There have been several messages recently on regional lists about Haiti,
Hurricane Jeanne and ICT, praising disaster information exchange.
I believe we can do even better than that.
For example:
Everyone agrees that a major problem in Haiti is deforestation which
results in soil erosion and flash floods. In fact this is becoming a major
problem in other countries also.
A few months ago I watched a BBC "Correspondent" programme with Julian
Pettifer, discussing the use of the mucuna bean � mucuna pruriens � as
"green manure" in Guatemala and Honduras.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/1363320.stm
The plant acts as ground cover, preventing the soil from being washed away
while at the same time acting as an organic fertiliser.
http://www.new-agri.co.uk/01-6/focuson/focuson8.html
The two Anglophone "mucuna experts" are Roland Bunch in Honduras and Jules
Pretty at the University of Essex, UK, http://www2.essex.ac.uk/ces/ I
have written to both of them asking for more information.
CIAT the international research center has also done work with mucuna
http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/forrajes/pdf/2003_Output-4.pdf
A solution for some of Haiti's problems?
Mistic@s could:
In Central America and Brazil �
use local contacts to do further research into the possibilities of the
mucuna bean.
In Haiti use local contacts to establish
1. Has mucuna bean previously been used for soil protection in Haiti?
2. Was any such experiment successful?
3. Would there be support from farmers and others for a new experiment?
4. Would local authorities be willing to co-operate about non-agricultural
land?
5. Could telecentres act as foci to mobilise volunteers to carry out
distribution of seed and planting?
6. Would people generally support such a project?
Those with expertise �
1. Research and compile agricultural advice about how to grow mucuna
together with food crops like corn and pigeon peas.
2. Research sources and prices of planting material
3. Research possibilities of the bean as an eventual cash crop � mucuna
contains significant amounts of L-dopa. Would this make it viable as a
pharmaceutical cash crop?
4. Assist in writing a project proposal. We could begin by asking the EU
mission in Haiti. The Head of Delegation is Marcel van Obstal, his email
address
[email protected]
I have some "seed" information, and an idea (now shared). I could not make
this happen.
Mistica can.
Shall we?
Este archivo fue generado por hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Jan 4 10:02:49 2005 AST