Tech4agri: The Web series: Ep 4 – It’s called Hydroponics

A method of production using soil less medium and a circulating nutrient water system! It’s called Hydroponics, a long awaited episode of the web series.

Mr. Dipsingh, operator of the Choon Hydroponics farm, shares tips on how he brought his enterprise into a success.

He constantly seeks ways to improve upon the farm. He has maximised his space, ensured regular access to seedlings with his own nursery, looks after the well being of his employees and has cut cost by sourcing all material and inputs for the operation right here in Trinidad and Tobago.

Mr. Dipsingh also explained that Agriculture is a sustainable endeavour for himself and his family as he left a high paying job in the IT sector at the executive level, to pursue farming.

Watch the series for more and do share with your friends and colleagues! Stay dedicated!

 

 

 

A Winning Team!

Dear Readers,

We’ve got great news to share this week! Firstly we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the new Tech4agri team. Kareem Barnes, Suelin Novarro and Renaldo Matamoro agriyouth all based in Trinidad have joined our ranks to lend their skills to the development of the blog into a social enterprise.

#winning

It is from this new change that Tech4agri is a winner yet again! Renaldo and myself (Keron) teamed up for our first video and were then named honorable winners of the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean Media Awards on Water 2015 – Video Competition.

The competition which was open to all Caribbean nationals, sought to challenge participants to raise awareness on the importance of a dedicated ‪#‎watergoal‬ in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are being negotiated this year. Get to know more about the winners. And see our winning video below:

A Stunning Alternative!

Pressures on the world’s meat production system is mounting. Issues such as chemical additives, threats to human health, poor food safety and handling, the stress production causes on the environment, the prevalence of ‘factory made meats’ and inhumane treatment of animals as well as a disregard for animal health are all hot topics of today’s world.

Livestock production despite being a major source of livelihood for millions of small farmers has a poor view in the eyes of the world’s watchdogs simply due to the irresponsible action of a few thousand large scale producers. As a result an alternative is now coming to life: Bug meat!

Entomophagy

What! Eating insects? Yes this is a thing or rather a re-surging way to be fed. Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects  – including arachnids (tarantulas) and myriapods (centipedes). This is an age old human practice from civilizations of the past.

Nothing but inspiration: #tffsummit

#TFFSummit Top Left: The women that change the world, Top Right: Winners Team Innovision, Bottom Left: Runner up Team FoPo, Bottom Right: winners of the special prize and runner up, Team Aahaar. Photos Courtesy Thought for Food

And the winners are…

Team Innovision! You can see the shock and amazement on their faces having won the 2014 Thought for Food Challenge. Surprise was in store as there was not one, but two runner ups each winning a prize, Team FoPo and Team Aahar. The latter team took home an extra prize provided by The Kirchner Group Food Fellows making them double winners! Congratulations all around! During the event Tech4agri live tweeted and by the end of the finalists’ pitches, no one know who would be the winner. The judges needed extra time in fact to give an answer. Only then do you see how they came to their decision. Each team winning had a direct and immediate impact in reducing food waste by the billions of dollars in addition to measured social impact

Humble thoughts on winning strategies

Team Innovision developed a solar-powered micro-climate chamber for small scale farmers that increases shelf life of fruits and vegetables using an evaporation cooling system. What clearly stood out was the invention’s low cost as an affordable substitute for refrigeration to reduce food loss in developing countries, the overall contribution to food security and its potential to remove the use of a poisonous fruit and vegetable preservative used in their home country.

#TFFSUMMIT is on!

It’s finally here!!!!

The 2015 Thought for Food Summit takes place today and Tech4Agri will be there live! The event is held in Lisbon, Portugal a beautiful city with rich culture, and food that serves as a prominent hub for entrepreneurship & innovation.

Meet the finalists

Hundreds of teams from universities all around the world entered the TFF Challenge, each diverse, motivated and brave enough to tackle the challenge of “How to feed 9 billion people by the year 2050?” Can you imagine the ingenuity coming out of such a competition!

From improving post harvest losses with the use of thermochromic and hydrochromic labels to an alternative meat product derived from insects; from roof top and vertical farming to community action and cooperative skill development these teams have applied science, technology, communication and simple innovation to create amazing ideas that can certainly contribute to solving this global problem of food availability and access.

Following their hard work the finalist teams had a stellar bootcamp where they developed their ideas even futher and practiced their eventual live pitch which will be held on the second day of the summit. The best to them all! View their projects at the TFF Website.

The TFF Challenge 2015 finalists at their development bootcamp. Picture courtesy Thought for Food

Tech4food: Why was that invented?

An endless stream of inventions and products are created everyday all hoping to get a piece of both my pocket and yours. Interestingly enough sometimes whether we need it or not we just have to have that one thing; that one item that we trick ourselves into thinking we will die without. A perfect example lies in one trend, earlier this year among many young people: the mobile charger.

I admit it.

When I first learned of it I truly wanted the device. It’s mobile, holds a long charge and most importantly it held the promise to bring life back to our precious phones, tablets and the like. But how is this device, that I so desperately wanted hold power….via USB connected to an outlet or computer. Yes, the mobile charger had to be charged.

Isn’t that what we must do for our phones in any case? Its only novelty is the aspect of mobility. However if power for our mobiles at any time is what we seek, why not use a solar powered charger? As a result what I so desperately needed simply vanished at the prospect of a more impactful device. So why was the mobile charger invented?

You be the judge. Here are some food technologies that poses the question to you. Is it useful? Does the design strike at you? Would you buy these inventions for your household?

Going bad or still good: Edible Sensors

FastCompany.com reports on Hu “Tiger” Tao, a post-doctoral student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who since 2013, has been working on a chewable sensor made from silk.

Image courtesy: wanderlustmind.com