South Africa William Ball MS at the School of Engineering; Environmental Engineering: Systems Analysis and Economics for Public Decisions Making
Human health is closely tied to adequate food sources, including essential micronutrients, proteins, and vitamins. Hunger and malnutrition are a cause and effect of populations living in poverty, which are in turn closely tied to economic factors. Indeed, food productivity has been described as the most important determinant for escaping the poverty trap and achieving economic growth2. Ironically, poor rural farming communities account for the most food-insecure world-wide; thus, empowering rural farmers and increasing women’s income, are two essential tasks in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals Hunger Task Force2. Nevertheless, bottom-up development—the kind that begins at the community level and expands into the local economy as a whole—faces numerous economic and logistical challenges. The focus of the proposed study is a qualitative and quantitative feasibility assessment of an ongoing EWB-JHU development project with community gardeners in KwaZulu Natal (KZN), South Africa. A useful tool for any feasibility study involving rural development projects will be a simple input/output analysis that integrates the costs and benefits of the project at the village level. Linking community gardeners to the local market to sell surplus food will only work if the project is self-sustaining in a way that stimulates other local enterprises. An input/output analysis can provide insight about a project’s potential for replicability and scalability. Knowledge of the local culture and market conditions provide the basis for a suitable model and more accurate analysis.
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Stefanie Falconi
