The indepth interview with Prof. Dr. ir. Patrick Van Damme

Prof. Dr. ir. Patrick Van Damme is responsible for Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences, Department of Plant Production, Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Ethnobotany , at the Ghent University (RUG).

We want to publish his opinion in brief:

Prof. Van Damme is very sceptical about TerraCottem as a solution for the arid regions of the Sahara .

Why

1. There is no money for TerraCottem

• It is a solution for a market economy environment, in which products are sold and bought; resource-poor farmers are not active in such a market. Often vegetables they grow, are not ment for sale, so they do not collect money to pay back the investment. If they produce for the market (market gardening), then they often grow vegetables in small-scale environments and in a very intensive way and thus do not need TC as using dung/manure/organic fertilizer and mulches will be enough to create the micro-environment needed.

•  If they have money, it is partly absorbed by the cost for other consumables (often NOT for inputs; in this context, there is a growing trend of spending money on mobile phones)

•  It would be useful to grow fruit trees, but the investment horizon is too far. And TerraCottem is too expensive to grow fuelwood for (cooking) energy needs.

2. There is no demand for such a product.

•  Water often is not the limiting factor. The target market, the intensive fields of families, are always in the neighbourhood of water, because in the neighbourhood of where they live, or could use waste water from cooking, ….

•  The production figures we are talking about are those of large fields, and not those of our target market, i.e. the intensive vegetable gardens of households. With current techniques, intensive gardens could get about 6 times the yield of large fields (120 tons of tomatoes against 20 tons for large fields). TerraCottem could not add a lot to that.

•  TerraCottem is a technical solution for a problem which is not considered to be a problem in that way. Very shocking to say, but after so many years of food shortage, this becomes engrained. Hunger is not always their first priority. Where it is, the crops that alleviate hunger (millet, maize, sorghum, rice) are NOT the ones where TC will be usefully (i.e. cost/benefitwise) applied.

3. TerraCottem would be too expensive, even subsidized.

•  There are solutions with much lower opportunity costs compared with the expensive investment in TerraCottem.

•  This opportunity cost is mostly translated in manpower. Eg: to build small dams to collect water. In dry season, these farmers do not have other activities, so this opportunity cost is about zero.

4. Is TerraCottem a product with only positive effects ?

•  There has never been a scientific publication, that would allow colleagues criticize, or confirm the results; scientific research should validate the pros/cons of TC in an environment that allows to compare/debate issues…

•  There is no study on the long or short term negative effects of the use of TerraCottem. And there must be some, as every upside has a downside.