From “Innovation of the Week: Getting to the Market” by Molly Theobald:

For many farmers, an abundant harvest is only the first step toward feeding their families and earning an income. Vegetables ripening in the field—or even harvested and stored nearby—are still a long way from the market where they can be sold for a profit.

One farmer in Sudan’s Kebkabyia province, Abdall Omer Saeedo, has to travel 10 kilometres twice a week to the nearest market to sell his vegetables and green fodder. Without a cart, truck, or other means of transporting a large amount of goods efficiently, he couldn’t make enough money to cover his production and packing costs, let alone the cost of seeds for the next season, education for his children, and other household needs. And after making it to market with his 10 sacks and five bags of produce on the back of his donkey, he was still at risk for loss if he wasn’t able to sell it all. Instead of dealing with the hassle of trying to pack it back home again, he would throw away whatever wasn’t sold.

Saeedo sought the help of Practical Action, a development non-profit that uses technology to help people gain access to basic services like clean water and sanitation in order to improve food production and incomes. Working with local metal workers, the organisation designed a donkey cart for him. Now, Saeedo is not only able to cart his produce to market twice a week, he can also easily bring back whatever he is unable to sell. His income has increased along with the quality and quantity of his product, which is no longer lost or destroyed by travel time and conditions.

Practical Action’s transportation innovations are helping to improve farmer livelihoods throughout sub-Saharan Africa and around the world. In Kenya, the organisation introduced bicycle taxis as a way for people to earn a living, as well as an energy-efficient means to transport people from place to place. In Nepal, Practical Action’s bicycle ambulances help carry sick or injured people from remote areas to hospitals safely and comfortably. And in Sri Lanka, the group’s bicycle trailers—capable of carrying loads of up to 200 kilograms—are used to transport goods to market, people to hospitals, and even books to local communities.

Read the full article by Molly Theobald.

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From “Reusing bike parts to power water pumps, corn crushers and more” by Mira Olson:

A tiny workshop in rural Guatemala is pioneering cheap, eco-friendly, pedal-powered machines made from discarded bicycle parts.  A group of elderly, indigenous women wearing traditional hand-made dresses sit in a circle and exchange stories. Their continuous pedalling would go unnoticed, were it not for the noisy churning of the blenders placed on top of tables in front of them. The machines have enabled these women to form their own business: the sale of blue agave shampoo produced at their humble, cinderblock home.  The pedal-powered blenders are capable of speeds of up to 6,400 RPM and are used in multiple capacities in the community, from simple food processing to more creative applications.

They are but one example of several bicimáquinas (bike-machines) designed and built at Maya Pedal, a locally-run NGO in the small, rural town of San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala, which is still primarily inhabited by the Mayan people of Cakchiquel descent.  Thanks to the organisation, community members benefit from water pumps to irrigate their fields, mills to grind corn, devices for manufacturing concrete tiles, electricity generators capable of storing electricity in car batteries, coffee pulping machines that can accumulate up to 8000 pounds daily, trikes and trailers to transport people and goods within the community, and even three-cycle washing machines, all operated essentially while exercising.

The NGO itself is the product of a collaboration that took place in 1997 between a group of Canadians from the organisation Pedal and local mechanic Carlos Marroquín. Jointly, they created what would be Maya Pedal’s first and arguably most revolutionary machine: the bicidesgranadora de maíz, a device that removes the kernels from up to 15 corn husks per minute, allowing farmers to bag up to two dozen 43-kilo sacks per day.  Marroquín explains: ‘It was necessary to find a path and an alternative that would meet the needs of the locals and we researched and invested all that we could to do so.’

[...]

More than 4,600 Maya Pedal machines are now in use in San Andrés Itzapa and surrounding communities; some 400 volunteers, many from Europe, have also dirtied their hands to help in the process. And because of its growing international network, several of the ideas from the NGO have been implemented in indigenous communities throughout South America, North America and even in Africa.  This tiny workshop in a forgotten Mayan town in rural Guatemala highlights the ingenious power humans possess to overcome adversity and implement ecologically-friendly solutions for our daily needs.

Read the full article by Mira Olson.

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From Reigniting an Interest in Local Food by Danielle Nierenberg:

After journalism school in Senegal, Seck Madieng worked for the government. But he wanted to do “something real. I didn’t want to be a bureaucrat.” He left his job and started AgriInfos, the only Senegalese newspaper to focus entirely on agriculture, food, and healthy diets. “I’m interested in going into villages, talking to farmers, seeing how they work, how they eat. I’m trying to understand why they are poor and why they are hungry,” says Madieng.

In 2007, Madieng, along with local chef Bineta Diallo, started the Mangeons Local (Eat Locally) project in two schools in Dakar. Their goals? To teach students how foods were made and who grew and prepared them. Most urban residents in Dakar depend on foods made not in Senegal, but from Europe.
But their lessons aren’t just theoretical, they also teach students how to cook. According to Diallo, for many students it’s the first time some students have ever prepared or cooked food. Instead of baguettes and imported canned foods, the children are learning how to cook cereals and grains, including local rice varieties, fonio (a small grain typically used in couscous), millet, and sorghum. And rather than drinking milk out of boxes imported from Amsterdam, they’re learning how good local milk can taste, as well as all of the things that can be made from dairy products, including crème, cheese, and butter.

Children are the best communication vehicles to parents, according to Madieng and Diallo. They bring the skills they learn at school home, helping to improve their families’ diets. Mangeons Local also celebrates at the end of the school year with a big party highlighting local foods that parents, students, teachers, and the community can all attend. In addition to local food and juices, they play music from Senegalese musicians and singers, including Grammy winner Youssou N’Dour and Ismael Lo, and Bill Yiakhou, who all sing about agriculture.

Mangeons Local gets some support from Slow Food International, but all the staff are volunteers, which limits the number of schools who can participate in the program.

Original article by Danielle Nierenberg.

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Forward-thinking manufacturers are working to decrease the amount of packaging used for their products. Some offer concentrated formulas, others sell refills in bags instead of containers. Now, a Canadian startup has come up with an innovative solution we hadn’t yet spotted: refill cartridges that consumers dilute at home, with tap water.

Developed by Planet People, the iQ line of household cleaning products features small cartridges of plant-based concentrate. Consumers fill a spray bottle with ordinary tap water and pop in a cartridge. The coloured concentrate visibly mixes with the water, and voila: a full bottle of cleaner. iQ comes in four varieties: glass, bathroom, floor and all-purpose cleaner. All made with non-toxic and environmentally sustainable ingredients.

Besides reducing packaging and plastic waste, the system obviously cuts down on transportation, reducing fuel consumption and vehicle emissions. And—appealing to people’s wallets as much as their conscience—iQ passes on packaging and transportation savings to its customers. iQ starter kits, which include a spray bottle full of solution and a first refill cartridge, retail for approximately CAD 6.49, while cartridges are approximately CAD 2.79.

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Cyclists traveling to and from Portland International Airport have a new tool for at least one leg of their journey. A new bike assembly station on the lower terminal roadway will enable people traveling with bicycles to more easily assemble and disassemble their bikes before and after flights. With many travelers visiting Oregon and southwest Washington to take advantage of bike tourism and to participate in the region’s many bicycle events, the new station will help cyclists more quickly prepare their bikes for travel, whether it’s away from the airport on the PDX bike path or for a return flight home. The station is also available to airport employees who bike to work.

As an extra resource, Travel Oregon and the Port of Portland have basic bike tools available for check-out by cyclists assembling or disassembling their bikes. Cyclists can stop by State Welcome Center, located near bag claim carousels five and six, to borrow a pedal wrench, air pump, or just to peruse literature about bicycling resources in the region.

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Image: Hops by Susan Simon via flickr CC

The brewery Adnams has announced the completion of the construction phase of an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant, which will be the first in the UK to use brewery and local food waste to produce renewable gas for injection into the national gas grid as well as providing gas for use as a vehicle fuel. In partnership with British Gas and the National Grid, the facility will start injecting renewable gas into the gas grid later this summer. It is intended that the facility will produce enough renewable gas to power the Adnams brewery and run its fleet of lorries, while still leaving up to 60 per cent of the output for injection into the National Grid.

The Adnams Bio Energy plant consists of three digesters – sealed vessels in which naturally-occurring bacteria act without oxygen to break down up to 12,500 tonnes of organic waste each year. The result is the production of biomethane as well as a liquid organic fertiliser.

In addition, following an agreement with Centrica – the parent company of British Gas, Adnams Bio Energy has deployed British solar thermal panels and will shortly install cutting edge photovoltaic cells, which will in effect create a mini energy park.The deal will ensure that all of the site, including the Adnams Distribution Centre, will be using renewable energy generated on-site with some surplus energy available for export.

Read the full press release for more information.

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Brooklyn-based Kickstand Coffee uses two bicycles, a fold-up stand and a hand-cranked grinder to serve up sustainable hot and cold coffee at events around NY City.  Kickstand’s stated goal is to provide the best possible cup of coffee to community events in NYC with the smallest environmental impact possible.

The brainchild of three baristas, Kickstand Coffee relies on two 160-pound rolling carts that are each towed to location by a custom-built bicycle, according to a report on NYDailyNews.com. Once there, the carts unfold and attach to create a 9-foot-long bar that includes everything the trio need to make coffee. Beans are hand-ground on a cup-by-cup basis, and the iced coffee is cold-brewed; only Kickstand’s hot coffee – brewed on location using specially adapted Chemex glass beakers—uses any propane or electricity. The company is working on a mini folding bicycle that customers will be able to use to grind their own beans. Pricing for Kickstand’s coffee is USD 2.50 per cup, hot or cold.

Read the Springwise article.

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From “The Life Box: Packaging That Turns Into Trees“:

Now this is some truly brilliant package design: Mycologist Paul Stamets’ Life Box, a simple cardboard box impregnated with a mixture of Department-of-Agriculture-approved seeds.

The Life Box suite of products builds upon the synergy of fungi and plants by infusing spores and seeds together inside of packaging materials that can be planted.  The Tree Life Box is made of recycled paper fiber. In this fiber, we have inserted a wide variety of tree seeds, up to a hundred, dusted with mycorrhizal fungal spores. The mycorrhizal fungi protect and nurture the young seedlings. For millions of years, plants and beneficial fungi have joined together in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.

You can get started by simply tearing up the box, planting in soil, and watering.

The fungi “sprout” or germinate to form an attachment with root cells and extend into the soil with a network of fine cobweb of cells called mycelium. The mycelium mothers the seed nursery by providing nutrients and water, thus protecting the growing trees from disease, drought, and famine.

Stamets estimates that 1 tree out of 100 will survive to the 30-year mark, at which point it will have sequestered one ton of carbon. And how’s this for an endorsement: Al Gore is shipping his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, in Life Boxes.

Read the full article on Core 77.

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Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx) is a community organisation dedicated to Environmental Justice solutions through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs. In 2001, SSBx was created to address policy and planning issues like land use, energy, transportation, water, waste, education, and, most recently, design and manufacturing.

The Hunts Point neighbourhood in the South Bronx is one of New York City’s last remaining industrial areas. On the one hand, the neighborhood has numerous assets, including a waterfront location on the Bronx and East Rivers, proximity to Manhattan, the economic engine of the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center (the second largest in the world), new City-led development projects, waterfront parks, and a strong local organisational infrastructure. Simultaneously, it exhibits one of the highest poverty and unemployment levels in the City, with poor community health, noxious uses and commercial traffic, substance abuse, and prostitution issues.

Caught in the middle of these pressures are approximately 11,000 residents who have been neglected, under-served by the neighbourhood local economy. The one-square mile area of Hunts Point is bound by the Bruckner Expressway to the north and west, and the Bronx and East Rivers to the south and east.

Sustainable South Bronx has a diverse range of ongoing projects which deliver multiple benefits.  The South Bronx Greenway, for example, will create bike & pedestrian paths to connect key areas, but will also provide spaces for physical recreation, improve local travel options and create more employment, as well as improving air quality and reducing the heat island effect.

Visit their website for a better insight into the range of programs this 9-year old organisation delivers.

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From “Site connects producers and buyers of local food“:

The locavore movement may be focusing new interest on locally produced food, but regional farmers, ranchers and fishermen continue to struggle to find a market for their products. That’s as true in the Pacific Northwest as everywhere else, which is why Portland, Ore., nonprofit Ecotrust created FoodHub.

Launched late last year, FoodHub aims to increase food trade in the Pacific Northwest by connecting food buyers of all types and sizes with local farmers, ranchers, fishermen and food manufacturers. For food sellers, FoodHub offers an easy way to let buyers know what products are available and how to make contact to complete a sale. For food buyers—including local restaurants, public schools, grocery stores, caterers, universities and hospitals—FoodHub provides a robust database of food products that are available. Customisable search features allow a buyer to hone in on the exact product specifications they’re seeking — “pallet quantities of Northwest-grown certified organic black eyed peas,” for example. After paying an annual membership fee of USD 100, both buyers and sellers can create detailed online profiles; FoodHub’s message center, meanwhile, streamlines communications.

Deborah Kane, vice president of Ecotrust’s Food & Farms program, explains:“FoodHub is designed to be a one-stop-shop for the chef who needs six dozen artichokes for a menu special, the baker looking for a local source for flour, or the large institutional food buyer whose purchasing power could significantly stabilise a family farm.”

Currently, FoodHub is open to food buyers and sellers of all types in Alaska, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. However, Ecotrust intends to make the FoodHub platform available to qualified partners in other parts of the country as well.

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