Today's webinar is one of an 11 part series that runs every Tuesday right up to the 9th of December.
The webinar series covers three broad topics, rainwater harvesting, groundwater research in Africa, and water point mapping.
Each webinar has a particular focus. If you're interested in attending any of the other webinars, please register through the link shown.
You'll be then sent details on how to join each webinar.
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For those of you in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the time remains the same every week.
Okay, so it seems that a lot of people are having problems connecting their audience, so I'm just going to go back to this slide here.
For those of you who haven't connected your audio yet, you need to go, well, I could describe it, but then you wouldn't be able to hear me, so that's not much help.
Great, we've got more people being able to hear.
Okay, so if everyone's happy with that, we will move on and start proceedings.
So, now that we've completed the technical check for the webinar, let us begin.
Today, we're going to learn about rainwater harvesting and food security, and we have two cases that IDE will present on work in Honduras and in Burkina Faso.
Today's team to introduce you, so I'm your facilitator today, and I'm based at the Secretariat of the Royal Water Supply Network, RWSN.
In a moment, I will hand over to Robert Mierman, who will give an introduction from the Rain Foundation and give some broad context on the rainwater harvesting.
And then our two presenters today are Carlos Umineta, I'm sorry, I've just butchered your name Carlos, and Lawrence Stravato, both working for IDE.
In the background, we have hosting, translation and moderation, Martin Lang, answer for your Blair, and Kirsten Danit, all my colleagues here at SCAT.
This webinar is 16 minutes in length, following the introduction to the topic, we shall hear from our two presenters.
In about 40 minutes, we shall open the floor to you for comments and questions.
I'm going to use these in the chat box. Now, let me hand over to Robert for a few words of introduction.
Thanks a lot for the introduction and the explanations, Sean. I hope you can all hear me.
I'd like to give a bit of an explanation of the context as Sean rightly mentioned, and I represent the Rain Foundation, which is an organization that focuses on rainwater harvesting and rainwater harvesting for multiple uses and multiple purposes.
So that basically includes rainwater harvesting for drinking, for domestic uses and productive uses as well.
And in this program, Rain is working with EFOD, the Fund for Agricultural Development.
So this program focuses on rainwater harvesting and food security.
We are doing that program with a number of people, and first of all, I'd like to thank RWSN once again for setting up these webinar series.
And in this particular case, I'd also like to thank IDE for presenting their cases on rainwater harvesting and food security.
Just as more of a background information, the EFOD program has three objectives. One is connecting actors, a broad range of stakeholders that are interested in rainwater harvesting.
In this program, we're working with, for example, IDE, RWSN, but also the water channel and rainwater harvesting network, such as SIRNET and IRHA from Geneva.
The last webinar was, for example, of some work that we do with ACFOR as well.
So these are basically some of the partners that we work with under this program.
We're trying to visualize that in a website that we have created, which is rainforfood.net.
I'm going to write that straight away into the chat box so that all of you can check that website.
This program also, so on one hand, it's connecting actors. We have been launching a community practice that has almost 400 members today of over 70 countries, so that's gaining some ground.
And we're also working with ambassadors, ambassadors in order to stimulate that rainwater harvesting is, well, in our case, or at least what we plead for is that rainwater harvesting should be, its potential should be unlocked.
The second objective of this program after the connecting actors is collecting and disseminating knowledge on rainwater harvesting.
So this webinar, for example, is for you to learn from.
Next to that, we've also created an online library on the website that I just sent around, and we've created the so-called wiki-pedia on rainwater harvesting.
And the third objective of this program is demonstrating and unlocking the potential of rainwater harvesting for increased food security.
And the latter, so this third objective demonstrating what can be done, is actually today's topic for the webinar, is that by showing cases from the field, in this case Burkina and Honduras, what can be done with rainwater harvesting.
So that's in very briefly the program and its content, and if you have any questions, please get back to me.
And so the word is up back to Sean, and thanks and enjoy the webinar.
Great. Thank you very much, Robert. That's wonderful.
So now I would like to introduce our first speaker, who is Lawrence Trevato, who will first bring up his presentation and hand over presenter rights.
And then he will lead us through the work that IDE have been doing in Burkina Faso.
Lawrence, are you there? Yes, I am, Sean. Wonderful. Okay, the floor is yours, sir.
Thank you, Sean. An experience to present through Internet my first time.
I love to present usually in front of people and share the passion of IDE, but I will try through the technology.
So thanks for this opportunity of presenting our work we have done with rain.
Robert, you told me about the logo. I know you changed your logo, but this was done two years ago about coloration to develop training on multiple uses system, integrating rainwater harvesting.
So this has been done, this was actually planned in Mali, and due to the tension, actually a civil war was starting, we changed the project from Mali to Burkina.
So very briefly, because also my colleague and friend Carlos will present IDE.
IDE is an NGO, a social enterprise, our headquarters is based in Denver, Colorado. We are working in 15 countries.
We work mainly on water, but also on sanitation with the objective to increase income for smaller farmers and also to develop the market-based approach.
So in some countries like Asian or East African, this is more easy. This is tough to be mainstream in other places like Burkina Faso.
This is not always easy because you have a policy which is promoting subsidies, and we try to work with it and to really change mentality to approach of philosophy.
Last thing about IDE, I always like to introduce IDE or concept with Paul Polak. Paul Polak has been a founder.
30 years ago he had the concept of developing the market-based approach, and it's coming from the North, from the US actually.
He was a psychiatrist in Denver. No, we are not all crazy at IDE, but this was his job and he was working with homeless people.
And what he noticed was like homeless people are even more suffering from food problems, water, hygiene.
But one of the main things in the US, which is a country where market is free, market is probably that homeless people cannot access market.
If they want to buy a cigarette, for example, they need to buy a pack, even if they don't have the money.
If they want to have a locker, they need to wait to have the money for 6 hours of locker where they can have one hour which will help them.
So the market is wrong for poor, small, the farmer, for the base of pyramid.
So this is a philosophy of IDE, and I will explain through a presentation, a work with Rain, about rainwater harvesting,
and what we have tried to do to make rainwater harvesting more markets appealing.
How we can develop it through local private sectors.
So you can see in the first picture, this is our tech center and this is the product we developed with Rain.
So it's engineering. I'm not an engineer. I work with some engineers on it. I will explain how it has been built.
But the concept was, okay, rainwater harvesting in Mali in Burkina costs 1 million CFR.
We challenge ourselves to reduce and to add the price by 3 or 4.
And we came to this price, which is $279,000 CFR.
More or less, I will quickly make the translation, the exchange rate.
But this is more or less in U.S. dollars. This is more or less 600 U.S. dollars, which before was 2000 U.S. dollars.
So on this slide, okay, how to move it.
I need to move the slide.
Okay, yep, there we go. You got it.
So as you are all aware, an interest by this webinar, Rain is one of the leaders of rainwater harvesting.
So the technology was to collect rainwater from the roof for domestic uses.
So the main composition of our work was on cylinder structure.
When we look at Australia, we look at all materials. I mean, we are in Burkina, but we look at what are the lower rainwater harvesting tanks in the world.
In Australia, at this start of materials, using cylinder structure of metal sheets.
Of course, with different type of metal, but we try to use it with local metal sheets from Burkina Faso.
And we join it by screws and maintain together by slight iron rings.
So also, its construction requires a big roof surface.
And you can see why also the cost, we made the roof.
It was in our tech center. We didn't have roof and we made it.
So you can even reduce the cost of the price I was mentioning earlier.
If you have already a big roof, you can probably go to $250,000, even to $200,000.
But this is important to mention.
So the picture of rainwater harvesting has a storage volume of 18 cubic meters.
Or we use it. So I mentioned previously, domestic.
Rain in partnership with El Betas were really much interesting in domestic water uses.
But domestic, we could not find a better price.
This is extremely challenging because you need to be extremely cautious with the hygienic conditions.
And we didn't want to go in this direction because we will know, we will not make a big difference in prices.
And we think what we find was mostly using the rainwater harvesting for agricultural reason,
laundry dishes, and also water supply for the old digester.
We were finding there is a niche, there is no actually other product in the market for it in Burkina Faso.
And we developed this table of things.
So here are details about cost.
And I will explain what has been the components for how we built it.
So I guess they're made of metal sheets, a lot together, water that falls from the roof.
Now by metal sheet was of course the lowest cost product.
And we made a shed also not only for capturing water but also for the protection, for algae proliferation.
And this is important even if you use your water for agricultural reasons.
So this is a test which is where you have 18 cubic meters.
You can see the water is quite muddy because it is water taken from a dam around the tech center.
But this was for the test. This is not rainy water.
Now for this year, if you travel to Burkina, please come to our tech center.
We have approximately nine cubic meters for the rainwater.
We cannot feed all the tanks despite a good rainy season.
So the main issue is on the roof. It's not on the rainwater tanks.
So for the structure, water proofness, we have four concrete slabs and sand.
Very low cost materials. This was the objective.
And one of the main challenge when we built it, and I'm coming back to slide number six,
we tried first to fill the tank with it without the next slide without a canvas.
And this was a discovery. Even when we stopped the training with Elvetas
through our discussion with it, we changed it because it was still working,
but we have some defeats.
You could keep the water, but it was not perfect for long term,
which the canvas is not so expensive. It increases the cost,
but now it's still working for the last two years.
So this is a key solution in the structure of water proofness, the canvas.
Okay, so also the canvas is protected from sun degradation.
And metastasias are protected from rust by external good run. We use good run.
So you can see for this is an orgy, empty rust painting is applied on the flat iron rings.
So for water extraction, so at the start we wanted to have it domestic,
so that's why we made this tap.
But at the end you realize that this water will be mainly for agricultural use,
but you can still use it for dishes. That's something important.
Okay, so now I finish with a rainwater listing tank.
So at this moment we got USID, LMK International, even USF asking us to develop its market.
But we need to continue our research and we have been discussing with some partners.
It's not yet, we are extremely careful as a social enterprise and NGO to put a technology in the market.
We need to be sure that it's going to be efficient.
We don't want farmers or even donors or government people to invest in a technology which is not successful.
So now we are at a state where we have a demand but we are still asking for some support for research implementation
and doing it in the field, not in a protected tech center.
But now I will briefly explain our drift irrigation success.
So you can understand also our approach of social entrepreneurship in Burkina Faso.
We started years, three years and a half ago and we were working with the SDC,
we see development cooperation to develop micro irrigation technology.
After a market analysis we selected DRIP as a potential technology.
We were looking at motopumps, treadle pumps, all the technology we find DRIP is the most interesting interval of market development.
Why?
Triddle pump has been a failure in Burkina ten years ago through a World Bank project.
10,000 triddle pumps were given away, lack of quality control and at the end farmers didn't trust this product.
So we didn't want to work on it anymore because we knew we could not get scale through this product.
Micro motopumps already the Chinese and Indian are developing this market.
The price every year, the price of motopumps are going down.
This is amazing, I came into this country four years ago, it was 150,000 CFR, now it's 85,000 CFR.
You still have issue of quality.
I think this is something where private sector could take a lead on it and getting some maintenance,
but for the product in itself, no interest.
I mean the market is already there, the supply chain is well established.
So we find drip irrigation was something where you have lots of potential.
And at this moment, so this was in SDC where we worked, why those regions?
Because you have more potential, lots of economic opportunity for market gardening products, tomatoes, onions, gumbos, watermelons,
and also lots of density of population and lots of market opportunity for farmers after,
so they can get quickly written on investments.
For drip irrigation, a cost for 500 square meters is more or less $400.
But the objective is after one year, you get a quick written on investments,
and why drip can be a success in the salient region, because drip helps you to get three cycles of culture,
which without drip, with surface irrigation, you get only two cycles.
Okay, so I think this is it for now.
For rainwater, I think there is a lot of potential,
but I think as I explained, we need to work more on the test of technology to have a sort of second test
and to go on demonstration sites with clients, with farmers, and with people.
We need a bit to scale up at the pilot level.
50 clients can use it, and this could be interesting.
And second point, we need more and more economical calculation.
Is it useful to invest 300,000 French CFA for 18 cubic meters of water?
This is a big question, and I think we are not yet to respond to this question,
and I'm sure with all the participants, you may have experiences on it and say,
okay, if it's rainwater investing for agriculture, it's no worse way to invest.
If it's rainwater investing for domestic, it may be something more interesting.
But the economical calculation is key to continue this type of technology.
Thank you.
Brilliant. Thank you very much. That was a fascinating presentation, Laurel.
Now, before we move on, first of all, could you give me back the presenter rights by left clicking,
right clicking on my name and giving the ball back?
In the meantime, before we move on to the next presentation,
if there are any questions for clarification, you would like to ask the presenter,
and we should just take a few minutes before moving on to the next presentation.
We have one question already. Just to explain to everyone how to use the chat box,
it's in the bottom right hand of the screen. You'll see that there's a little drop-down menu,
and if you click on that, you'll see a list of names,
and so you want to have it set to everyone, and then just type in the box below.
So the first question we have for you, Laurel, is from Colleen Norton,
asking, does this breed mosquito, since it is open to the environment?
Okay. So I'm calling back to the presentation.
Okay. Where do you want to go?
Okay. So she's asking about the mosquito. Sorry, I didn't get the question.
Does this breed mosquito, since it is open to the environment?
Ah, good question. No, we didn't find it, because the water is drain water,
and we are in areas where you have more opportunities for mosquito breeding,
but this is the type of question for research to look in another environment,
because we are close to a dam, and for this type of rainwater,
no, not so much mosquito breeding.
Great. Now, the next question that's coming in is from Andrej Ocefsky.
If you can ask, what the quota is for investment costs for drip irrigation?
So we have different costs. So coming back to slide number 10, please, Sean.
So before we came to Burkina Faso, 500 square meters, we are costing $1,000.
Now we are at $400 US, even I would say $350.
Why so much difference? First, you can see on the slide all this, we work with microtubes.
Microtubes, this is the 30th of ID experience. This is Jack Keller, a very famous engineer.
We work on adapting the drip to smaller farmers for first years.
When you come from water can to drip, this is a huge revolution,
and you need to have adaptive technology and to go step by step.
So our products are cheaper, but lifespan of our drip irrigation products is four years,
which you can look at big companies like JN, Netafim.
I would say they are road choice of drip irrigation, but they cost triple.
And if you can come back, Sean, to just a slide, I want to show what has been working.
What I think is the same with rainwater harvesting tank is about the water storage.
We try always to lower the cost. For example, we have wood supports, which cost $10.
Before, we were using metal supports, which cost $50.
And it's always an adaptation, and Netafim, Jane, all those drip irrigation companies
are using water storage tanks of two cubic meters, and it costs $400 already,
because it is with concrete still, and so it's much more expensive.
Great. Okay, fantastic. Well, we've got a few more questions coming in,
but we'll hold those for the time being, because I want to now hand over to Carlos,
who will talk about rainwater harvesting and storage in Honduras.
So, Carlos, if you'd like to unmute yourself, I will hand over the presenter's rights to you.
Thank you very much, Sean.
Good day to everybody.
Yes, good day to everybody from Tegucialpe in Honduras.
My colleague Robert Wall and myself, Carlos Urmaneta,
will be presenting specifically on what we are doing in Central America
together with our partners regarding rainwater harvesting and storage.
As Laurent mentioned, ID's mission is to create income and livelihood opportunities for poor rural households.
We achieve this by viewed productive water as the entry point to creating income opportunities
for the 70% of rural, poorest people living in rural areas.
We identify locations where improved access to water can have a positive impact
and then offer affordable technologies for lifting, storing, and distributing that water.
ID also looks for ways to reduce on-farm costs and increase margins
available from market access and post-harvest activities.
So, we try to help our farmers be as profitable as possible per square meter of area harvested
as well as cubic meter of water used.
Irrigated farms mean more productive harvest, which leads to more food, new ways to earn income,
and relative prosperity for rural households and the communities built around them.
Slide two, what do we do if a farmer has the worst of the conditions or no water at all?
That may be a very familiar picture that is from Burkina Faso.
We still don't have one for Honduras since it's under construction,
but hope to share one with you very soon.
As we move forward with our interventions, we identify the urgency for rainwater harvesting practices
and technologies to catalyze ID's value proposition.
This is where the partnership with Rain Foundation and Rain for Food takes place,
and we have formed a team in order to make people more aware of what works
as the urgency to scale up good practices for rainwater harvesting becomes critical.
Also, we will be working jointly with Rain Foundation in the short term
to bring solutions where farmers are in the worst conditions
in order to simultaneously reduce hunger and alleviate property
as well as to improve the resilience of the environment.
Most recently, we've joined forces with the government of Honduras
through the Ministry of Agriculture.
We are finalizing an agreement to be signed and collaborate with EFAT
on their project, Empren De Sur together with Rain Foundation
to promote rural development in the southernmost five departments
of the country which are the most dry and the most warm,
perhaps very similar conditions to West Africa.
We have a pilot which is the picture you see from West Africa to Central America.
We're building the first tank based on the model developed together
with Rain and Burkina Faso.
We're going back and forth on lessons learned with Laurent and his team
to see which things we want to replicate
and which things we might want to do differently.
Very well, current projects.
We are in Honduras and in Central America thanks to the support
of two important initiatives.
I would like to mention them.
We are working together with a global water initiative
of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Bern
and this project is ongoing in Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam,
Honduras and Nicaragua with an expansion to Guatemala.
Also, we're working in cooperation with the Sustainability Fund
from COAAP Swiss which is a large supermarket chain
which wants to work closely with smallholder farmers
who they procure from.
The first project is scaling up micro irrigation technologies
for smallholder farmers.
Here we do a lot of demo farms, farmer field schools
and create awareness, interest, desire and action
from the farmer to purchase these technologies
so they can ensure successful harvest by controlling water.
Fairtrade water project with COAAP focuses mostly on income
and production diversification, growing alternative crops
and traditionally coffee and cocoa which is a fair trade sector
with a focus on fair trade farm organizations.
And thirdly for both of these projects we are working closely
with the Bern University of Applied Sciences
where we've developed a tool together
and it's ready to implement in the field to first assess
how much water is available in a given watershed,
how much water is consumed in a given watershed
and to resolve conflicts in a participatory way.
Move on to the next slide.
Being very familiar with human-centered design,
we use this for designing and adapting technologies
to local conditions and requirements
and also it's important to consider farmer aspirations
since ultimately we want the farmers to purchase these technologies.
We don't promote giveaways.
We would like farmers to value what they are purchasing
so if they have skin in the game they will value this technology
and also be more committed to the farming as a business.
We have a modality of SEPIRS.
These are the pictures that you see.
This is SEPIRS in Spanish is Productive Center
for Sustainable Rural Innovations.
It's pretty much a demo farm where we teach other farmers
and trainers on innovations in sustainable rural development,
clean and irrigation solutions like affordable tape pumps
and storage innovations as well.
You will see on the top left that is silo made of metal
traditionally used for grain storage.
We did some innovations to it that you will see
similar to the tank in Burkina with metal belts around it
to support it.
This one we use for water storage
and it can be built in the local community by local artisans
who have been trained to do silo for grains.
That's one way of developing a supply chain for water storage.
On the top right we see a 200 liter water bag
which was developed in India thanks to the support
of the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation.
ID has now brought this technology to hundreds.
Thousands of these water bags have gone out there.
There is an upcoming project in Guatemala where we will
install and implement 1,500 vegetable gardens with
indigenous families and they will all use a bag
like the one you see in the picture.
Then we have another bag in the bottom right
which has a capacity of almost 25 cubic meters.
This 200 liter bag is about 10 euro.
You have an idea and it can be used for garden kits
that go from 25 square meters up to 200 square meters.
Now I will pass on the presentation to my colleague
Robert Wall, our productive water specialist.
Thank you very much, Robert.
Hello, good morning.
As Carlos showed, our water storage aspects,
we are also working on connecting those to irrigation.
One of the things that the farmers ask us is
they want to go even more and more.
In this case, based with our work with the
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
financed by the Horticultural Innovation Lab,
we are using animal traction to create water storage,
mostly in the form of ponds.
We have to consider first of all that most of the animal
traction in Honduras is used for basically for plowing.
We are trying to give these particular farmers an option
in which they can use to create a larger volume of storage
to be more productive in their agriculture.
So we are basically competing with the tillage.
The first step in this is the same.
We have to plow to loosen the soil and remove the vegetation.
You can see in the background of this photograph
a very small pond filled with algae which is very shallow,
which was excavated by this farmer by hand.
So we thought this was a good place to start and try
and see if we can use our new implement to create a bigger pond
for more water storage.
The first thing we have to do is to plow to remove
all of the vegetation that is on the top.
This is normal and this is telling us what we need to do
to compete with the farmer because they need this animal
for traction to prepare soil and get it ready.
Now the next thing we do is we form the embankments
with the excavated soil.
We are using an improved scoop here as you can see with metal
that allows the farmer to do it.
We need two oxen to do this
because the soil can get very, very heavy.
So in this particular case you will see a team
and you will notice that we are using a chain.
So normally when on a typical plow there would be a wooden,
the plow would be connected to the yoke by wood
and this one we use chain so that we can get the flexibility
and keep our excavation going.
The soil basically after this plow
we just excavate it and begin to build the embankments.
So we continue this process
trying to get deeper as we can.
Normally we can get about 15 centimeters
on decent animal traction
so we have to go back and plow
but we continue this process.
So we continue forming the embankment.
Here you get a better shot of this pond
that was being built and with the improved scoop.
Now the key to this is specifically this improved scoop.
Some farmers have made wooden ones
and we find that they are falling apart very rapidly.
So we have developed this scoop
in relationship with the animal traction network
in Central America.
We feel this will give an option to the farmers
who have oxen or who have access to oxen
that we can continue these type of works with them
and they can get better.
After we build the embankment
we must compact it as well.
In this case the animal traction network
has a compactor
and we are trying that out on some of the embankments.
One of the problems we have continually
is the compaction.
Remember normally ponds of a decent size
are built by machinery
and we are trying to at least
this compaction is very important
to store water with these embankments.
Normally bulldozer coming in roughly
20 to 30 thousand pounds
is very much different and can compact much more.
So in this case we are using
a sand filled compactor.
You can see the roller here.
This particular one could be adapted to a small tractor
and we have filled it with sand in this case
to try and get even more compaction on the area.
There are some cases where we have collaborated
with USAID projects
where they have vibrating machinery compactors
that we use as well.
So this is one of our key things
and we will be pointing that out in a minute
when I talk about the considerations that we should do
when we are building these small ponds.
So here we have the pond after it has been excavated.
If you look at the change in the color of the soil
you can see the upper ones where they have been
and that will give us our natural excavation.
It is very hard for us to get more capacity
than the amount of true excavation.
The problem with that is basically
because it is hard to compact these areas
and the farmers are looking for a way to quickly dig this
as well because these animals have a productive use
that we have to take into account
and we will see that in the others.
So let's look at the next slide which will show us this pond
which has now been filled and people are pumping from it.
So this area in this pond
this is one of our finished ones that we can get.
We try to look for areas which are not too,
not with much of a slope, mostly level
but they can also collect water from a catchment upstream.
A very small watershed
and these farmers will use this in their productive fields.
One of the first slides that you saw in us with the irrigation
was actually on this same farm where they can use this water
to produce cultivating on the contour
with the same drip irrigation with the micro tubes
that Laurent mentioned in his previous presentation.
We can move this water through the use of
treadle pumps or through machinery
or also if the pond is located correctly
above we can use it for siphoning water down
where we don't need any machinery
or any mechanical advantage to pump the water
using gravity alone.
This is the diversified farm where this one is located.
This disappears that Carlos had mentioned
our Rural Productive Center so we can show innovative technologies
and actually try to train farmers
and actually get their ideas on if this is going to work or not.
The animal traction is working very well
with people who already have animal traction.
So we have found that will be the way that we are going to promote this
and get this out there with the improved scoop.
So you see a chance this is a basic hillside farm
you see some mixed coffee in there as well with plantain
and vegetable production up above.
The key challenges that we have when we do this with the farmers
is they want to raise the embankment far too high.
This embankment must be wider than it is with the machinery
because we are not achieving the compaction that we can
for the engineers out there.
It's very tough for us to get close to the true proctor density
so we would like to make these embankments much wider
and to try to shape the surface so that they can collect more water
from one rainfall.
But the farmers will finding that when we interview with them
they want to raise it high and believe that that is where
the amount of water they are going to be able to store.
So what we do basically is we come out with a simple hand level
and we show them the zone of flooding that the bank will create
and to show them that you will get a lot.
But we still need to make that embankment just high enough
not so high because we need to get it wider
and improve our compaction.
Many times with the farmer as well the excavation is too square.
We are just going and saying we will excavate this square area.
When I mentioned first that we have to plow to loosen the soil
to use the scoop, the farmers always are plowing
in generally a rectangular form
and we are not taking into advantage the natural depressions
that there are and natural soils that we can use
to fill the pond with rainfall.
We need to fill it as much as we can
because most of our climates here are eustic
and that would mean that we have about four months
of a very, very marked dry season.
And as long as we can get irrigation water to the plants
in the first two months of that,
the farmers have a greater opportunity to enter the market
at a much higher price.
We have projects here, Honduras is very commercial agricultural oriented
and some of the partners would say that
you need to produce at exactly the right time.
Production really isn't the key
to the market at the right time.
So we have a lot of people in rainfall
who can produce the crop, a good crop,
but they produce it at the wrong time
so they get less money for it.
So the more water we can hold
and the less we have to excavate to do that,
the very better and this requires some technical assistance
on the part of IDE advising the farmers and showing up.
The other problem we have is many times the spillways
are not adequately provided for.
And because we are in the tropics
and we are in a season where we have high rainfall
for part of the year,
sometimes if the spillways are not adequately protected,
they can erode down and further degrade capacity of the pond.
The other considerations that we have
is that we need to establish optimal traffic patterns
so that the oxen team, once they have the scoop pool of soil,
as you've seen in the previous one,
that they are moving that out of the area
and getting that with the most efficiency
so they're not dragging it across the whole area of the farm.
And because we see the oxen,
they can work generally about six hours a day at the most
before they get very, very tired.
And we're nice guys,
so we don't like to pass the whip too much to the oxen.
The other thing we are having is getting the depth more than one meter.
It's very hard because as the oxen get down into the lake
that has been excavated, it's tough to get them back out
and we need very gentle slopes for them to keep coming back out.
And it's tough to get more than one meter of true depth in this.
Now, many of the farmers that we are building is for,
they want to use aquaculture.
In other words, tilapia production in these.
So because it's very, very less deep,
we have trouble with the temperature
and the production is not so good,
but small-scale ones can be.
And to answer a question that was given to Lawrence earlier,
in some of these ponds we see where they're less deep,
there is production of mosquitoes.
But when tilapia is in them,
you very see very little because they are eating them very quickly.
This organic water is used for irrigation.
It requires the filtration, which you saw in Lawrence's presentation
of the previous one, where this water must be filtered.
And we must put a point here.
The micro tube system that we are using,
which was developed by Jack Keller,
has larger openings.
So our filtration requirements are much less
than conventional drip irrigation,
and we can use this water more efficiently in the field.
Here's a quick partial budget of what we did.
We included the price of the oxen in case,
because we don't want to say that it's nothing,
but our strategy is to moat this for people
who already have teams of oxen.
Their price is about 22 euro to work it out,
and the excavation came up to 357 euros.
The price of this improved metal scoop,
which will be the key to enabling farmers with oxen to do this,
is about 141 euros.
Now we can compare that to the wooden scoop at this 22 euros.
Most of the farmers will work with both of them.
Once they get the soil loosened,
they feel they can come back in with the wooden scoop
and maybe split up the oxen team
because it has less capacity of the metal scoop.
We also require them to buy yolks and chains,
which is another 37 euros,
so the price of this pond is about 557 euros,
similar to the other costs.
The cost per storage on these,
running at about 120 or so cubic meters,
is about 5 euros and 35 cents of a euro to cubic meter,
which is within reason.
Our key to making them be more effective and efficient
is if they can evacuate this and use it for an irrigation
and collect another water source
or from another rainfall and do this again.
The way we're extending these, generally,
is through a program which we call the Farm Business Advisors,
and these are the inputs for the last mile
where people can't get out too.
So IDE Extension, our sources,
we try to link agricultural input suppliers,
their credit sources.
This is from a thing we call Rural Savings and Loan,
or in Spanish, Cajarral,
and the information sources need it.
The IDE Extensionist will deal with the Farm Business Advisor
to make sure that they are linked up, have the technology,
have the access to credit,
and it's the Farm Business Advisor
who is taking this out to the field
and generating more support.
In cases such as this animal traction,
it will be requests from the Farm Business Advisor
so that the IDE Extensionist may attend
to the individual farmers to help them overcome
some of the problems that we have mentioned
on building those animal harvesting funds.
We are trying to promote women working more directly
in the sales and these others
because we feel that is the key to increasing nutrition
and income diversification with these farmers.
You can see some shots from the women's farmer program
that we have.
Most of these are using drip irrigation,
and we try to make this centered
so that even the...
We try to focus a lot on young a lot of times,
but we are finding that because of migration,
out-migration from Central America
to the cities or to other countries,
that we are finding a lot of more elderly people in the field
and we also need to make sure that we are taking this
into account on our labor requirements that we put in.
So there you have it,
and those are our names right there.
So you can call us and give us an email
and we will get back to you on any questions that you have.
More photos, connect you to videos from that.
So I would like to close now and see if there are any questions
that I can answer.
Great, thank you very much Carlos and Robert
for a fantastic presentation.
Very, very interesting indeed.
Now unfortunately we have run out of time
to ask any questions now,
but what I ask is that if you have any further questions,
please type them into the chat box,
but make sure that you are sending to everyone
so that they appear.
So everyone can see.
And what will happen is that we will pass those questions
to the presenters and give them a chance
to respond to those through the Rainwater Halvesting D Group.
Now I will now go to the closing.
So here is a bit more information about this webinar
as part of the Rain RWSN collaboration on Rainwater Halvesting.
If you would like to join the growing online community
on Rainwater Halvesting to learn more about what others are doing
and to share your experiences
and keep informed about upcoming events,
please join us on the D Groups through the link shown.
You can also find all of the presentations
and webinar recordings on Rainwater Halvesting
on the second link there.
As we close this webinar,
we would like to remind you that next week's webinar
on the 30th of September is on about a decade
of water point mapping.
So we're shifting to a different topic,
but I think this one is going to be really,
really, really interesting.
So I'm very much looking forward to that.
So with that, I would just like to thank you all for attending.
We had a great attendance.
Over 50 people logged on today from all over the world,
which was absolutely fantastic.
I hope you will join us next week and in the weeks that follow.
And in the meantime, please join the online Rainwater Halvesting community.
And we look forward to seeing you then.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to the presenters, of course,
for their fantastic presentations,
because they did such a wonderful job
and really, really interesting.
And what I really liked is how practical they were
and really tangible stuff, which is not always that common.
So thanks again.
Thank you.
