Innovation of the Week: Providing an Agricultural Answer to Nature's Call

by: BorderJumpers

Thu Mar 18, 2010 at 09:52:40 AM EDT

It’s hard to believe, but an estimated 2.6 billion people in the developing  world—nearly a third of the global population—still lack access to basic  sanitation services. This presents a significant hygiene risk, especially in  densely populated urban areas and slums where contaminated drinking water can  spread disease rapidly. Every year, some 1.5 million children die from diarrhea  caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.

It is in these crowded cities, too, that food security is weakened by the  lack of clean, nutrient-rich soil as well as growing space available for local  families.

But there is an inexpensive solution to both problems. A recent innovation,  called the Peepoo, is a  disposable bag that can be used once as a toilet and then buried in the ground.  Urea crystals in the bag kill off disease-producing pathogens and break down the  waste into fertilizer, simultaneously eliminating the sanitation risk and  providing a benefit for urban gardens. After successful test runs in Kenya and  India, the bags will be mass produced this summer and sold for U.S. 2–3 cents  each, making them more accessible to those who will benefit from them the  most.

In post-earthquake Haiti, where many poor and homeless residents are forced  to live in garbage heaps and to relieve themselves wherever they can find  privacy, SOIL/SOL, a  non-profit working to improve soil and convert waste into a resource, is  partnering with Oxfam GB to  build indoor dry toilets for 25 families as well as four public dry toilets. The  project will establish a waste composting site to convert dry waste into  fertilizer and nutrient-rich soil that can then be used to grow vegetables in  rooftop gardens and backyards.

In Malawi, Stacia and Kristof Nordin’s permaculture project (which Nourishing the Planet co-director  Danielle Nierenberg visited during her tour of Africa) uses a composting toilet to fertilize the crops. Although these units  can be expensive to purchase and install, one company, Rigel Technology,  manufactures a toilet that costs just US$30 and separates solid from fluid  waste, converting it into fertilizer. The Indian non-profit Sulabh  International also promotes community units that convert methane from waste into biogas  for cooking.

On a larger scale, wetlands outside of Calcutta, India, process some 600  million liters of raw sewage delivered from the city every day in 300  fish-producing ponds. These wetlands produce 13,000 tons of fish annually for  consumption by the city’s 12 million inhabitants. They also serve as an  environmentally sound waste  treatment center, with hyacinths, algal blooms, and fish disposing of the  waste, while also providing a home for migrating birds and an important source  of local food for the population of Calcutta. (See also “Fish Production Reaches a Record.”)

Aside from cost and installation, the main obstacles to using human waste to  fertilize crops are cultural and behavioral. UNICEF notes in an online case study  that a government-run program in India provided 33 families in the village of  Bahtarai with latrines near their houses. But the majority of villagers still  preferred to use the fields as toilets, as they were accustomed to doing their  whole lives. “It is not enough just to construct the toilets,” said Gaurav  Dwivedi, Collector and Bilaspur District Magistrate. “We have to change the  thinking of people so that they are amenable to using the toilets.”

Stories We Tell Ourselves

by: Miep

Mon Feb 01, 2010 at 01:59:40 AM EST

We tell ourselves a lot of stories. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact we need them. But we should always be looking at what the story we're telling is, and what the underlying stories are.

US Blockades Starving Haitians

by: Jacob Freeze

Tue Jan 19, 2010 at 05:37:08 AM EST

Every day, a United States Air Force cargo plane specially equipped with radio transmitters flies for five hours over the devastated country, broadcasting news and a recorded message from Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador in Washington.

"Listen, don't rush on boats to leave the country," Mr. Joseph says in Creole, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. "If you do that, we'll all have even worse problems. Because, I'll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from."

And of course what Haiti really needs, more than food, water, or even medecine, is...

More American soldiers!

The US has about 1,000 troops in Haiti and another 2,000 are on their way. There are also 9,000 UN peacekeepers and international police officers in the country.

There has been criticism from some aid agencies of the Americans for giving priority to military flights at the airport while planes carrying relief supplies are unable to land. MSF (Doctors without Borders) has had five planes turned back from the airport in recent days, three carrying essential medical supplies and two with expert surgical personnel.

"We lost 48 hours because of these access problems," said Leduc. "Of course it is a small airport, but this is clearly a matter of defining priorities."

Asked how many avoidable deaths had been caused by the delays, he said that hundreds of critical lifesaving operations had been delayed by two days.

"We are talking about septicaemia. The morgues in the hospitals are full," he said.

And that's the way it is, Tuesday, January 19, 2010, in Haiti and the USA.

Business As Usual in Port-au-Prince

by: Jacob Freeze

Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 17:05:04 PM EST

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy...

"Each ethno-national community is valuable in and of itself since it is only within the natural encompassing framework of various cultural traditions that important meanings and values are produced and transmitted. The members of such communities share a special cultural proximity to each other. By speaking the same language and sharing customs and traditions, the members of these communities are typically closer to one another in various ways than they are to those who don't share the culture. The community thereby becomes a network of morally connected agents, i.e., a moral community, with special, very strong ties of obligation. A prominent obligation of each individual concerns the underlying traits of the ethnic community, above all language and customs: they ought to be cherished, protected, preserved and reinforced. The general assumption that moral obligations increase with cultural proximity is often criticized as problematic. Moreover, even if we grant this general assumption in theory, it breaks down in practice. Nationalist activism is most often turned against close (and substantially similar) neighbors rather than against distant strangers, so that in many important contexts the appeal to proximity will not work. It might however retain its potential force against culturally distant groups."

Haiti's neoliberal catastrophe, pre and post quake

by: fairleft

Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 14:27:17 PM EST

The most depressing four paragraphs I've read recently were these by Patrick Cockburn on Friday (emphasis added):

Haitians are now paying the price for this feeble and corrupt government structure because there is nobody to coordinate the most rudimentary relief and rescue efforts. Its weakness is exacerbated because aid has been funneled through foreign NGOs. A justification for this is that less of the money is likely to be stolen, but this does not mean that much of it reaches the Haitian poor. A sour Haitian joke says that when a Haitian minister skims 15 per cent of aid money it is called 'corruption' and when an NGO or aid agency takes 50 per cent it is called 'overhead'.    

Many of the smaller government aid programs and NGOs are run by able, energetic and selfless people, but others, often the larger ones, are little more than rackets, highly remunerative for those who run them. In Kabul and Baghdad it is astonishing how little the costly endeavors of American aid agencies have accomplished. . . . Foreign consultants in Kabul often receive $250,000 to $500,000 a year, in a country where 43 per cent of the population try to live on less than a dollar a day.    

None of this bodes very well for Haitians hoping for relief in the short term or a better life in the long one. The only way this will really happen if the Haitians have a functioning and legitimate state capable of providing for the needs of its people. The US military, the UN bureaucracy or foreign NGOs are never going to do this in Haiti or anywhere else.

There is nothing very new in this. Americans often ask why it is that their occupation of Germany and Japan in 1945  succeeded so well but more than half a century later in Iraq and Afghanistan was so disastrous. The answer is that it was not the US but the efficient German and Japanese state machines which restored their countries. Where that machine was weak, as in Italy, the US occupation relied with disastrous results on corrupt and incompetent local elites, much as they do today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.

"Haitian Honey for the Month of October"

by: Jacob Freeze

Sat Jan 16, 2010 at 18:57:27 PM EST

Marie Jolene is better known to most on MySpace as "Se Li." She is 21 years old, gorgeous in every way and smart as a whip. She was born right outside of Port-au-Prince, in Leogane, Haiti, and now resides in Florida.

Online Se Li displays a beautiful portfolio of pictures, showing off her beauty in many different ways. Whether it's high heels and a skirt, or laying back pye a tè, she gives off a sense of style and class. She enjoys spending time in West Palm beach, but also loves music and dancing. Se Li still finds time to pursue a master's degree in accounting.

Visit Se Li on MySpace.

Beni Swa Leternel!

Haiti Before and After

by: Jacob Freeze

Thu Jan 14, 2010 at 12:58:22 PM EST

Above is a picture of Haiti before the earthquake, and below is a picture of Haiti today.

And this is a list of emergency appeals for humanitarian assistance from the Red Cross and Red Crescent for the month of December, 2009.

Time To Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

by: Miep

Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 05:18:11 AM EST

Because Haiti is well and truly fucked, from what it looks like.