Food // Current TV

Money is Not Needed in Energy Abundance

In order to understand the very basis of money, it is best to contemplate how it... more

Amaterasu
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Best of Raw Awards Livestream

The Annual Best of Raw Awards honor and celebrate People, Places, Products & Media... more

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In Benin, solar powered irrigation pollutes less and produces more

In 2007, the nonprofit Solar Electric Light Fund began helping women’s collectives in the west African nation of Benin water their vegetable gardens using solar power. The system they used was simple enough: solar-powered water pumps, paired with drip irrigation. Each of these two technologies have been shown to improve the lives of people living in poverty, off the grid. But few people had ever tried combining them.

“Neither of them were particularly innovative in their own right, but bringing them together truly was,” says Bob Freling, SELF’s executive director. “I found precious few examples of solar drip irrigation. Frankly, it was puzzling, because it seemed like a perfect fit.”

This technological innovation means the women’s collectives can keep producing crops during the region’s six-month dry season, provide greater food security to their families, and start thinking about sending their kids to school. It also could help communities survive and adapt to climate change. The project is now expanding: At least eight more villages in Benin will start using the solar irrigation systems.

Drip irrigation delivers water directly to plant roots, increasing crop yields and using 40 to 80 percent less water than traditional irrigation systems. It’s particularly well suited for dry places, like the semi-arid Sahel region of which Benin is part. But it also requires power inputs, which can be hard to come by in off-the-grid communities. When SELF began working on the project, one of the pioneers of drip irrigation, Dov Pasternak, was working to spread the irrigation technology across west Africa. Pasternak had designed a vegetable garden that used diesel generators to pump water into the irrigation system, but Freling says “That was going to be a non-starter for us.”

Although Pasternak was skeptical of the affordability and longevity of solar systems, he agreed to work with SELF, and soon, Freling says, became "a die-hard believer in solar." The system installed in the pilot villages pumps water into a holding tank from a surface stream in one and from an underground source in the other. Gravity pulls the water to the plants, a mix of vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, okra, and cabbage. Because it’s powered by the sun, the system self-regulates: more water goes to the plants when it’s sunny, which is when they’re most thirsty.

Since the beginning of the pilot program, SELF has worked with researchers at Stanford’s Center for Food Security and the Environment to monitor the impacts of the program on the communities using the irrigation systems. The women involved the project document their plantings, their haul from the gardens, the portion they feed to their families, and the portion they sell. Already, the women report that they’re better able to provide for their families: Women growing vegetables with the technology fed their families 3 to 5 more servings of vegetables each day during the project's first year. The women in the project use the extra income to buy staples for their families, and the community as a whole benefits from the increased availability of vegetables during the dry seasons.

More at the linkIn 2007, the nonprofit Solar Electric Light Fund began helping women’s... more

JanforGore
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Let Us Forgive

Because I need a link: http://amaterasu101.blogspot.com/2011/03/let-us-forgive.html... more

Amaterasu
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TEOE - Part 2

Continued from Part 1 -... more

Amaterasu
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The End of Entropy - Part 1

The End of Entropy: A Look at Our Entropic World and the Evidence Supporting How We... more

Amaterasu
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Special report: The hungry generation

One young child in four around the world is too malnourished to grow properly, a major... more

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Ron Paul Stands Up for Raw Milk and Health Freedom

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Milk Do The Math: Some Revealing Statistics

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Cooking Healthy Family Meals on a Limited Budget?

Low-income American are cooking dinner most nights but are struggling to make healthy... more

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The Antiwar Comic: How Much For the War?

Michelle Bachmann demands war reimbursement from the countries the US bombs.

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Superstar Quamallah & DeQawn "Bad Muthafuk@h" (Music Video)

Superstar Quamallah & DeQawn "Bad Muthafuk@h" from the album... more

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Chipotle Grammy Commercial Promotes the Small Farm Movement

Willie Nelson and Farm Aid are in heaven right now! The two minute commercial... more

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Borat's Ken Davitian wrestles with Mr. Media but keeps his pants on! Audio Interview)

2010 audio interview with actor Ken Davitian, co-star of Borat, guest star on Chuck,... more

andelman
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Birria de Chivo

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The Burrito Wars

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baghdadbythebay
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Young, Broke & Beautiful Burritos

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Tales from the Missionary Hut: The Hoe

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World lacks enough food, fuel as population soars: U.N.

We have a long way to go to solve this.... more

11dim
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Jamie Oliver Discusses Pink Slime

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