APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY for DEVELOPMENT in RURAL ASIA return
AIT Review April, 1980 p.4-5 ait_80.doc
1. Low cost self-help housing: "Building Together"
2. Small scale water resources: a village dam"
3. Soybean seeder
4. Slow sand water filtration system
5. Biogas digesters
6. Fishponds fed from the slurry producing plankton of the biogas digesters
7. Bamboo reinforced road: bamboo is an alternative to expensive steel reinforcement and burnt rice husks has been studied as an alternative to cement to make concrete
8. Solar refrigerator
9. Solar rice dryer
10.Ferrocement rice storage bins
Is there a village of the future?
In a rural Asian village the sun overhead scorches the already parched earth. It's the dry season and the nearby stream, source of much needed water for irrigation, is dry.
The rural farmers meager savings are rapidly dwindling, and the rice they have stored from the last harvest will soon be finished.
Many rural farmers are deciding to join the ever-increasing migration of rural poor to already overcrowded cities, seeking employment of almost any type. If luck is with the family, the father may find employment as a laborer, cleaning sewers or sweeping street, the mother can possibly find work as a domestic servant and the children might sell newspapers or simply beg. The more fortunate drive taxis or are employed by construction companies and taught a trade.
Many developing countries of Asia are witnessing this rural migration to already overpopulated cities.
In the magazine "IDRC Reports" author Jean-Marc Fleury writes that: "Because of a phenomenal migration of the rural poor to the cities, the poor are coming to constitute the majority of the urban population in developing countries. If the present rate of urbanization continues, it is predicted that in the year 2000, of the 52 cities that will have a population of more than 5million by
then, 40 will be in the Third World."
He continues that "Attempts have been made to discourage migration to the cities by allowing newcomers to stagnate in filthy shantytowns. Some municipalities have tried to force them to leave; governments have even granted them land on the outskirts of the city. All this has been in vain. The poor return to settle near the city core where they have a better chance of finding work."
Technology applicable to the more sophisticated agricultural systems of industrialized nations could possibly help the poor Asian farmer. But generally working only small plots of land, sophisticated equipment and new methods of agriculture are in many instances unsuitable for the needs of the farmer and too expensive for his meager income.
At AIT, an international faculty and some of the brightest graduate students in Asia are working on appropriate technology to hopefully reverse this cycle of poverty in rural Asia, by increasing the farmers productivity and at the same time improve the quality of life.
Low-cost technological innovations, from biogas digesters-the slurry feeding fish ponds- to research into irrigation, rice drying and storage, the development of solar pumps, low cost water filtration systems and self‐help housing are being implemented by AIT usually under the sponsorship of various donor.
Traditional methods of agriculture and life styles need not to be cast aside, but integrated with new methods of production and housing to improve the farmer's life style and provide a brighter future for his children.
There has been much written about the city of the future. It could possibly be that a“village of the future" might be the cure for urban ills.
BIOGAS AND FISH PONDS
At the Institute work is underway on biogas digesters, using night soil mixed with rice straw and water hyacinth to produce cooking gas. The slurry producing plankton from the tanks is then fed to Tilapia fish in nearby man-made fishponds.
The biogas digesters are constructed of low cost concrete cylinders; the tanks then connected with plastic pipes. The gas may be produced from either human or animal waste. After the initial cost of construction a veritable free source of gas and fish food are available.
WATER RESOURCES
Critical to any farmer is a reliable supply of water. A study has been completed at AIT and is now being implemented in Thailand. It is called "Water for the Northeast: A Strategy for the Development of Small-scale Water Resources.
The study recommends that villagers own and operate village water projects by forming Village Water Committees. It was found that a strong sense of ownership would be needed to ensure proper operation and maintenance of projects.
It was discovered that more than 80 per cent of farmers in the northeast of Thailand couldn't benefit from large reservoirs in the region, which are used for water storage and hydroelectric generation.
The study reported that the only solution for water supply in some areas would be dug ponds or deep wells.
Under a grant from the international Development Research Center, IDRC, Canada, the Division of Structural Engineering and Construction is developing a 1ow-cost hand pump, constructed of plastic, which will be operational to depths of at least 46 meters.
For irrigation from streams a solar pump model, based on a thermodynamic conversion method, using an intermittent Rankine cycle with Freon-113 as a working fluid, has been developed by a student in the Division of Agricultural & Food Engineering. The pump can lift water to a height of five meters, with a discharge of four litters per minute.
With an ever-increasing population, many sources of drinking water for villages are polluted. In the Division of Environmental Engineering low cost rapid sand filtration water purification system has been developed. Presently relying on electric pumps, water is pumped into a prefiltration rock bed, then further pumped into concrete tanks where the water is filtered through sand, producing clean, potable water.
NEW CROP PLANTING METHODS
One crop, which fetches a good market price and is very nutritious, is a soybean. In an effort to increase the use of paddy growing land luring the dry season, farmers in Taiwan and Thailand plant soybeans directly into rice stubble, thus avoiding the need for tillage.
Most of the work is‐Performed by women and is both back breaking and time consuming. In order to improve the planting both in efficiency and convenience, a simple manually operated soybean seeder with a roller-metering device, has been developed in the Division of Agricultural & Food Engineering.
Workers presently are required to either bend over or squat while sewing soybeans. By using the soybean seeder, the worker stands pressing the seeder into the rice stubble to plant the seed. Soybean production is increased and the labor made less backbreaking.