Global Food Swadeshi Project

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This Map

public domain 20080719-20081116.
LucasG
Please, use the "discussion" tab to add your comments and ideas. I just need some time to write all this down. Thanks for your patience. And many thanks to L and V for their ideas, comments and support.
Update 20100409: Please help add links! #Haiti may make use of some of this. Thanks!

Why

Context

Author Vinay Gupta, of hexayurt fame, created a Vital Systems Mapping scheme, centered around the 6 broad ways people can die in a catastrophe. These 6 ways are being too hot or too cold, hunger or thirst, internal disease or external injury. Food matters for all 6 ways. For "hunger" and "thirst" the relationship is direct. Some food gives shade, shelter and fuel which are good to fight "too hot" and "too cold". Looking at "disease", food gives nutrition and farmacy, and appropriate waste treatment is good for people's health. Finally, looking at "injury", food gives shelter and more importantly one less reason to fight each other.

Food just grows vs Food systems are ill
- Globalised
  - External dependency
  - Just In Time = No Stocks
  - Economic efficiency = No Redundancy
  - Cheap food != Good for you
- Outcome
  - Poverty
  - Bad health
  - Supply risk
Levels from individual to global
- Individual, household, town (50% FAO?) < 10 km (walk, bike)
- Region (25% FAO?) < 100 km (car, truck)
- World (25% or less FAO?) > 100 km (boats, trains, planes)

Aim

Food: 2000 cal/person-day
Water: 15 liters/person-day
Irrigation: 100 liters/person-day?

Goal

Help

Assess
- Present situation
- Assetts
- Distance to horizon
- Blockage points
- First steps
Change
- Motivation
- Design
- Principles
- Methods
- Do
- Help doers

Product

Deliverable

Open content
Text
Video
Translations

What

Food growth

Place
- Land
  - Surface per yield
  - Surface per person
- Containers
- Square Foot Gardening
- EarthBox
- Bag Garden
- KeyHole Garden
- Vertical
Soil
- Features
- Mixtures
- No-till
Nutrients
- Companion plants, green compost
- Compost, tea compost, humanure, chicken tractors, worms, algae
- SolarCone, Akvo.org (sanitation)
- Waste
  - Plants, Kitchen, Humans
Water
- Rain catchment, Pyramid, Akvo.org (water)
- SODIS, WaterCone, deep seawater (cold)
- Pumps, Selfwatering methods
Seeds
- Seedballing, networks, dry, store, select
- http://www.ag.purdue.edu/ipia/pics/Pages/Home.aspx store seeds
- Which crops?
  - Calories
  - Yield
  - Simple to grow
  - Robust crops
  - What do people use all over the world, and locally?
Protection
- From
  - Sun, Wind, Pests, Excess water, Animals
- With
  - Cover, other plants, chemicals, counterbugs, mulch
Time
- 3-4 months or more
- Seasonality - related to storage of food and seeds
Knowledge
- Plants
- Weather
Work
- People
  - Attention
  - Bend back
  - Work seated
- Tools
  - Simple
    - Cup, pencil, etc
  - Complicated
    - Irrigation system, LifeTrac, etc
  - Open design?
- Kinds of work
  - plant, care, harvest, process
  1. Hours
  2. People
Climate-Weather
Non-plant food
- What: eggs, meat (poultry, rabbits, pigs, cows), fish (sea, ponds, ferrocement tanks), fungi, algae
- Nutrients, "housing" & care, process, market

Food system

Transport = catchment area
- Walk <10 km (individual, town)
- Bike < 30 km (individual, town)
- Motor > 30 km (region, world)
Store
- Cold
  - Pot in pot, deep sea water, in ground
- Conserve
  - Solar dryer, Salt
Cook
- Solar cooker, cushions, stoves
Economy
- Price of food
- Workers wages
- Price of inputs
- Taxes and subsidies
- Local currencies
  - Buy local means Grow local
  - Fab Lab makes coins?
- Futures markets = measure risk
- Business oportunities
  - Grow, Food industries, Sell
  - Support with know-how, make tools, share tools
  - TTT = training, tools, trade
Regulations
- Land
- Food industries
- Public health
- Machinery
Mindset
- Different people's points of view
- I'm a farmer, I grow my food, We grow our food
- Changes here are powerful (Donna Meadows)
- Changes here may be beyond your sphere of influence

How

Global

DNA of the project
- Define
- Refine
- Share
Aim = Usable Content
- Text
  - 200 pages
- Video
  - 10 hours
- TV
  - 200 hours, see Vinay's project
License
- Template: ask for open license: what, Why, What, How
- If not, find open alternatives
- If not, re-invent, re-photo, re-video
Ecosystem of cooperation (**)
- Create content
- Compile
- Translate
  - dotsub.com
  - traduwiki.org
  - etc
- Use
- All benefit
  - like linux developers
  - linux user groups = local geeks
  - linux end users

Local

Motivation = Energy for Change
- Want to
  - Mindset shift
- Have to
  - Urgent need
Grow
Teach
Business
Science
People
- Available time
- Skills
Ecosystem of facilitation (**)
- Accelerate
- Leverage
- Business model(s)
  - Open franchising
- Transition
  - From fossil-based fertilisers and pesticides
  - From global to local

Keywords	Self-sufficiency, Food production, Food and agriculture, Swadeshi, Permaculture projects, Urban agriculture
License	CC-BY-SA-3.0
Location	Haiti
Language	English ()
Related	0 subpages, 0 pages link here
Views	171 page views (analytics)
Created	July 19, 2008 by LucasG
Last edit	September 8, 2026 by Felipe Schenone
Cite as	LucasG (2008–2026). "Global Food Swadeshi Project". Appropedia. Retrieved October 3, 2026.
API queries	basic, semantic, html, files, more