Hello there! We have finally built our prototype. We used the sketch as seen in a couple of posts ago, and made a before and an after view of the biodegradable mat. As you can see the “before” is a mat made out of jute and inside filled with clay and compost. The right side represents “after” and shows how the jute has already been degraded into the soil, as well as the nutrients inside.
This decision matrix was created. It weighed the different criteria from a scale of one to five depending on importance to the project. Five was the highest rank/value for both the criteria weighing and for judging the three solutions. After calculating the total, the top choice is the compost mat. Overall, it is very practical and requires no maintenance, low-cost, and provides benefits aside from giving nutrient such as withstanding harsh environments and being biodegradable.
Here is some background information to the economy of Haiti. The natural resources available are bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble, soft and hardwood, clay, and concrete. Some of their agriculture consist of coffee, mangoes, cocoa, sugarcane, rice, and corn. Also, “only 20 percent of Haiti’s 27,560 sq. km are arable, and as many as 37,000 acres of arable land are lost annually due to erosion (Relief Web)”.
Food insecurity in Haiti has been a major public health issue the nation has dealt with for many years. The difficultly that the Haitian government and organizations face in addressing the issue of food insecurity is that there are multiple factors that contribute to the growing problem, as well as, its different effects on families and individuals. Some of the main reasons that people experience food insecurity in Haiti is due in part to poverty, over half the population lives on less than $2 or $1 a day, effects of natural disaster and extreme weather on the climate and land, and lack of the necessary resources of clean water and sanitation systems (World Food Program [WFP], n.d.). The issue of food insecurity in Haiti has resulted in many of its people experiencing hunger, around 40% of Haitian households were under or malnourished (United States Agency for International Development [USAID], n.d.).
Food insecurity is the result of a lack of food available to sustain a nation’s population. Haiti’s population currently stands at around 11 million people, with a median age of 23 (Worldometers, n.d.). Most of the Haitian population occupy the urban areas over the rural areas (Worldometer, n.d.).Recent natural disasters and extreme weather events, such as the 2010 earthquake, consecutive years of drought, flooding, hurricanes, landslides, and so forth have only severed to worsen the food condition of Haiti (WFP, n.d.). However, outside forces are not the only contributors to the decline in agricultural production in Haiti over a 30-year period (USAID, n.d.). Many small agricultural workers and farmers participate in poor, non-sustainable farming practices that has led to the degradation of the soil in many rural areas around the country (Barguot & Raizada, 2013). The reduction in agricultural production has resulted in many individuals unemployed because agriculture has been the main source of economic production for the nation and a high reliance on imported food (Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.).
Welcome to our Food Insecurity in Haiti site! We are here to spread information about the lack of nutrients people in Haiti are receiving due to the inability to farm. The natural disasters they face constantly destroy the farmlands and leave them without food and with poor soil. Our goal is to engineer a solution to this problem and increase proper farming in Haiti.
