Archive for the ‘Sectors’ Category
Biodynamic Calendar
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Indian farmers use a “panchangam” as a guide to farming activities. “Krishi Panchangam or Agro-almanac or Agro-panchang may be defined as ‘basic astro-agricultural guide book/ calendar published annually, giving calendrical information on various aspects of agriculture and allied activities, basically suggesting region-wise, season-wise and crop-wise crop strategy based on astro meterological predictions, giving auspicious/ inauspicious time for undertaking / avoiding various farm related operations, along with a list of performing religious rites, festival, observation fasts and some non-astrological guidance, primarily useful for the farming communities and persons having interest in agricultural development” (from http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/itk/almanac_types.html ).
The Biodynamic system of agriculture too has an active calendar and largely follows the cycles of the moon. There are three methods for planting by the moon, the Synodic, or waxing and waning cycle, the Sidereal, and the Biodynamic cycle. These can be seen at http://www.thegardenerscalendar.com/Moon_Planting.asp. The Biodynamic Association of India has its own calendar that can be seen at http://www.biodynamics.in/Oct11.htm
The theory behind the use of the panchangam and the biodynamic calendar is based on some scientific truth. The tides on our ocean are controlled by the proximity of the moon to the earth. When the moon is closer its gravitational attraction is higher and it pulls the water towards it causing high tide. A good animation can be seen at
http://www.mmscrusaders.com/newscirocks/tides/tideanim.htm
In a similar fashion it is suggested that after a seed is put into the ground the gravitational attraction of the moon can make it easier for the germination to take place. The idea is that the moon helps pull the germinating seed to break ground. There is a skeptics view presented at http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4643/is-there-any-evidence-to-support-the-benefits-of-lunar-planting. It also good to see:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5731145_do-phases-affect-plant-germination_.html?ref=Track2&utm_source=ask
Measuring fat Improves Income of Dairy Farmers
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Artificial Insemination technology that BAIF introduced and spread throughoutt India (see http://dev.ikf.in/baif/about_us_about_baif.asp) has gone towards improving cattle livestock, improving milk yields and better remunerations for farmers. There was another technology breakthrough implementation that gave dairy farmers raised incomes and better input quality control for the milk processing plants.
A small company called Shree Kamadhenu Electronics Pvt. Ltd. pioneered the technology and implementation of Milk Collection Systems.
“Shree Kamdhenu Electronics Pvt. Ltd. (INDIA) provides one stop solutions to the dairy sector Since 1996 under the brand name ‘AKASHGANGA‘ ™. We offer a total integrated solution for Automatic Milk Collection Systems (AMCS). More than 3,252 AMCS units are already installed. Simple, but appropriate solutions to facilitate timely collection of milk and thereby generating higher earnings for the rural milk producers by introducing Quantity, Quality based Payment System for the Milk Producers.”
(see http://akashganga.in/index.html)
The company is being modest on its own web site. The really important piece of technology they introduced was a means of quickly measuring the % of fat in the milk brought to the collection centre by the farmer.
This measurement when integrated with the existing Automatic Milk Collection System gave farmers more transparency, better incomes (higher milk fat means higher earnings) and better quality control for the milk processing plant. The system helped remove the practice of dilution of milk with water practiced by farmers and rewarded them for offering a better product.
“One key operation is to measure/weigh milk, indicate fat percentage, price payable to the supplier, indicate customer number, date-time and session of supply through a printout. For the record of Village Cooperative, a report is generated at the end of each session containing customer number, milk procured in litres fat content, amount payable to each customer separately for Cow milk and Buffalo milk. This report also contains additional feature to print total weight and average fat for Cow milk and Buffalo milk separately. Every ten days customer wise ledger containing information on total milk supplied and the amount payable to the customer for the period is generated.”
(see http://akashganga.in/KeyBenefits.htm)
One small company with a daily impact on a very large number of small dairy farmers.
Why electric heating is silly
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It is always annoying for me to see electric water heaters. The annoyance comes because in India we produce most of our electricity using coal. The overall thermal efficiency of a power plant running on coal wont exceed 30%. The electricity is transported over hundreds of kilometers (with a 20% loss during transmission and distribution). Then after many step down transformers (each with its on loss of heat) the electricity comes to your home. Now you attach a device that converts the electricity back to heat and that is your electric water heater. If you are not able to see that conceptually this a waste of a “good” resource like electricity, then I am afraid you wont like what I am about to say next.
There should be a move to ban electric water heaters across the country and the world. Electric water heaters waste electricity. They also waste a lot of good quality water as you wait for the hot and cold water to mix till it is the right temperature for you. In my house we have not installed electric water heaters. We heat up a small vessel with good quality water over a gas stove and then mix this in a bucket with cold water and get our desired temperature. It may be a bit inconvenient when there are many guests at home but it helps regulate water use as well. In Chennai good quality water is always to be conserved.
My work took me away from Chennai to Hyderabad and I was staying in a gated community that had ensured the houses had solar water heaters on the roof tops and also built a pressurized water system rather than one based on overhead tanks. The 16 months that I lived in that house were like being in heaven. The high pressure shower that very quickly adjusted its temperature meant an extremely refreshing start to the day and an excellent tonic before going to sleep. Our electricity bill would come to around Ts. 300/- per month since it was also fitted with Compact Fluorescent Lamps.
Biodynamic Chromatogram as an Analytic Tool
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The use of chromatograms in Biodynamic Agriculture was supposed to show the presence of a spiritual component a “formative force”. The chromatogram is an image developed from an extract of substances like soil, dung or food using simple commonly available chemicals. (see http://www.biodynamics.in/chrom.htm )
I first saw the chromatograms at a Biodynamic workshop held at Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, by C Jeyakaran and friends. I was accompanied by Dr. K Perumal and we were both representing Shri A M M Murugapa Chettiar Research Centre (MCRC), Chennai. Perumal and I, were both fascinated by the chromatograms and we discussed the similarity of the technique with conventional chromatography. I suggested to Perumal it would be good to see how important soil nutrients like Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) looked like with this technique.
Perumal kept working on this and a couple of years later after I had left MCRC we met again and discussed the technique. By then I was with n-Logue Communications Private Limited. n-Logue was putting up internet kiosks in villages and I was searching for special applications to put on the internet for the kiosks set up in the villages.
I suggested that Perumal should create a library/database of chromatograms. The IIT Madras had a bunch of researchers working on pattern recognition. If the chromatogram kits could be standardized then a chromatogram of the soil at a farmers field could be compared with images in the database using pattern recognition software through an internet connection at the village. The comparison and subsequent interpretation would be used to give guidelines on the quantity and type of nutrient the soil needed to become healthy.
These were just ideas we were throwing around at that time but Perumal continued to work on it and he even got research funding from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He worked and built a kit that gives repeated and reliable results. He also created a vast library of images. Validation of results used conventional techniques as well.
Today this technology is to be used to advise farmers on their soil nutrient requirements. Fo more information contact Dr. K Perumal (perumalk@mcrc.murugappa.org) at Shri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre. (http://www.amm-mcrc.org/)
Biodynamic Farming
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When I first came across Biodynamic Gardening I was 22 years old and understood it as a form of kitchen gardening that would maximize yield by close planting and stay healthy with companion planting all done on raised beds and was watchful of planetary rhythms. This was at Vadakadambadi village campus of the Shri A M M Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre outside Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu. (You can see the campus: http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=12.6208577&lon=80.1562285&z=18&l=0&m=b&v=8)
Almost 2 decades later I came to understand that the Biodynamic system was evolved by Rudolph Steiner (and his mysterious companion) who was part of the Theosophical movement led by Annie Besant. I learnt that the system had many other aspects including Biodynamic preparations and analytical techniques using chromatograms.
There are critics of the techniques and also many studies done to compare organic and conventional systems of agriculture with biodynamic agriculture. Most of these comparisons are incomplete and don’t really answer the question of which method is superior. However the results show that the biodynamic system works with minimal inputs and produces yields similar to the other systems of agriculture. Interestingly analysis of the soil in lands where biodynamic system is practiced showed “The Biodynamic farms proved in most enterprises to have soils of higher biological and physical quality: significantly greater in organic matter, content and microbial activity, more earthworms, better soil structure, lower bulk density, easier penetrability, and thicker topsoil.” ( see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture)
To any technocrat the methods of making the biodynamic prepartions seem more like magic than science. As a technocrat I have to say that despite my great skepticism the results I saw in the field were exceptional. While inspecting a tea garden where the system was practiced, one of the preparations called bark paste was applied on the tea bush, in a pruned section. In a neighbouring pruned section the paste was yet to be applied. Both sections had been pruned at the same time. The new bud generation on the section where bark paste had been applied was at least double or triple compared to that on the section where it had not been applied. This same garden has consistently yielded higher than the average for the district.
Organic Food – an alternative
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If conventional food abounds with chemicals that are harmful to humans and animals what are we to do? “The advantages of consuming organic food products over their chemically-doused counterparts is obvious. Since they are grown in an environment that’s completely free of synthetic inputs, such as fertilisers and pesticides, switching to organic food can help prevent a myriad of health defects like lower body weight, poor immunity and a damaged nervous system.” See the full article at.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/199991/going-green-way.html
The article contains several myths but is a good read. One of these myths is with regard to the yield that can be obtained from organic farming. The perception is that the yield will be lower than conventional systems of agriculture. A rigorous analysis of the data from many trials conducted across the globe will show that this is not true.
Conventional agriculture with its intensive use of fertilisers, high yielding varieties, pesticides and other synthetic inputs causes degradation of the soil. This degradation leads to higher cost of inputs and declining yield. Farmers at this stage are at their wits end as the land has negative productivity, meaning inputs and costs don’t match with yield and income. This degradation has to be reversed.
Reversal means that the soils have to be brought back to good health. This process can be speeded up or can be done at a slow pace. It requires time and money.
The fast way would be to replace unhealthy soil with healthy organic soil. Another way would be to improve the top layers with the addition of good quality compost. Depending on what crop is to be grown vermi-compost can be used around the individual plant root system and isolating it from the surroundings. In all these measures the residues left from conventional agriculture are not taken care of (except if the soil is replaced).
Organic farm certification requirements (according to the European Union) stem from the knowledge that most harmful residues reduce within a 3 year period and this period is called the in-conversion period for perennials (trees plants and shrubs that have a productive life cycle of more than 2 years). The in-conversion period for annuals (plants that are replanted like rice and wheat) is 2 years. This in-conversion period also varies from country to country.
Certainly, when a soil is unhealthy the yield will be poor whether you practice conventional or organic agriculture. However, once the soil is brought back to good health the organic system gives sustained good yields and in some cases can exceed the yield from conventional practice as plant vigour and ability to resist disease and infections is made better by good soil nutrient (compost, animal dung, oil cake, wood ash etc.) control and pro-plant inputs (plant protection and plant health inputs).
My personal experience while inspecting organic farms has been that when agriculturists practice scientific organic principles the yield will increase over conventional farming methods and provide a good return on investment.
Water Under the Ground
There have been several important regulations on ground water usage in India. The Chennai Metropolitan Area Groundwater (Regulation) Act of 1987 is one such. (see http://www.chennaimetrowater.tn.nic.in/admin/rainwater_rn.htm). The Government of India is now contemplating a cap on ground water usage and a tax to discourage its indiscriminate use for irrigation. These steps may be on the cards as the government looks to preserve this precious resource that is depleting at an alarming rate. This kind of regulation will have a direct impact on farm livelihoods and food security. Are there other mechanism that can serve the purpose is the question being raised here.
There have been many experiments, studies and enterprises that have attempted to resolve issues around ground water usage in a democratic way. Farmers in Andhra Pradesh have found interesting solutions to this issue. An interesting case study is presented in the handbook “Piloting Knowledge Swaraj: A Handbook on Indian Science and Technology,” edited by XIMB Professor Shambu Prasad. The case study can be found on pages 120 to 125 of the handbook. Click this link to access the Handbook: http://kicsforum.net/index.php?option=com_sectionex&view=category&id=16&Itemid=83.
Power to the People
In this post, Robert Moore takes a closer look at the recently published IFMR Report “Power to the People,” and the challenges raised.
The IFMR Trust recently released a report along with the World Resources Institute on clean energy options for the base of the pyramid in India. A previous Villgro post described the impact this report should have on energy entrepreneurs and investors but the general BOP practitioner can learn a lot from this new research as well. The document starts from a Macro level view of the market potential and then goes into more detail about specific issues that certain companies face. All of the information paints a highly valuable picture of challenges at the BOP that we all can learn from.
One of the first things to note was the surprising variations in market size. Of the $2.11 billion estimated aggregate potential market for the four sectors studied in the report more than 96% of it was for Decentralized Renewable Energy Sources leaving only 1.2% for solar home systems ($27.39 million), 0.8% for Solar Lanterns ($18.58 million), and 1.1% for Energy-Efficient Cook stoves ($24.13 million). While every report’s numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, seeing these low numbers should prompt BOP practitioners to try and understand the total market size potential for their own industry so as not to be blindsided by limited growth opportunities or high competition crowding that, if this report is correct, one can imagine will happen in this one.
Another benefit of this document is that it paints a picture of several businesses and the immediate challenges that they face. For example, one of the challenges discussed is the charitable distribution schemes that distort the local market. A real life example of this is how the free kerosene stoves and televisions promised by the Tamil Nadu has made the citizens there assume that the energy efficient cook stoves should be given to them for free as well creating a hard market for the energy efficient cook stove companies to enter as most of their customers are reluctant to pay for the product. This report is chalk full of other ideas like this that can quickly educate someone about what issues to look out for in the BOP.
A relevant issue that is pointed out in the document relates to incorrect assumptions that can be easily made in impact assessment and market acceptance. This particular situation reveals that some BOP energy companies might look more beneficial and feasible on the surface because they state their impact based on the assumed value of the fuel their clients are saving. You would figure there is no problem with this but while an energy efficient stove might have a significant reduction in the amount of fuel needed, it can’t automatically be assumed that it will be of value to the end user. This is because in many cases they get their fuel for free by just gathering biomass and burning it. When simple situations like these are illustrated throughout this document it becomes easier for one to imagine where there are incorrect assumptions about their own impact or market.
The rest of the report includes an overall introduction to India’s rural BOP clean energy market, the specific systems and products in place, and the roles of different players like NGOs and Governments. It is a great primer for their intended audience but also has a lot of insight that can be utilized across many sectors utilizing social innovation in India. You can view a copy of it here.
Notes from the field: Observations from DNE Network’s operations in Thanjavur
Contributed by Robert Moore
Siddharth Tata was invited by IFMR to take a hard look at DNE’s (Dairy Network Enterprise) Dairy Healthcare and Productivity Services Delivery Model in Thanjavur and tell them about things they needed to watch out for. His
comments include financial sustainability, the capacity of MFI partners, and importance of communication.
Read Tata’s entire post on the IFMR blog, here.
Clean Energy and the BoP: More Power to the People
In this article Robert Moore shares his thoughts on a blog post by Think Change India, which reflects on the issue of clean energy at the BoP. Read the original article here.
IFMR Centre for Development Finance and the World Resources Institute are coming out with a report focusing on clean energy options for the base of pyramid in India, this report is titled “Power to the people” which was released in Mumbai on the 28th of September 2010 in front of a host of social sector investors and companies.
This article introduces the realities of rural electrification and the basis for their upcoming report. It showcases a few significant concepts such as electricity access statistics, reliability, and the current market for alternative energy sources.
In India only 40% of rural households have access to electricity and 85% depend on kerosene for lighting and firewood for cooking. However the problem is actually worse than that because as an apple farmer quoted in the article astutely said “Most houses have electrical connections, but what is the use? We have power for a few hours a day. Even when there is electricity, it is barely enough to operate one or two light bulbs. We cannot rely on it.” This farmer makes an important point but this leads to an even deeper issue – imagine the trouble that commercial companies would have trying to rely on such energy distribution. How can India move manufacturing, processing, and industry jobs closer to the villages if the electricity isn’t even reliable enough for consumer use?
As the article goes on to illustrate, there are companies such as SBA Hydro which are selling clean energy products and services directly to the Base of the Pyramid population. The SBA Hydro company sells hydroelectric power but there is also SELCO which sells solar power and Husk Power Systems which sells biomass power to name a few others. Many of these company’s customers actually have access to electricity but as the quote above illustrates, the current available electricity just isn’t enough.
With SBA Hydro’s $1.26m investment from Acumen Fund allowing them to reach 6000 households, SELCO reaching over 120,000 households in the last 10 years, and Husk being able to reach over 10,000 households you can see that these companies are doing a great job providing solutions to the BoP. But even if 100% of their sales were to be from rural customers with no previous access to electricity this still only solves 16% of the 81 million rural households without electricity in India.
While each of these alternative energy companies are still pretty small and face their own challenges the “Power to the People: Investing in Clean Energy for the Base of the Pyramid in India” report should provide valuable information to both the investors and entrepreneurs trying to meet the needs of India’s rural electrification market. Hopefully with more reports like these the energy companies can make smarter decisions and investors will feel more confident about the financial and social returns they will achieve from deploying capital in this industry.
Ed. Note: Read more about the report’s launch on the IFMR website, and access the report here.