Local innovations on a global scale
From questionable governmental actions to unprecedented environmental destruction, there are a lot of reasons to be uneasy, even cynical, about the state of the world. Through the negativity, though, it’s important to realize some of the positive changes taking place, such as the initiatives and research projects stemming from the University of Guelph that have resonated on a global scale.
This year, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday and, as one of the top research universities in the nation, the University of Guelph has helped to change lives far beyond its small city limits. Here’s a curated selection of U of G innovations that are transforming people’s living conditions across the globe.
Agroforestry Practices to Enhance Resource-Poor Livelihoods (APERL)
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Poor health and nutrition caused by food insecurity and poverty is an unshakeable reality for many living in Ghana.
To improve food production in these distressed communities, environmental sciences professors Andrew Gordon and Naresh Thevathasan founded Agroforestry Practices to Enhance Resource-Poor Livelihoods (APERL). The program involves teaching and implementing agroforestry, a form of agriculture that integrates crops, trees, and livestock into a sustainable and productive system.
The benefits of agroforestry include: clean water, healthier soils, forest cover, biodiversity enhancement, and a decrease in forest fires.
Best of all, impoverished communities in Ghana are attaining food resources and sustainable livelihoods that can persist far into the future.
Since its inception in 2007, APERL has supplied over 50,000 fruit trees, created more than 600 jobs, and provided hands-on education in sustainable farm management and livelihood planning, according to U of G’s Research Magazine, which covered the project in 2015.
Lucky Iron Fish
U of G’s Research Magazine reports that iron deficiency affects nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide. In areas such as rural Cambodia, where access to health care is limited and the average income is $1 a day, the health, social, and economic impacts are aggravated.
Standard treatments for anemia, such as pills, are often out of the question. There is also a cultural obstacle: Cambodians consume very little red meat in their diets.
So, to help rid rural Cambodia of iron deficiency, former U of G president Alastair Summerlee and his team, including Prof. Cate Dewey, and graduate students Chris Charles and Gavin Armstrong, came up with an solution: a piece of cast iron that would leach iron into water during cooking. Summerlee told U of G’s Research Magazine that, with the help of the iron piece, “Boiling one litre of water for 10 minutes will provide 75 per cent of your daily iron requirements.”
The village women decided that the cast iron piece be modeled after their local river fish, Try Kantrop, a lucky symbol in Cambodian folklore. The Lucky Iron Fish is made from local, recycled materials and costs $1.25 to make.
Clay pots for clean water
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Clean water is a human right and something many of us take for granted, though diarrhea from drinking contaminated water remains the leading cause of death in infants and children around the world. Contaminated water also perpetuates the cycle of poverty as related illnesses cause children in the developing world to miss an approximate combined 443 million school days a year, according to an article by the Guelph Mercury-Tribune.
Professor Ed McBean from the Department of Engineering at U of G created an inexpensive solution to bring better water to areas with poor sanitation, improving the present and future of the people in them.
A 2013 article by U of G’s Research Magazine explains how simple clay flowerpots made from rice husks, iron, and silver nitrate, purify water that is poured into the pot and allowed to drain out. 99.9 per cent of pathogens are prevented from moving through the pores in the clay pot, while the iron and silver kill harmful organisms that would otherwise cause health issues. The contaminants form a “crust” on the inside of the pot that can be easily scraped off and thrown away.
Another benefit: the pots are made from local materials and require no plumbing or energy.
Climate change in vulnerable communities
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While some see climate change as a somewhat arbitrary threat for those living in developed, Western societies, many communities across the Arctic Circle are already feeling the consequences of higher temperatures, sea level rise, and ecological shifts.
According to U of G’s Global Environmental Change Group website, Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. is home to a community of 870 people that is slowly melting into the sea due to permafrost melt and flooding. Similarly, a 2013 article from U of G’s Research Magazine shows that in Krasnoe, Russia, reindeer herds are the main source of income, but longer and hotter summers are promoting disease, dehydration, and meat spoilage. Traditional hunting practices in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland are threatened by changes to animal migration patterns and less game.
Past research has focused on studying the effects on physical and biological processes, so there are gaps in climate change knowledge pertaining to social impacts and adaptation.
By establishing a program called Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions (CAVIAR), Canada Research Chair and geography professor Barry Smit and his team of applied and social scientists from eight countries are identifying human responses to environmental changes and the necessary adaptations needed in 21 at-risk communities.
Through systematic documentation of current climate change adaptation methods, CAVIAR can determine what’s needed, what needs improvement, and inform future decisions.
Concepts from the project are being used in research, governments, and developmental organizations around the world. For his work’s profound positive impacts as a member of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Smit was co-awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Vietnam Pollinator Project
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Honey has been an important aspect of Vietnamese culture for hundreds of years. It’s used as medicine, given as gifts, and eaten as food.
Honeybee management, and subsequently income, can be greatly improved in many parts of the country by improving bee management, education, and practices.
That’s exactly what environmental science professor Gard Otis and the Vietnamese Bee Research and Development Centre partnered up to do.
A hands-on beekeeping training curriculum and a series of follow-up visits were provided for disadvantaged villages in the Ha Ting province. Novel solutions to local problems were developed, creating an economic benefit for the participants. Positive social change is an unexpected side effect of this pollinator project. U of G’s Research Magazine reports that over one third of the beekeepers trained are women who now own and manage their own hives. Many of the beekeepers say that their relationships with family, friends, and neighbors have improved from how they have lifted up their community.
Feature image by Dana Bellamy/The Ontarion.