Simon, the grandfather of Google Science Fair/Scientific American Science in Action prize winner Sakhiwe Songhe, lives on a farm in Swaziland outside Manzini where he has fruit orchards and keeps cattle, geese, and chickens. It is here that Sakhiwe and Bonkhe are conducting this year's follow up to their hydroponics experiments, showing the farming community that you can acheive at least twice the yield on Swaziland's poor land using compost to build soil.
Solar CITIES IBC bucket system
August 19 2014 saw Dr. T.H. Culhane and Google Science Fair Finalist Rohit Fenn (an Indian youth who designed a more efficient toilet) and his older brother, evolutionary biologist Amit Fenn, travelling to Swaziland to work with Science in Action winners Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela, adding the 'food waste to fuel and fertilizer' biogas solution to their toolkit for improved low cost hydroponics in Swaziland.
We built this Solar CITIES IBC/ARTI Hybrid Biodigester system on January 15th at Kibbutz Lotan after Culhane field tested the new design early in the fall at Mercy College. The new idea was to use buckets for the feed in and slurry out, simulating a Puxin or fixed dome digester using water displacement to allow for some gas build up in the IBC and creating water pressure to force the gas out. It also gives an ability to easily pour food waste in, acting as a "mega funnel".