Prevalent narratives of agricultural innovation predict that we are once again on the cusp of a global agricultural revolution. According to these narratives, this so-called fourth agricultural revolution, or agriculture 4.0, is set to transform current agricultural practices around the world at a quick pace, making use of new sophisticated precision technologies. Often used as a rhetorical device, this narrative has a material effect on the trajectories of an inherently political and normative agricultural transition; with funding, other policy instruments, and research attention focusing on the design and development of new precision technologies.

A growing critical social science literature interrogates the promises of revolution. Engagement with new technology is likely to be uneven, with benefits potentially favouring the already powerful and the costs falling hardest on the least powerful. If grand narratives of change remain unchallenged, we risk pursuing innovation trajectories that are exclusionary, failing to achieve responsible innovation. This study utilises a range of methodologies to explore everyday encounters between farmers and technology, with the aim of inspiring further work to compile the microhistories that can help to challenge robust grand narratives of change.

We explore how farmers are engaging with technology in practice and show how these interactions problematise a simple, linear notion of innovation adoption and use. In doing so, we reflect upon the contribution that the study of everyday encounters can make in setting more inclusionary, responsible pathways towards sustainable agriculture.

Read more (open access): Rose, David Christian, et al. “The old, the new, or the old made new? Everyday counter-narratives of the so-called fourth agricultural revolution.” Agriculture and Human Values (2022): 1-17.

Reader Martin Monin shares some links around hemp processing:

I don’t know if you have some research or an article under preparation for this, but as you know, hemp is an extraordinary plant for the low tech transition, and yet its use is still marginal, as it’s costlier than cotton/concrete and the other chemical/petrol substitutes.

There are multiple parts in the process, from the retting of the plant (which can be done naturally by letting the plant in the field after its cut, or chemically – like the Chinese do). And then decorticating, separating the fiber from the stem, and the flower/seeds. From my small research, it seems that the industry is more looking into huge machines to process the huge fields of American and Australian farmers. But there is not much around small scale farming, and I was wondering if you knew of any low tech projects around hemp processing?

Here is a machine made in Latvia that seems interesting but does only a small part of the whole process : https://hurdmaster.com/

And another project between USA and Zambia to build a whole hemp processing facility, very interesting : https://ehemp.house/

The dream would be to build a micro autonomous plant that produces seeds + flowers for CBD extraction, fiber for textile production and hurd for construction isolation…

Best,
Martin

Historic Zuni waffle gardens, circa 1919. (Photo courtesy of Kirk Bemis)

For the past 64 years, Jim Enote has planted a waffle garden, sunken garden beds enclosed by clay-heavy walls that he learned to build from his grandmother. This year, he planted onions and chiles, which he waters from a nearby stream. It’s an Indigenous farming tradition suited for the semi-arid, high-altitude desert of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, where waffle gardens have long flourished and Enote has farmed since childhood.

“They are the inverse of raised beds, and for an area where it is more arid, they’re actually very efficient at conserving water,” said Enote, who leads the Colorado Plateau Foundation to protect Indigenous land, traditions, and water. Each interior cell of the waffle covers about a square foot of land, just below ground-level, and the raised, mounded earthen walls are designed to help keep moisture in the soil.

Read more: The Resurgence of Waffle Gardens Is Helping Indigenous Farmers Grow Food with Less Water, Greta Moran, Civil Eats, October 2021.

“We ask a simple question: how sustainable is the “smart farm”? We take a technical, ecological, and social view of the systems that comprise a smart farm. Our aim is to tease apart which, if any, of the practices are actually beneficial, and which are simply a substitution of resources or a mere shifting of (human and/or ecological) externalities in time or space.

To evaluate the smart farm concept, we focus on two scenarios: indoor smart farms (controlledenvironment agriculture such as vertical farms), and outdoor smart farms (in which the environment is less controlled, but managed via precision agriculture). We also provide examples of the values that smart farms embody, who stands to gain from their operation, and what better alternatives might exist.

Read more: Streed, Adam, et al. “How Sustainable is the Smart Farm?” LIMITS 2021, (2021).

Previously: Vertical farming does not save space.

During a global catastrophe such as a nuclear winter, in which sunlight and temperatures are reduced across every latitude, to maintain global agricultural output it is necessary to grow some crops under structures.

Either a small regional nuclear war, such as India vs. Pakistan or a minor one-sided nuclear assault on population centers could catalyze a global nuclear autumn, which would starve millions of people.

This study designs a method for scaling up crop production in low-tech greenhouses to contribute to global food sustainability during global catastrophic conditions. Constructing low-tech greenhouses would obviate growing crops using more expensive and energy intensive artificial light. To significantly contribute to world-wide food demand, these greenhouses must be constructed quickly, cost-effectively, and in extreme quantity.

The greenhouse structures are designed to utilize global markets of timber, polymer film, construction aggregates, and steel nails. The limiting market that determines the growth rate of the greenhouses is the rate at which polymer film and sheet are currently extruded.

In an event that causes sunlight and temperatures to decrease over the entirety of earth, most crops would be too frost sensitive to be grown outside the tropics, and even the tropics would require an alternative method to growing crops than simply conventional growth outdoors. Conditions under low-tech greenhouses in the tropics would feasibly accommodate the production of nearly all crops. Some supplemental lighting would be required for long day crops.

The analysis shows that the added cost of low-tech greenhouses is about two orders of magnitude lower than the added cost of artificial light growth. The retail cost of food from these low-tech greenhouses will be ~2.30 USD/kg dry food higher than current costs; for instance, a 160% retail cost increase for rice. According to the proposed scaling method, the greenhouses will provide 36% of food requirements for everyone by the end of the first year, and feed everyone after 30 months. (Population is considered constant at currrent values).

Source: Alvarado, Kyle A., et al. “Scaling of greenhouse crop production in low sunlight scenarios.” Science of The Total Environment (2019): 136012. Open access.

Traditional housing for chickens in Zembe, Mozambique. By Ton Rulkens – Traditional housing 2, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Global sustainability requires large-scale reductions in rich world per capita resource use rates. Globalised, industrialised and commercialised supply paths involve high resource, energy, dollar and other costs. However, “The Simpler Way” involving small-scale integrated localised settlements and economies can enable enormous reductions in these costs. This study uses input–output analysis of one product, eggs, to illustrate how big the difference between the two paths can be.

The industrial path results in a dollar cost at the supermarket check-out that is at least twenty times that of the local path if a labour cost is included, and 100 times if one is not. The multiple for energy costs when the industrial total ends at the factory out-gate is about 166 kJ/4.3 kJ = 39/1. A complete account which added the energy costs of waste disposal and transport from the supermarket to the household, etc. might raise the cost for the industrial path to above 1.5 MJ per egg, i.e., to the region of 350 times the energy cost for the alternative path.

This study provides a concrete illustration of the large savings that can be associated with production in small scale, highly self-sufficient and cooperative local economies. It draws attention to the rarely recognised “diseconomies of scale”. In complex, multi-functional and integrated local economies the close proximity of productive activities along with informal networks of communication and production enable many functions to be carried out easily and spontaneously, eliminating the need for many intermediary functions, industries and costs.

Often outputs such as manures can immediately become valued inputs to other activities, many tasks and problems can be dealt with informally with minimal need for equipment, and many functions such as transport and warehousing can become unnecessary. Design can ensure that elements perform overlapping and multiple functions. For instance forest gardens can provide wind breaks,fruit, vegetables, grazing, honey, dyes and perfumes, leisure resources, habitat for birds that feed on garden pests, roofing shingles, chemicals such as eucalyptus and creosote, mulch, sawn timber and firewood. Familiar informal communication and sharing networks involving multi-skilled citizen performance of many functions can enable rapid action at little or no material cost.

The implications for sustainable development are profound. If the findings of this study are sound and generalizable the Simpler Way would enable very large reductions in resource and ecological impacts for sustainability to be achieved, but only if extremely radical changes are made in economic, political and cultural systems. With respect to Third World “development”, our results reinforce the emerging alternative view which seeks to avoid the dominant capital-intensive trickle-down approach and explores the potential of local, sufficient, cooperative, participatory, resource-cheap and frugal ways.

This is the first of three tools for small scale grain processing. The other two tools are the bicycle powered fanning mill and the bicycle powered de-huller/flour mill.

Unlike some “hacks” for small farmers, the Grain Bikes don’t solve an acknowledged problem so much as create new opportunities for small farmers. Dry beans and grains are non-perishable, can be sold, eaten, or planted to avoid seed costs (such as rye for cover crops), and, the labor for processing them can be shunted to the winter when more time is available.

Find the manual at Farmhack.

Many societies, ancient and contemporary, have innovated ways of supplying their fields with fixed nitrogen and phosphorus—two crucial ingredients for crop productivity. One is crop rotation, which alternates nitrogen-fixing and nitrogen-exhausting crops. Farmers around the world make use of chickens, ducks, and geese to add “fresh” guano to their fields. Cattle manure is another useful alternative—although it often lacks in phosphorus. Much more labor intensive than simply adding fossil-fuel derived synthetic fertilizer, these practices tend to build up soil, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and lead to less run-off into rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Persian pigeon towers are one of the more elegant solutions to the nitrogen-phosphorus problem. These are essentially castles built for thousands of wild pigeons, strategically placed in the middle of the fields. Their droppings were shoveled up once a year and sold to nearby farmers. While most pigeon towers existing today are in disrepair, the oldest still standing are dated to the 16th century (but they are assumed to have existed over 1,000 years ago) and helped fuel the cultivation of Persia’s legendary orchards, melons, and wheat production.[1]

Snakes

The basic design of pigeon towers is simple. Its main structure is conically shaped and made of mud bricks. At the center of the structure rests a large cylindrical drum, surrounded by smaller pillars, also made of the same brick—this design maximizes the potential surface area, allowing some towers to house up to 10,000 pigeons. The bricks are indented to create a small cove and ledge for the pigeons to nest in. At the very top of the tower there are holes that allow pigeons to come and go as they please. These holes are also designed to be inaccessible to snakes—the pigeon’s main natural predator in the region.

The structural cracks in many pigeon towers are said to be due to the tremors caused by thousands of birds in panicked flight when they spot a snake. The central drum also houses a stairway, and most towers have one or two doors to allow someone to collect droppings and check in on their guests. Sometimes the pigeons are provided with grain and water, making the tower a free bed and breakfast. In other cases, pigeons ate from the surrounding fields. Never mind AirBnB: this is the true sharing economy.

Pigeon towers are an example of what’s called vernacular architecture—a type of structure that is architecturally unique but has no single creator. Likely passed down by families throughout the ages, the design of the pigeon tower tends to be isomorphic with regional variations.

 Source: Flickr.

One unique aspect of the Persian pigeon towers is the ledge of the bricks on the inside of the structure. The repetitive feature creates a mesmerizing honeycomb effect, in which the whole becomes greater than the parts. It is also amazingly inventive, in that it enables the maximum number of coves with a minimum of building material. The bands of smooth plaster around the exterior of the tower may seem decorative, but are also highly functional: unlike the rest of the bricks, snakes have trouble climbing up this low-friction surface.

10,000 years

For centuries pigeons played a significant role in the Persian economy and political system. Farming first evolved in Iran 10,000 years ago, and considering this long tradition, the focus has been on sustaining yields over time rather than short-term maximization of profits.[2] Pigeon towers became a crucial part of the agricultural economy, providing much-needed fertilizer for melons, cucumbers, and other nitrogen-demanding crops—cornerstones of Persian cuisine. With characteristic enterprise, rulers even taxed owners of pigeon towers—the equivalent of taxing salt or fossil fuels.

Pigeons also featured significantly in Persian culture—to such an extent that most European travelers, starting with Marco Polo, felt the need to make remarks about them in their travel diaries. Pigeon dung was also used to make gunpowder, well before Europeans started playing with explosives.

Most pigeon towers still around today are in the area of Isfahan, the second most populous region in Iran. However, many of these lie in disrepair. There are also pigeon towers in Eastern Turkey, but these differ greatly in their design. These look like small shacks that dot the hillside, but are actually entrances to larger caves dug into the limestone bedrock, providing large empty spaces for the pigeons to nest in. Often villagers will hang baskets in the shacks and caves as nests for the pigeons. These dovecotes are often still in use, but, like the ones in Iran, are more and more falling into disrepair.[3]

Low Maintenance

While Iran was almost self-sufficient in food production in the 1960s, the increased use of synthetic fertilizers actually lowered food productivity, as they scorched the thin soil. Water scarcity is increasingly a problem in many areas of Iran—Isfahan being one of them [9], and high-input agriculture is using up most of what’s left.

This confluence of problems indicates the need to start practicing alternatives to high-input agriculture. Despite their decreased use, pigeon towers have some benefits over other low-tech alternatives in use today, such as the practice of some organic farmers to roll chicken coops over their fields. Another example is the flightless Indian runner duck, which some farmers let stampede fields in hordes, laying droppings and eating pests.

Photo: Safavid dovecotes near Isfahan. Mohammad Reza Pourjafar, Mohammad Reza Leylian, Farid Khodarahmi & Farhang Khademi Nadooshan

First, unlike chickens or ducks, wild pigeons are extremely low-maintenance. Provide water and shelter, and they will come. A pigeon tower is also stationary: no need to spend the whole day rolling an enormous shed around your field, or herding ducks. Like chickens, you can also eat pigeons and harvest their eggs—although peasants in Iran seemed to have abstained, in part due to the important place of pigeons in Islamic cultures. Best of all, pigeon towers are extremely low-tech: no wheels, electricity, or tractor needed: just bricks and a shovel to harvest the droppings, and some maintenance work every couple hundred years.

They may lie in disrepair today, but pigeon towers stand as monuments to the enduring importance of low-tech solutions to contemporary crises. It’s no surprise that the region that gave birth to agriculture has also refined innovative sustainable agriculture methods for thousands of years. Pigeon towers were one such innovation—and they helped Persian farmers cultivate all kinds of crops on previously arid, thin-soil land.

Aaron Vansintjan

[1]. Beazley, Elisabeth. (1966) “The pigeon towers of Isfahan.” Journal of Persian Studies: 105-109.
Bekleyen, A. (2009). The dovecotes of Diyarbakır: the surviving examples of a fading tradition. The Journal of Architecture, 14(4), 451-464.

[2]. Koocheki, A., & Ghorbani, R. (2005). Traditional agriculture in Iran and development challenges for organic agriculture. The International Journal of Biodiversity Science and Management, 1(1), 52-57.

[3]. Bekleyen, A. (2009). The dovecotes of Diyarbakır: the surviving examples of a fading tradition. The Journal of Architecture, 14(4), 451-464.

[4]. Before Europeans ‘discovered’ the enormous islands of bird droppings—guano—off the coast of South America, Andean people collected and sold the fecal gold for over 1,500 years.

[5]. http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708

[6]. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fertilizer-produces-far-more-greenhouse-gas-expected

[7]. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#nitrous-oxide

[8]. Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton et al. “A safe operating space for humanity.” Nature 461, no. 7263 (2009): 472-475.

[9]. Erdbrink, Thomas. (2015) “Scarred riverbeds and dead pistachio trees in a parched Iran.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/middleeast/scarred-riverbeds-and-dead-pistachio-trees-in-a-parched-iran.html

L’Atelier Paysan is a French-speaking collective of small-scale farmers, employees and agricultural development organisations who design open source farm tools.

Based on the principle that farmers are themselves innovators, they have been collaboratively developing methods and practices to reclaim farming skills and achieve self-sufficiency in relation to the tools and machinery used in organic farming.

They have an English language website, which includes about a dozen tool descriptions with technical drawings. All tools can be appropriated and modified by farmers.

Self-Built Machinery

In France, as in other “developed” nations, technological practices in agriculture are mainly driven by the agro-industry, and correspond to its particular needs. L’Atelier Paysan wants to reassert ownership of the system-wide design of farms.

According to the collaborative, the development of tools and self-built machinery adapted to small-scale farming can provide a significant impact on the growth of organic farming and contribute to improving organic farming practices.

Collectively validated designs are available for — among others — a wheel hoe (used for weeding between rows of crops), a bed ridger (which can be used instead of a plough to incorporate crop residue and green manures into the soil), a tilter (for cultivation), and a roller (for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil).

Most tools are aimed for use with small tractors (using the quick hitch triangle that replaces the traditional three point linkage system), while others are developed for use with animal draught power.

About a dozen other open-source designs are in progress. One of these is the Aggrozouk, a light pedal-powered tool carrier. Tools are hitched onto the underside of the frame through an electrically powered assistance system.

Via Farm Hack, which is a similar collective of DIY farmers in the USA.

Previously:

• Slow Farming Tools
• The Agricultural Building and Equipment Plan List: Over 300 Free Plans
• Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them (1912 Book)
• All Low-tech Farming Posts

As a result of the industrial revolution and the subsequent development of “big agriculture,” small-scale farming tools have become almost obsolete. In order to fulfill the demand created by a burgeoning community of small-scale farmers, Stone Barns Center has partnered with Barry Griffin, a design engineer, to develop farming equipment and tools. Called the Slow Tools Project, this partnership brings together leading engineers and farmers to design and build appropriately scaled tools that are lightweight, affordable and open-source.

They have identified 34 tools in need of development, beginning with a small electric tractor that will serve as the “motherboard” frame to which other tools can be attached. Other inventions to follow will be the solar-powered “Horse Tractor,” which could have a significant impact among cultures dependent on draft animals and where drought limits water availability, and a compressed-air grain harvester and processor.

In the summer of 2015, The Slow Tools Project will focus on the development of a Bed-Former/Shaper powered by a BCS walking tractor; a hug-wheel driven, walken behind electric tool carrier; a two-layer clear plastic blanket for field-scale soil solarizing; and a 30-inch wide stripper/header to harvest grain for poultry.

Slow Tools, Fast Change, Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture. Read more at the Farm Hack Blog.

Light-weight farm equipment is already available from the Amish in the USA. For example, I & J Manufacturing,  Pioneer Farm Equipment, and Heavy Horse Equipment manufacture farm equipment that can be drawn by horses, mules or garden tractors. For an overview of modern horse drawn equipment, check out this website.

More low-tech farming.

When the British colonized India, they imposed their own system of water management, which included the building of large-scale dams, sewers, and irrigation channels. This high-tech approach continues today, as the World Bank is urging India to build enormous dam projects to fight drought and depleted aquifers. The Indian government has followed its advice. Its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called dams the “Temples of modern India”. Since then, India has built over 5,000 dams and large reservoirs. [1]

However, before the British arrived, people on the subcontinent used traditional low-cost, low-tech engineering to collect rainwater for thousands of years. This involved the placement of thousands of small structures throughout rural areas which, in one way or another, catch excess rainwater from the monsoon months and allow it to slowly percolate into the groundwater during the dry season. To maintain and manage these structures, community-based management schemes were necessary. However, these were actively discouraged during British rule and following independence. As a result, in the 20th century many of these small reservoirs fell into disrepair.

In the 1980s, the Alwar district in the North-Western state of Rajasthan was one of the driest in all of India, even though older villagers remembered that its rivers used to flow in the past. Many farmers were migrating to the cities, as there was no longer any means of subsistence from the land. In 1985, Rajendra Singh—now known as the ‘Water Man of Rajasthan’—arrived in the area and started encouraging villagers to rebuild their old water reservoirs, or water johads. When the villagers had constructed 375 johads, the river began to flow after having been dry for several decades. [2]

By 2003, Singh, through the NGO Tarun Bharat Sangh, had helped with the construction of over 5,000 johads and the rejuvenation of 2,500 old reservoirs, providing irrigation water to 140,000 ha. and 700,000 people. [3, 5] In 2015, 8,600 johads had been built, bringing water back to 1,000 villages. [4] The johads are incredibly cheap and productive—at 100 rupees per capita, they can raise economic production by as much as 400 rupees per year. Compare this to nearby Sardar Sarovar Dam project, which cost 300 billion rupees, and cost 100 times more per person supplied with water, and 340 times more per hectare irrigated. [3]

The design of water johads. Source: Anupma Sharma, National Institute of Hydrology

And yet water johads are extremely simple and low-cost structures that require no large equipment or expensive materials to build—simply a village of able hands and local elements. After digging a pit, the villagers shape the excavated earth into a semicircular mud barrier. A stone drain is sometimes set up, allowing excess water to seep into the ground, or connecting it with johads nearby. Essentially the johad will capture runoff from monsoon floods and allow it to slowly percolate into the water table during the dry months. When many johads are built in one area, they have a cumulative effect, resulting in the replenishment of whole aquifers. [5] In addition, it has been shown that the water stored in the aquifers does not draw away water from communities downstream. [6]

It’s important to note that water johads are place-specific technologies and cannot necessarily be replicated to other geographical locations or climates. They require steady sloping land—where each johad can feed water into another downstream—and a rainy season, where floods can fill up the reservoirs during the dry months.

In addition, constructing and maintaining thousands of water reservoirs also required new forms of resource management. Since the government refused to participate with the johad construction efforts, or recognize that they were effective—its policies remain tied to the development narrative. Villagers decided to take matters in their own hands and organize their own water management councils, which have now expanded to managing forests and parks through participatory and democratic methods. The result is what some have claimed a miracle: bringing water back to a water-scarce and impoverished area.

Building Community

An engineer might look at a johad and claim that it is far too simple a technology—there is no innovation here, let alone a miracle. This is true: similar technologies exist all over the world. In Mediterranean countries, for example, rain water catchments were built over a thousand years ago and continue to provide water to farmers during dry seasons.

Rajendra Singh attributes the success of the johads to the fact that the technology encourages people to work together, building community while addressing essential needs. This is in strong opposition to the large government-built dams, which have displaced millions of people in India and, on average, have increased poverty. [5]

So, perhaps the key innovation with the johads is that rather than relying on engineering expertise or governmental action, villagers have constructed the johads themselves through traditional methods and community participation. The result is the revival of a low-tech tradition that is far more cost-effective than high-tech dams could ever be.

Aaron Vansintjan

Sources:

[1] International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). http://icold-cigb.net/GB/World_register/general_synthesis.asp?IDA=206

[2] The Water Man of Rajasthan. Frontline. Sebastian, Sunny, 2001.

[3] Water-harvesting in India transforms lives. Alternet. McCully, Patrick. 2003

[4] An ancient technology is helping India’s “water man” save thousands of parched villages. Ghoshal, Devjyot. 2015.

[5]. Water Harvesting: Alwar, Rajasthran. National Institute of Hydrology (Roorkee, India). Sharma, Anupma.

[6]. Traditional Water Harvesting Structure: Community behind ‘Community’. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 41, No. 7, pp. 596-598. Kashwan, Prakash, 2006.

[7]. “Dams,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, MIT Press, vol. 122(2), pages 601-646, 05. Esther Duflo & Rohini Pande, 2007.

Related: Madakas.

The Landscape Table is a platform for cultivating, processing, cooking and sharing the food at the centre of the FARMPARCK in Brussels, Belgium. Thanks to the edible and medicinal plants inserted into the table itself, the installation invites the public to meet and eat in direct contact with a landscape that is a bounty for the senses – sight, smell, touch and, above all, taste. The essence of this project is to involve the visitor in the landscape, farming, nature and cooking through shared moments.

FARMPARCK puts to the test a new model for a public space combining the characteristics of a park and farmland, where food is grown, cooked and eaten by the neighbours. There is a vegetable garden, an animal farm, a kitchen, and a compost toilet which is to transform the park’s organic waste into “terra-preta”  (black earth, a rich and fertile soil) for the park and the surrounding area. FARMPARCK, which happens in a multicultural neighbourhood, meets both social and ecological needs. It was set up as a prototype from May to September 2014, but continues to be active today. Picture: Eric Dil.

The Culticycle is a pedal powered tractor that can cultivate, seed, spray, or pull gear for most low horsepower tasks. We talked about the first prototype almost two years ago. A new version has now been released, built around a modular tractor frame. Tim Cooke explains us how it’s built and how it works: 

“The math behind the idea is nothing more than observing that a lot of the work a tractor does – shallow cultivation, seeding, flame weeding – requires very little of its available horsepower; and since these jobs are best done between 3 and 5 mph, a bike can be geared down low enough that a human can produce the necessary horsepower.

Take the cranks, seat, and handlebars from a bike and center them in a 4-wheel, lightweight, modular tractor frame: the obvious frame material is telestrut. For the front end use 20″ bike wheels and forks. You need about a foot of clearance but you want a low center of gravity and as much traction as possible: get 25 x 8 ATV tires for the rear, ideally with aluminum rims.”

“Assume you’ll pedal at 60 rpm and use a gear ratio of about 2.2 on the cranks to 3 on the differential. Now you have 25/12 x π for one revolution of the tire, x 22/30 gear ratio, x 60 rpm, x 60 minutes, divided by 5280 feet per mile = 3.3 mph. Pedal at 70 rpm and you’re at 3.8 mph. Meanwhile you’re not hunched and twisted and causing joint damage, you’re getting aerobic exercise.

And if your farm is bigger with tighter time constraints, have 2 or 3 of these machines set up specifically for those 2 or 3 row spacings that you use the most, and put the interns or volunteers on them. For instance one with a basket weeder, one with sweeps, one with finger weeders. Or fatten the front tires and throw a 12 foot aluminum ladder across the chassis and hang those big plastic harvest bins from each end, out over the beds, for lettuce harvesting: you could put 100 pounds on each end of the ladder.”

See the culticyle in action in this video.

Related articles:

• Pedal Powered Farms and Factories: the Forgotten Future of the Stationary Bicycle
• How to Make Everything Ourselves: Open Modular Hardware

It’s not an advantage that’s often emphasized, but organic fields are much more beautiful than monocultures. The picture above was shot north of Santa Cruz, USA. Photographer is Lloyd Kahn, author of the fascinating Shelter blog.

Livestock at waste management park in Bobbili, India

Lowly as it may seem, Bobbili prides itself on its zero-waste zone with a comprehensive recycling system that ensures nothing goes to the landfill. Their unique solution involves door-to-door collection of household waste strictly separated as dry and wet, and the 2010 ban on plastic. The spotlight of the scheme is the Municipal Solid Waste Park – a 8.5-acre site comprising a bio-compost yard handling 2.5 to 3 tonnes of organic waste a day. The most innovative part is the utilisation of livestock.

A 2012 report by India’s Regional Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies states that “animals are the part of the solution, not the problem. The livestock’s potential contribution in solving environmental problems is equally large. The livestock contribute to tackle our environmental degradation by a variety of ways.”

By 2012 the park kept 4 chickens, 21 ducks, 6 pigs and other animals for different functions. Chickens are benefited from the insects in the waste, whilst pigs would gulp the food waste collected from hotels. Ducks take care of the leftovers collected from the fish market. Dogs are in charge of domestic leftovers. The ‘park farm’ is probably the first in the world to implement animal feed on a municipal level.

Solid Waste Management Park in Bobbili, India

The animal farm takes its inspiration from the history of feeding animals with organic waste. Dogs, especially domesticated ones, are effective in taking care of meat scraps. As a common practice in traditional pig farming, pigs often consume the leftovers, rather than energy and cost-intensive crops. Ducks and chickens respectively favour kitchen scraps and milling by-products. Given the extraordinary effectiveness of earthworms to decompose vegetable and food wastes, vermicompost is another key of this living waste management system.

Besides the fact that landfill relief means avoided methane emission, animal waste can be a sustainable source of natural fertiliser whose cost and carbon footprint are way lower than artificial ones. More importantly, because the system doesn’t involve complex technologies, it can be easilly implemented – though in a smaller scale – on household levels. Just by keeping dogs and resuming the tradition of backyard chicken, we can easily reduce kitchen scraps and contribute to a significant cut in food waste.

This is a guest post by Ren Wan, a writer and sustainability advocate who is based in Hong Kong. She runs JupYeah, an online swapping platform, is a managing editor for WestEast Magazine, and blogs at Loccomama. Ren previously wrote about Furoshiki, a square cloth that with different wrapping techniques can basically transport anything.

“Like Asia and the Americas, the continent of Africa is blessed with a rich tropical flora. Many of the 50,000 or so plants that evolved within its forests and savannas ripen fruits to tempt the myriad wild creatures into spreading their seeds. Speaking generally, Africa has as many of these tasty morsels as tropical Asia or America.

This fact, however, is something one would never guess by looking in produce markets or college textbooks. Today, American and Asian species dominate tropical fruit production worldwide, including within Africa itself.

For this, there is good reason. Africa’s fruits have not, by and large, been brought up to their potential in terms of quality, production, and availability. Geographically speaking, few have moved beyond Africa’s shores; horticulturally speaking, most remain poorly known. Thus, the vast continental landmass lying between Mauritania and Mauritius contains a cornucopia of horticultural, nutritional, and rural-development jewels still waiting to be cut and polished.”

• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 1: Grains (1996)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 2: Vegetables (2006)
• Lost Crops of Africa: Volume 3: Fruits (2008)

The three volumes can be consulted online at The National Academic Press. Previously: Lost crops of the Incas. Via Avantgardens.