General Technical Documents

Moringa oleifera f-sand Filters for Sustainable Water Purification - 2017-11-22

ABSTRACT: Environmental Science & Technology, 2017

The purpose of this work is to determine parameters for the design of a Moringa seed sand filter for water purification. Moringa oleifera seeds containing cationic antimicrobial proteins have been used as natural coagulants for the removal of turbidity; however, a low removal efficiency and high residual organic levels limit their applications. In this work, Moringa seed extracts were used to reverse the charge of sand ( fsand) to 10 mV at a seed dosage of 5.6 g of seeds/m² of sand. This f-sand filter demonstrated ∼4 log removal of 1 μm polystyrene particles and >8 log removal of Escherichia coli compared to <0.1 log removal for bare sand. Enhanced removal for particles and E. coli was dominated by attractive electrostatic interactions. Clean bed filtration modeling predicts a sticking coefficient (α) of 0.8 for f-sand compared to a value of 0.01 for bare sand. This α was further validated under a wide range of filtration conditions. Preliminary scale-up analyses suggest a point-of-use f-sand filter that requires a very small amount of seeds annually. The outcome of this work presents the scientific basis for the design of a water purification solution for developing regions, requiring only locally available resources and no use of synthetic chemicals or electricity.

ECHO Crop Information Sheet - 2017-05-08

ECHO reguguarly keeps track of crop porduction records especially for crops disseminated from our Global Seed Bank. This fillable form is the sheet ECHO staff (mainly interns) use when evaluating a crop for it's potential use and distribution to ECHO's Network. This form can also be used to monitor and evaluate new crops or regenerated crops. This form was made specifically for ECHO's use, so it may need adapted and reconfigured in order to best suit your needs and your capacity.

Principles to Guide Conservation Agriculture Programming - CFGB - 2017-04-20

Conservation Agriculture (CA)—characterized by the three linked principles of minimizing soil disturbance, permanently covering the soil, and including crop rotations and associations – has proven effective at restoring soil health and fertility, improving the capture and use of rainfall, and increasing crop yields and farm profitability. Scientific studies and farmer experience have also shown it can improve food security, reduce labour requirements (thus leading to significant benefits for female small-scale farmers), and help build farming systems that are more resilient to climate change. In the semi-arid regions of Africa where much of Canadian Foodgrains Bank programming is focused, CA practices have been shown to improve soil moisture and fertility and lead to substantial yield gains.

Over the last decade, partners of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank network have implemented over 50 CA projects in many different countries across sub-Saharan Africa. This momentum has stimulated the creation of resource materials, annual meetings and other opportunities to share and learn together, and the hiring of six full time CA technical officers.

This CFGB technical team has been collecting learnings and experience of partners, reviewing scientific literature, and talking to others involved in CA programming. They’ve used these learnings to date to develop the following list of basic principles to guide CA programming. Please note that these are principles (general truths that guide action) and not laws (hard and fast rules about what to do). Accordingly, these principles need to be worked through, used, and adapted to specific situations. We would greatly appreciate your feedback and thoughts on these principles, as we expect to update these on a regular basis.

Parthenium hysterophorus - 2017-02-09

Parthenium hysterophorus, also known as carrot top, white top weed, and fever few is a fairly new invasive weed but has quickly become one of the worst weeds to tropical areas(CABI 2015). In Ethiopia it is known as Farmasissa which means “sign your land away” (IAPPS 2016). Originally from Central America, Parthenium has been seen to cause major problems in India and Southeast Asia, Australia, and East Africa. In 2015, Parthenium is said to have invaded roughly 34 countries globally (Strathie 2015). A fast growing highly reproductive invasive species, Parthenium has become a hazard to farmland, rangeland, as well as animal and human health.

Building Living Garden Soil With a Worm Tower - 2017-01-20

Using worms to create Living Soil results in :

Nutrition: Delicious, nutrient-rich plants.

Vitality: Plants growing in living soils are inherently stronger and need less protection, allowing low input food production methods to be used.

Drought tolerance: Nutrients are in colloidal states rather than being soluble, naturally grown plants only feed when they want to, are not overloaded with chemical salts, and can continue to grow under drier conditions.

Pollution: Nutrients are not soluble so they stay in the soil where they are needed rather than leaching away and causing pollution.

Greenhouse impact: Does not require energy intensive inputs of agricultural crop chemicals and fertilizers.

Collaborators : Brad Ward and Jerry Larson, January, 2017

Materials List

Video Link

Greenhouse Gardening for the Purpose of Self-Sustaining Ministry in the Former Soviet Union - 2017-01-20

This paper is shared as a case study of a greenhouse project in a cold climate. It contains information on the benefits of greenhouses in a temperate setting. Technical details provide practical considerations in greenhouse construction, some of which would also apply to tropical settings. We noted, in particular, efforts to keep costs low, such as using a gravity-based drip irrigation system. The paper also details costs involved, and includes an appendix with information on crop performance, labor, and vegetable yields.

List of Short Season Crops Appropriate for Haiti - 2016-10-26

This document was originally prepared in response to hurricane Matthew in 2016.

As organizations are responding to Hurricane Matthew damage in Haiti and in other parts of the Caribbean, they are developing short, medium, and long term plans of how to respond.  With much of the damage in Haiti occurring in rural communities, organizations are considering how to respond with seeds and trees so to help the agriculture sector rebound.  In agriculture there are crops that produce in the short term (various vegetables, beans, etc.), medium term (bananas/plantains, yams, cassava, etc.) and long term (fruit/forestry trees) that can be part of the response planning.  How to properly respond will depend on various factors such as access to land, available seeds/seedlings, time of year, available water (irrigation or rain fed), soil salinity (often an issue after storm events near the ocean), and cultural preferences.

Agricultural Prosperity for Dry Africa - 2016-01-19

Prof. Dov Pasternak working in Israel, was among the pioneers of drip irrigation. He researched irrigation with saline water and conducted domestication of arid land crops. He received a UNESCO Chair for his work on desert research. For over 10 years Prof. Pasternak worked as Principal Scientist for Crops Diversification at ICRISAT-Niger and then continued as advisor on development projects in Africa.

This book describes his experience in Africa. The book is written for both laymen and scientists. It is a must for anyone interested in or dealing with Africa’s agricultural development. It starts by explaining how development projects fail and what can be done. It offers many systems, technologies and crops for a more profitable agriculture. The book emphasizes irrigation of vegetables, fruit trees and profitable field crops as a solution to current conditions and ends by suggesting how to carry out development programs.

Forty four photos and many anecdotes of the author’s life experience, make this book easy and a pleasure to read.

Case Study: Global Websites – Improving Access for Global Agricultural Extension - 2016-01-01

ECHO exists to reduce hunger and improve lives through agricultural training and resources. Working through the internet and regional impact centers around the world, ECHO connects small-scale farmers, and those working to eliminate world hunger, with essential resources and each other. These resources include a knowledge-base of practical information, experienced technical support, and an extensive seed bank focused on highly beneficial underutilized plants.

The world wide web promises cost-effective access to its more than 3.2 billion users, with more than 2 billion of these users coming from developing countries. As internet penetration improves in the developing world, agriculture extension stands to benefit from its reach and rapid growth. For every internet user in the developed world there are two in the developing world. More than 95% of the world’s population is now covered by at least a second generation mobile data network (International Telecommunications Union 2015).

As internet access has grown in both the developed and developing world, the need for more sophisticated online tools for agriculture extension has become apparent. In 2011 ECHO launched an online collaborative membership community called ECHOcommunty.org. Since that time, more than 10,000 members worldwide have accessed technical resources, participated in online discussion, registered for events, and requested trial seeds from ECHO seed banks.

In 2014, ECHO saw the need to upgrade the capacity of the ECHOcommunity website to provide a solid foundation for its continued growth. The re-design called for the native support of nine languages key to its current areas of impact, and the ability to effectively deliver rich-media resources and communications tools to internet users with varying bandwidth capacities and devices. This document serves to illustrate the lessons learned in the process of improving the global accessibility of our resources. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of best-practices in website development for a global audience, but rather a look inside the decision making process behind one site.

EX-Post Evaluation of the Introduction and Promotion of Grain Amaranth Program in Eastern Africa - 2014-07-01

World Renew’s (formerly Christian Reformed World Relief Committee or CRWRC) work on introduction and promotion of grain amaranth in East Africa began in 1999 in 2 villages, Ngaamba and Kalonzoni, in the semi-arid part of the Machakos District of Kenya.  World Renew staff, Tom Post and Francis Muthoka, received training and amaranth seed lines from Dr. Davidson Mwangi, a Kenyan agronomist who had been working on selecting amaranth lines for some twenty years.   Amaranth’s drought resistance and drought avoidance, its requirement of about 50% of the water required by maize, it’s high protein/high lysine content with a good balance of amino acids and other nutrients, and its taste acceptability---particularly when mixed with other staples such as maize and millet, wheat, cassava, ---- led World Renew to begin experimenting with grain amaranth in the semi-arid circumstance of these villages.   These were also villages located in a region that had repeatedly sought CFGB-World Renew food relief during drought years.

The goal of this evaluation was to determine the impacts and lessons from the grain Amaranth promotion work of World Renew, CFGB and the World Renew partnering organizations in East Africa.