in agriculture or engage in subsistence farming for survival, much of Africa’s farming is inefficient and fails to make the most of the continent’s rich resources and potential.

At present, agriculture, farmers and agribusinesses make up almost 50 per cent of Africa’s economic activity, and the continent’s food system is worth an estimated US $313 billion a year (World Bank). A World Bank report, Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness (http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/africa-agribusiness-report-2013.pdf), argues that Africa could have a trillion-dollar agriculture market by 2030.

While large-scale agribusinesses are increasing in Africa, it is still reliant on small-scale farmers to meet the daily food needs of most of the population.

“The time has come for making African agriculture and agribusiness a catalyst for ending poverty,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. The continent needs to “boost its high growth rates, create more jobs, significantly reduce poverty, and grow enough cheap, nutritious food to feed its families, export its surplus crops, while safeguarding the continent’s environment.”

Any country that has to import food will be vulnerable to currency fluctuations and the inflation in prices this can cause. A country that has many options for food, and reduces its dependency on imported food resources, will have greater resilience when crisis strikes.

Greenhouses are a great way to expand the growing season, avoiding ups and downs in temperature. But they can be expensive to set up – something the kit hopes to resolve. A typical greenhouse kit will cost a Kenyan an estimated 10 times more than the Amiran Foundation Kit, which retails at Sh 14,500 (US $168).

The package includes a drip-feed kit, a 250 liter water tank, a one liter sprayer, instructional growing guides, fertilizer, agro chemicals and high-quality seeds. Crops that can be grown include cabbage, watermelon, kale and spinach. The drip kit is highly durable and can last eight years, according to its manufacturer.

The kit is being marketed as a “kick starter for the small scale farmers who want to adopt agribusiness” as their method for growing food.

“The farmers will have a chance to start small and grow bit by bit until they are able to afford the modern greenhouses which will set the ball rolling for them to enjoy the benefits of modern agribusiness,” Yariv Kedar, Amiran Kenya’s Deputy Director, explains on the company’s website.

The plan is to draw more people into agriculture by showing they do not need to be prisoners of weather patterns. Larger agribusiness enterprises already have the resources to benefit from technology such as greenhouses and avoid the worst effects of the weather.

By transcending fickle weather patterns, it is possible to reduce the risk of crop failure and the resulting financial damage – one reason people shy away from farming.

Amiran’s philosophy behind the kit is simple: knowledge and know-how matched with high-quality inputs that do not harm the environment. The idea is to introduce people to the concept of agribusiness, no matter how small their land size. Amiran estimates that by investing Sh 14,500 (US $168), a person could make Sh 25,000 (US $290) per season – making back in a season the initial investment cost.

Urban farmers and home gardeners are among those who can benefit, along with small-scale farmers in arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya.

Kedar said the kit’s drip pipes, which deliver water directly to the root of the plant, ensure that “every drop counts” and save between 30 to 60 per cent of water compared to other methods of irrigation.

“Using the Amiran Foundation Kit, farmers are now able to grow all year round and experience high yields while still conserving the scarce resource, water,” he said.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2014

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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