Hydroponics

Over the last few years a lot has been said about the potential of hydroponic and aquaponic production systems.  In my own view, to this point, they have not shown themselves to be price competitive when compared with other, simpler, production systems for the developing world. 

However, there is a tipping point when new techniques and technologies become well established enough to move beyond proof of concept and begin to compete on a crop-per-dollar level.  I believe that we may have reached that point with hydroponic production in Jordan.  This is primarily because local system designs have begun to take advantage of local materials and expertise bringing down the cost of conversion to those systems very significantly.  As a result the AC4D farm will begin work on converting two of our existing traditional greenhouses into hydroponic greenhouses to be planted this September with the rest of the crops.  These houses will provide roughly 1000 square meters of test beds for soil less production. 

Calculated risk on behalf of smallholders who must mitigate their own risk is right.  This concept is at the core of all of our trials.  I will be highlighting and reflecting upon the steps in our conversion process this summer in order to facilitate local adoption.  A consultant engineer working under contract with USAID will be our technical advisor as we plan and implement the project in the next few months.


Why use a technology that facilitates the use of far less water when saving water is not the ultimate goal of smallholder farmers?    

Aquaponics allows us to farm the same "ground" year after year without increasing soil salinity to the point where cultivation is not profitable. 

In open field systems "active deferment" measures like plowing before the rainy season to leach salt from fields and the use of barley to pull salt up into a plant that can be carried off property are effective means of lowering salinity and increasing soil health.  With greenhouse production deferment is not a good option as too much is invested in the greenhouses to defer their use.  Something has to be done to solve this issue.  Hydroponics delivers a long term solution without having to move greenhouses every few years.

Our trial will show us, and local farmers, whether the additional quality and quantity of produce supplied by a hydroponic system substantiates its additional startup and operational costs.   

5 rows per 9 meter wide greenhouse

Drain water collection and fresh water mixing tanks set in ground to facilitate gravity drainage

Tuff is used for rooting material and locally made drip line and grow bags bring down costs significantly

Simple materials and designs for drainage and waste water recovery

    

Sow Food Security, Harvest Peace

A future farmer from Ghouta, Syria.  His family is one of the thousands of recipients of AC4Ds refugee feeding program.  As goes his ability to return to his family's farm in Ghouta and rebuild a life, so goes Syria's hope for rebuilding a future. 

The following statements are taken from a website called, "The Hill" in an article by Jose Graziano da Silva, the director of the Food and Agriculture Organization.   

Consider Syria. More than two-thirds of the population now require humanitarian assistance, including 8.7 million people who do not have enough food. About 4.8 million Syrians are refugees, and even more are internally displaced. Most have been uprooted because their livelihoods have been destroyed – sometimes by unaffordable food rather than direct violence.
 
We have found that US $200 in support enables a Syrian farmer to produce two tonnes of wheat, enough to feed a family of six for a year and provide seeds for future planting. That is a fraction of the economic cost of food aid, not to mention the dramatic human costs.

Interventions to ensure food security and protect and rehabilitate the agricultural sector have a large and often unnoticed contribution to make, as beyond their obvious role in addressing hunger, they can also help mitigate and even prevent conflicts. Peace and food security are often mutually reinforcing.

Farming is the primary activity of the world’s rural poor, who are also the most vulnerable to the consequences of civil strife, which nowadays is the most common form of armed conflict. Fostering broad-based agricultural prosperity can enhance social cohesion, reduce tensions over rival claims to natural resources and, by creating rural jobs, undercut the recruiting base of violent extremism around the world.

Increasing evidence shows that timely and robust food security interventions can enable individuals and communities to build resilience to conflict and hasten their recovery from it.


As important as direct food aid is during a time of conflict, it is the rebuilding and steady development of the agricultural sector that will create the food prices and rural incomes necessary for sustained peace.
 

Take Away Genetic Modification and the Poorest People Will Suffer the Most

I have to re-post the Ag. section of this Forbes article by Dr. Robert Fraley because it is too important a concept not to echo.

"The Real Cost of Eliminating GMOs"

"Consider the economic consequences if the critics of genetic modification were to have their way and eliminate this technology, in spite of the overwhelming scientific consensus in its favor. PG Economics, a British agricultural economics consulting firm, calculated that in 2013 farmers worldwide realized a net economic benefit of 20.5 billion from planting GMO crops.  Farmers in the developing world, many of them poor and working small plots, actually get a higher return on each dollar invested in GMO seeds than their counterparts in the developed world, PG found. 

Meanwhile, in 2014 researchers at the University of California Berkley published a study examining the impact of genetic modification on food prices.  They calculated that in 2010, the adoption of genetic modification lowered corn prices by 13 percent and cotton prices by 18 percent.  One of the researhces, David Zilberman, professor of agriculture and resource economics, estimated that without bioengineered crops, the price of food would be 5 to 10% higher than it is now - especially for meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and processed food.  Also important is the impact that GMO crops can have on the amount of time small holder farmers and their families spend controlling insects and hand weeding their fields.  In many African countries, as much as 90% of the farm work is done by women and children.  In these societies, therefore GMOs offer kids a chance to go to school instead - and thereby escape generational poverty traps.  Take away genetic modification, Zilberman noted, and "The poorest people will suffer the most." 

Supporting Research:
Technology's Role in the 21st Century

The Economics of Sustainable Development

Water Cocktail and a Delivery Truck

Thanks to the creativity of our farm foreman and an abundance of canal water from early season rains our trial and demo farm is able to reduce by half or more the amount of salt that we are putting on crops via irrigation water.  This demo is crucial for our, and local farmers, success in both reducing the amount of salt put on fields over the course of the season and in our ability to flush soils toward the end of the rainy season by applying extra water to rows.  Reducing salt loads strengthens plant health, reduces disease, immediately improves productivity, and allows plants to reach their full size potential.   

Brainstorming with the Oregon farmers has also led us to the conclusion that we should slit old irrigation pipes and apply a great deal of low salinity water to greenhouses after spring production is finished.  In doing so, fresh water will dissolve salt locked in the root zone and carry it down out of the area where plants can take it up. 

Early cold weather this season has slowed down production dramatically, we have produced roughly half the number of food packages that we had produced at this point last year.  We are expanding our planted area during January by an additional 3000 square meters in a bid to get late winter and spring production up. December yielded only 850 8-10kg food parcels.  Much lower than expected. 

In better news we have received a donation for a much needed delivery truck.  This generous and far sighted donation by Cattle for Christ International will allow us to deliver up to 350 food parcels at a time - several days per week.  This much needed expansion in our ability to deliver will make a huge difference starting in February when production picks up due to warmer weather and better plant maturity.  We cannot thank our partners with Cattle for Christ enough.  

First Month of Production & Oregon Farmers

Resident Grain Crop Advisers with our Jordan Valley Foreman

The first two weeks of production has been relatively weak with a total of only 442 boxes delivered through our refugee feeding program.  This is largely as a result of unseasonably cold weather.  Zuchinni trials are showing us the value of extra investment in a high quality variety (Shorouk) and early yield for Monsantos X3R bell peppers has been excellent with Gormand, Intruder, and Sweet Sunrise lagging behind significantly in both plant development and early yield.  Time will tell how each of the varieties stack up across the season. 

Syrian & Iraqi Refugees que to receive food aid.  Market value for a box of our produce currently stands at 11 US dollars - a significant help to families struggling to feed large families without any legal source of income in Jordan. 

We continue to fight our annual battle with pests.  AC4D project director is spraying for spider mites in each of our 5 greenhouses between picking days. 

We will gather farmers for our early season farmer field day this week.  More pictures from that event to come.  One of the great advantages of hosting visiting farmers at our trial facility has been to hear their perspective on our major issues, namely soil quality and pest management.  One of the most helpful suggestions generated so far has been a plan to soil flush our greenhouses after each season with approximately an acre foot of water.  Our calculations show strong value for money invested in a slug of fresh water through enhanced productivity the following season.  More to come as we carry our the trial at the end of the season and replant for 2015/2016.

Ready to Produce for the 2015/16 Season

The last ten days of sunshine and warm weather, in addition to a lot of synthetic fertilizer, in the Jordan Valley have prepared our crops to produce through the winter.  We will begin deliveries thrice weekly to Syrian refugees within the next few days and will continue to do so without interruption for the next six months if all goes as planned. 

Standing in waist tall eggplant.  These will be great producers moving forward.

Workmen preparing cold season cabbage and cauliflower and spraying zucchini for worms. 

Responding to Crisis

As our team prepares for crops to begin producing the first week of December we are consistently reminded of how dire an issue food security is becoming for the 1 million + Syrian refugees currently residing in Jordan.  Our latest calculations show that the trial and development farm will feed between 60 and 70 thousand people for a week.  Our team is proud of being able to do so for about 20 cents per person per meal.  5 people for 5 days for 5 dollars was our 2014/15 seasonal average.  We believe that with more land under cultivation and better staff experience we will be able to do even better between December 2015 and May 2016.

In the long term only capacity building among farmers will enhance environmentally sustainable land and water management practices, bring down prices, and reduce wastage - the key issues in improving regional food security.

Click the link below for an excellent explanation of the current state of affairs in Jordan.
PBS Special

Disease resistant varieties of sweet peppers, grown in greenhouses to ensure top quality, are a sustainable path to better income for smallholder farmers across the Jordan Valley and the region.  Each greenhouse will also provide roughly 5 tons of produce for distribution.   

We want to thank our partners at the Australian Embassy for their visit to the farm today and for their tremendous contribution to sustainable development in the Jordan Valley.

Addressing Regional Hunger

In light of developments in local and regional food security AC4D team members are working with partners from across the world to formulate a viable plan to enhance productivity within Jordan in support of our Refugee Feeding Program as well as expand our farmer support and training component into neighboring countries in the near future.

As we increase the number of greenhouses on our Jordan Valley farm, as well as the amount of acreage under cultivation, partners have expanded our capacity to deliver a greatly increased amount of produce to refugee families for the 2015/16 season. 

Rainfed wheat trials will commence in 2016 in preparation for regional expansion.  Trials will center around conservation tilling practices which have the capacity to more than double current production.

Our long term goal is to take what we learn and develop in the Jordan Valley and to transplant those advanced, and regionally appropriate technologies, into the most significant food production areas of the Levant and Tigris Euphrates Basin as security allows.  This expansion will allow us to continue to provide relief to tens of thousands of refugee and internally displaced families throughout the region as we enhance farmers capacity to produce more, better quality, food at lower cost for the benefit of all. 

Syrian Refugees go Hungry

The beginning of a large plot of eggplant, a staple of the Middle Eastern diet

Food Shortage Dire Among Syrian Refugees Outside Camps

"Last week, more than 200,000 Syrian refugees woke up to the news that they would no longer be receiving the food aid that they had come to rely on. The message from the UNHCR read: “Due to the low amounts of contributions the World Food Program (WFP) is sorry to inform you that your food aid has been stopped.”

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Abeer Etefa, senior regional communications officer for the WFP in the Middle East, said the organization had done its best to keep delivering food aid to Syrian refugees but was no longer able to afford it.

“Let’s face the horrible situation here,” said Etefa. “We are facing a huge shortage of funds. We used to support around 100,000 refugees at the camps in Jordan in addition to 461,000 refugees outside the camps, but now with the low amounts of contributions we cannot.”

Link to Full Article

2015/16 - Field Prep & Big Picture Goals

As of September 1 our season officially began with deep plowing the sections of the farm that were deferred and phytoremediated (10 dollar word for planted with a useful cover crop last winter).  We are currently spreading organic fertilizer in our fields and preparing to move our irrigation network so that early season eggplant seedlings can be established while it is still hot.  Eggplant loves the heat. 

Plowing greenhouses in preparation for soil sterilization

Our big picture goals for the 2015/16 season are to continue to evaluate high value greenhouse varieties like Intruder, X3R Red Knight, Gourmet, and Sweet Sunrise peppers as well as an artichoke variety new to the Jordan valley called Jersey Knight.  These trials will be regularly highlighted at our farmer field days and through the myriad farm visits from neighboring farmers. 

Toward the end of last year our delivery team started getting requests for sweet melons from the recipients of our produce across Northern Jordan.  As luck would have it, a large quantity of Charleston Grey watermelon seeds were donated by our partners in Alabama.  Looks like sweet melons are on the menu for thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugee families across Northern Jordan!