After three weeks, the team’s morale is running heavy on the academic side and low on the emotional well-being (or perhaps I am being presumptuous and overdramatic); about half of us have decided to listen almost exclusively to up-beat music, as epitomized by Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch”.
Debriefing on this week’s research topic (testing procedures, qualifications, etc), we found that the incredible amount of literature available on the subject meant that we only could do a very superficial pass on what notable organizations, namely the WHO and EPA, have suggested and implemented. Testing focuses on four major categories: chemical, radionucleic, biological, and aesthetic. Of these, the most pertinent to public health was biological, due to its association with the indicator organism E. coli and, consequently, the cholera toxin. When considering soil composition, basic tests measure the pH and available nutrients—sodium bicarbonate, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, and magnesium, most significantly. However, cadmium testing is an emerging issue in the cacao industry, and may be worth looking into. Fortunately, soil specifically used for cacao (and for agricultural purposes) depands predominantly on carbon nutrients, which biochar would be helpful in augmenting. In terms of biochar testing, predictably, we can refer to the International Biochar Initiative, and refer to the ratio between hydrogen and carbon to determine the carbon storage class, the fertilizer class, and particle size as a means of evaluating nutrient (and, to some extent, pathogen) retention. Though our research was fairly exhaustive, it is, of course, incomplete and broad. For example, we need to scrutinize even more closely what biologic and chemical contaminants we should focus our attention. But even more pressing is the question of accessibility to tests. Given our distant locations and now even more limited access to labs and materials, we must decide which experimentation parameters we can compromise on, and which we can find proxies. Soil testing, therefore, is somewhat problematic, given that there is no standard format for lab tests, and the sample tests are not always provided in the website; the scarcity of information means that we may have to do additional testing or spend more time researching alternative tests. On the whole, our extensive research phase has broadened our understanding of the context of Ghana and provided us with more insights on how to approach not just the use of biochar, but also on the complex nuances of the political climate and social parameters in which we would be working. Our design and previous thoughts were, as expected, flawed and limited, and we are starting to more deeply question things like: does our design need to be scaled up to be effective? How can we better correlate soil testing, water testing, and apparatus testing? And now in quarantine, how can we expect to proceed without access to our cacao husks, and to what extent can we say the soil and water samples from our local areas are sufficiently similar to that in Ghana?
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As everyone finally got settled down and used to the whole new quarantine-lifestyle, our project has been making smooth progress according to our timeline. During the first week, everyone in the team did research around cultural and historical background in Ghana - topics include history of cacao farming in Ghanan, political history of Ghana, and cultural significance of cacao in Ghana. With decent amount of information collecting, reading, and rearranging, we developed a comprehensive report on each of the three topics.
During our weekly meeting, we shared our findings and sparkled new ideas that could lead to future development of the project. Some of our important findings include: 1) Cacao trade is monopolized by the government in Ghana, any trade no matter domestic or international has to go through COCOBOD; 2) Land right shift led to agricultural policies' change; 3) Cacao growing is labor-intensive, slavery and child-labor are unfortunately part of the play. After the educative debrief session, we went on for reflection and finding gaps that needs further investigation. Some express their interests in finding the interplay between the government and the local farmers in the cacao economy, others saw the potential of using biochar as a cheaper alternative to fertilizers, helping farmers overcome the economic barrier. Next week we will focus on the location background research in Ghana and move on to the topics that are more related to finding the user demand. A lot has changed since our last post, largely due to the large historical moment that is currently occurring internationally. With the developments to COVID-19 in the United States, these shifts have led to Stanford Campus urging students to return home and a dispersal of our team around the world. For the first couple of weeks since it was announced that Stanford Spring Quarter would be entirely remote, the team was working on settling down and returning home in a short period of time. Booking flights, packing, and saying goodbyes were cut short and had to be done in a timely manner.
After things had settled a bit for our team members, in late March, we had a check in call and discussed the best ways to proceed. The team was committed to our project, and we all wanted to continue with our investigation. Despite this dedication, our project work must take major shifts to accomodate the developments. Unfortunately, with the pods and their husks left on campus in the lab, there is limited access for the team to continue to develop our production apparatus. Additionally, with a remote platform, communication and collaboration have become more difficult. Moving forward, we are focusing on streamlining our research process and creating a testing baseline, focusing on robust research within four main themes: cultural and historical background in Ghana, geographical context with regards to soil and water quality, in depth understanding of standard testing protocol of biochar, water, and soil, research into current testing practices, and practical and affordable testing systems for baseline studies. Over the first half of the quarter, the team will focus primarily on research to develop a strong baseline for investigation. The second half of the quarter will place an emphasis on testing, ordering tests to individuals' locations in order to start control/baseline testing for further comparison. The TCHO Team is eager to continue our work and grateful for all that we have learned from this process. As we proceed, we are thinking critically about the timliness and relevance of our project for our stakeholders, as well as the relationships we have built with one another and our partners. We hope to continue to treat these relationships with utmost importance moving forward, keeping health and safety our top priority. |
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May 2020
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