Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Affordable Greenhouses: Improving Livelihoods while Fostering Food Security and Sustainability
EPA Grant Number: SU835374Title: Affordable Greenhouses: Improving Livelihoods while Fostering Food Security and Sustainability
Investigators: Mehta, Khanjan , Nassar, Abdalla , De Reus, Arianna , Eckard, Curtis , Gilliam, Jerrel , Bement, Shayne
Institution: Pennsylvania State University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2012 through August 14, 2013
Project Amount: $15,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2012) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , P3 Challenge Area - Safe and Sustainable Water Resources , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
Reflecting the rising global food security challenges, over 60% of the East African population is considered malnourished with many regions in a state of famine. There is broad agreement on the need to help small-scale farmers move from subsistence to sustainability by boosting their agricultural productivity, reducing spoilage and providing market linkages. Greenhouses allow farmers to grow vegetables and fruits year-round through mechanically controlled temperature and irrigation systems. Greenhouses can help farmers increase their yields and improve their livelihoods while reducing spoilage and furthering food security. With 80% of land area classified as arid or semi-arid, and 3% of land under forest cover, only 17% of land is cultivable in Kenya. Out of this, only 52% is actually cultivated. In the arid and semi-arid regions, access to water is a significant problem that is further compounded by evapotranspiration, or water losses from crops exposed to the environment, resulting in an increase in the total water demand for crop production. Greenhouses effectively reduce evapotranspiration by 30% when compared to open-field conditions, and the water use per unit yield can be lowered by up to 50% by the usage of a controlled irrigation system inside the greenhouse. Imported greenhouses sold in East Africa are designed for large commercial farms. They are too expensive ($2,000+) for small-scale farmers and do not meet their needs and use preferences.
Our team is collaborating with diverse Kenyan and Tanzanian organizations to design, prototype, and field-test affordable greenhouses designed for small agro-enterprises and sustenance farmers. The basic hypothesis is that growing fruits and vegetables in the affordable greenhouses will help regions with cold climates and arid / semi-arid climates to grow food for their local needs while reducing cost and environmental impacts. This model of improved local food production has a longer growing season and provides steady year-round employment while greatly reducing water, nutrient, land and transportation energy requirements. This significantly reduced water budget for agricultural production directly results in more food, improved livelihoods and food security, while furthering sustainability. Our technological innovation is design for extreme affordability and sustainability. The greenhouses will be designed to be manufactured for less than $450 and reduce water usage by at least 30%.
The specific goal of the proposed one-year project was to complete the design, feasibility analysis and impact assessment of a pilot low-cost greenhouse. With funding support from the EPA P3 program, our team intended to:
- Develop and refine the greenhouse technology in preparation for demonstration and dissemination through a network of distributed micro-enterprises. The focus will be on design for easy assembly and researching low-cost substitutes for greenhouse-grade plastics. Specifically, we will be researching the feasibility of rice bags as an extremely low-cost substitute for greenhouse-grade plastic.
- Develop and host a series of hands-on workshops and resources for entrepreneurs, educators and community development professionals on affordable greenhouse construction and greenhouse economics.
- Lay the foundation for a greenhouse entrepreneurial eco-system that connects entrepreneurs, educators, independent sales agents, non-profits, industry partners, government agencies, UN agencies and other players to discuss and address relevant issues. This will be a virtual network that convenes on a frequent basis.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Over the past six months, our greenhouses were redesigned for ease of manufacturing and assembly. The new manufacturing and onsite assembly processes were field-tested in Kenya and further refined based on the lessons learned. This rigorous multi-stage redesign process bore fruit and during Summer 2012, we licensed our core greenhouse technology to a company in Kenya called Mavuuno Greenhouses Ltd. Mavuuno mass-manufactures greenhouse kits for the East African market. The greenhouses are sold through a network of distributors. Construction agents, initially trained by our team, and subsequently by Mavuuno employees assemble the greenhouses on farms and train the farmers on startup and maintenance regimens. Our team is now helping Mavuuno 1) standardize their manufacturing and distribution operations, 2) expand marketing and seek larger business-to-business orders and 3) develop financial instruments to make our greenhouses accessible to smallholder farmers in rural areas. In parallel, we are currently negotiating a licensing deal with another company in Cameroon (for the West African market), and initiating field-testing and market development in Madagascar and Ghana. We have also received inquiries about our greenhouse designs from India, Haiti, Guatemala and other countries.
Our team created highly-visual greenhouse construction manuals for the Mavuuno management team, and a manual for construction workers to standardize the construction process. Most importantly, we assembled a comprehensive slide deck with over 300 powerpoint slides that encompassed information on all aspects of the greenhouse such as construction, maintenance, pest management, soil treatment, irrigation systems. These educational materials are comprehensive educational tools that facilitate the knowledge transfer alongside the technology transfer process and serve as a constant reference for employees and mass manufacturing partners. A virtual network to connect the various stakeholders related to greenhouses, agricultural processing, financing agencies, marketing agencies and several non-profits was established. Our experiences with field-testing these greenhouses and interfacing with the diverse organizations, cooperatives and farmer groups led us to the development of a typology of business strategies for commercializing agricultural technologies.
A wide range of innovative and affordable technologies have emerged to facilitate the creation, expansion and streamlining of Food Value Chains (FVCs) in developing countries. These technologies target various value chain activities, including agricultural production, processing, storage, marketing, distribution and consumption. Low-cost greenhouses, solar food dryers, threshers, grinders, storage and packaging equipment are just a few technologies that have the potential to improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers and agricultural workers while making FVCs more efficient and bolstering food security. To successfully disseminate these technologies, entrepreneurs need to develop sound business strategies to get their products to market as well as business models that potential customers can adopt to sustain and profit from the technology. Our paper (published in the proceedings of the 2013 NCIIA Annual Meeting) presents a typology of systemic multi-stakeholder business models to assist technology entrepreneurs in commercializing and integrating their agricultural technologies into FVCs. Further, we conducted a study of the impact of various abiotic stressors on these commercialization technologies. This comprehensive manuscript is under review in the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review.
Finally, the most important technical aspect of our work was researching low-cost substitutes for greenhouse-grade plastics. We are currently researching the feasibility of rice bags as an extremely low-cost substitute for greenhouse-grade plastic. We are studying properties of rice bags and experimenting with coating them with substances that absorb UV light. UV light and temperature swings are two biggest factors that impact the lifespan of rice bags. We are working on finding the optimal coating material and transmission level because a certain amount of light must pass through the plastic for plants to grow. The experimental procedure to determine the feasibility of using rice bags as an alternative greenhouse glazing was broken into three sections. The first section focused on the rice bags’ ability to transmit light, a vital material property when considering the operation of a greenhouse. This test was carried out by producing light perpendicular to a test specimen and using a spectrometer on the opposite side of the specimen to record the amount of light that passed through. Utilizing this setup, it was found that the average value for all the rice bags tested was below 35%, with most specimens averaging around 10%. A neutral density filter with an optical density of 0.6 was expected to have a transmission value of 25% and was found to have a value of 27%. Standard greenhouse plastic, rated at a transmission value of 90%, was found to have a transmission value around 62%. It is suspected that this value is so low because of the plastic's ability to diffuse light as it transmits through the glaze, thereby resulting in the diffused light not reaching the sensor of the spectrometer. Due to the unexpected low value of our primary test subject, bubble wrap was also tested and found to have an average transmission value around 66%.
The second portion of testing focused on the rice bags durability characteristics. Standard greenhouse plastic was coated with substances that prevent UV damage caused by prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. Rice bags do not have this protection applied during the manufacturing process. This test is currently being completed at Penn State Behrend campus. Penn State Behrend was chosen because of it's very prestigious plastics engineering program, that can provide us access to testing facilities. We expect these results to show us exactly how the rice bag specimens will degrade after UV exposure. To combat this, we have conducted research into various commercial, coating substances that are specifically designed to protect plastics from degradation caused by the sun. After a years worth of simulation (about 5 weeks of real time) the specimens will be tested to see the effects of the exposure on their tensile properties. Coating substances vary greatly from material type to application process, resulting in a wide range of costs. Titanium Sulfate is an attractive choice for our application because of it's low cost and usability. Currently we are using two types of Titanium Sulfate coating, one that is painted on to the glazing material, and one that is applied through a spray bottle. These tests are currently in progress and we expect all the results to be available by early June.
Conclusions:
Our low-cost eco-friendly greenhouses can be adapted to meet the needs of individuals in diverse climatic conditions in the developing world. Farmers can extend the growing season, reduce crop production time by up to one-third and hence increase the number of crop cycles in a year. The greenhouse reduces water consumption by 30% and ensures crop production despite seasonal fluctuations in weather. The lower water consumption enables farmers grow vegetables in semi- arid zones. In order to raise awareness of our technology, and make our greenhouses available to consumers, we have a three-step process. This can be modified depending on the country. First we identify entrepreneurial partners with the qualifications to start and manage a mass manufacturing greenhouse enterprise. Then we license our technology to these partners giving them the right to mass-manufacture our design. Finally, we offer technology, manufacturing and business development consulting to our partners to help them through start-up and expansion. We successfully accomplished standardizing the training and construction process for the greenhouses. As promised, we developed and validated comprehensive educational materials for workshops to educate diverse stakeholder about our greenhouse design.
While the core engineering design, education and supply chain objectives have been successfully accomplished, the quest for low-cost glazing substitutes is a work-in-progress across three locations – our research labs at Penn State, the Plastics Engineering program at Penn State Behrend, and onsite in Kenya. (Due to the lack of alignment between the academic and funding cycles, we were able to commence materials testing only in mid-January) Early results show that rice bags may not serve as perfect replacements for standard greenhouse glazing. However, they are still an affordable way to protect crops from harsh weather and pests and could serve instead as shade nets for the plants. Shade nets are a valuable tool that allow farmers to protect certain crops from potentially harsh sunlight. Seedlings are often grown under such nets, and then transferred to other locations to grow until full yield. Like a greenhouse, shade-houses will still be constructed so that water will be conserved within the system. Also, they can be used to create a separate micro-climate inside the growing structure which enables increased growth rates in crops, as well as the ability to grow plants not typically seen in that region. This can be advantageous for farmers because it will allow them to bring a different variety of crops to the market, increasing the potential for profit [2]. The data also reveals that bubble wrap may be a good choice for an inexpensive alternative to typical greenhouse plastic.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 6 publications | 2 publications in selected types | All 2 journal articles |
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Suffian S, De Reus A, Eckard C, Copley A, Mehta K. Agricultural technology commercialisation: stakeholders, business models and abiotic stressors - part 1. International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2013;2(5):415-437. |
SU835374 (Final) |
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Suffian S, De Reus A, Eckard C, Copley A, Mehta K. Agricultural technology commercialisation:stakeholders, business models and abiotic stressors - part 2. International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2013;2(6):561-567. |
SU835374 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Greenhouses, controlled environment farming, green energy, environmentally conscious manufacturing, food securityRelevant Websites:
Mavuuno Greenhouses Website: http://www.mavuunogreenhouses.com/ Exit
Video Pitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArgassZhBfw Exit
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.