An Overview Of Our Solution
The solution we're providing is to tackle the multi-layered agricultural and environmental crises Lebanon has been undergoing for a few years now. Through pre-harvest interventions in making arcenciel-produced bio-pesticides and natural compost available for farmers, arcenciel is ensuring a safer agricultural value chain, for the farmers, the soil (the environment) and the end users consuming these produce. Following its waste management and treatment work strategy, arcenciel’s solution lies in producing eco-friendly composts at affordable prices for the farmers, as well as bio-pesticides which it has developed in its plant. These pre-harvest solutions will stand to the environmental challenges faced across the nation in economic and environmental healthy ways.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
À but non lucratif
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Freshwater
Population impacted
ex. 6,800 people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
ex. 1,400 ha
Production quantity
ex. 100 kilos
People employed
ex. 10 people
Solution
Describe your solution
Compost in the local market is either unavailable or ineffective. Lebanese farmers have little if any faith in anything that is “organic”, they associate the word with ineffectiveness and waste of time. Instead, when times are tough, farmers actually increase their use of chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers) and often end up making things worse. LARI’s studies on soil and water quality have shown that 85% of the water in Lebanon contains chemicals (pesticides/fertilizers/herbicides etc.) and can even be observed in altitudes above 1,500 meters. Through field tests, research, awareness campaigns and sampling distribution, arcenciel is slowly but surely changing farmers’ habits regarding the use of chemicals. Throughout the year,s pests have developed strong resistance to chemical pesticides and the soils natural bio-diversity almost extinguished, the test results make it today a lot easier to convince farmers to change. Our research has also proven through laboratory testing that our compost helps suppress the phytopatogenic fungal disease “Alternaria sp.”, or early blight affecting both, tomatoes and potatoes causing severe losses in the produce. All of these alternatives increase the farmers’ yield, help protect and restore the soil biodiversity, reduce the chemicals in the air and water, and protect the consumers and farmers by improving the produce’s quality.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Lebanon struggles to manage any type of waste, and households have only started recycling some of them through arcenciel’s nationwide recycling campaigns. In order to best address this issue, arcenciel drastically increased its number of collection trucks and developed its compost next to one of its recycling facilities. And through its direct contacts with farmers and municipalities, the process has been greatly facilitated. Managing 13 centers in Lebanon and being 31-year-old, arcenciel’s name is known throughout the country as being a pioneer in both, environment and agriculture; a reputation which enhanced the trust with the farmers. Since the optimization of our products, and through different projects, we have managed to provide agricultural kits with bio-pesticide and compost to farmers, which allowed us to receive feedback from farmers and spread awareness. The enabling conditions, however, for arcenciel to identify and extract local strains of bacteria and test their effectiveness were difficult for the compost and bio-pesticide. The results proved better than expected, our bio-pesticide is as effective as foreign bio-pesticide - for half the price; it is also cheaper than chemical pesticide (Bio: $17, chemical: $18.25). Our compost also proved to be superior to the existing compost by providing extra protection for the crops, faster production rate and better soil bio-diversity reconstruction. The Domain of Taanayel’s 280 Ha land made it feasible for us to test the products on a variety of crops like vineyards, apple trees, potatoes etc., and monitor its progress over long periods of time, for more accurate assessments of our products.
- Specific activities and/or specifically what your solution does to address the identified problems above in the Context Analysis section
- How you ensured your solution was adopted and promoted change in human activities
- Enabling conditions
- Key success factors
- Any obstacles and how you overcame them
External connections
For the Bio-pesticide, arcenciel teamed up with the University of Saint Joseph, by fusing our resources (their labs and our agricultural fields), we developed Lebanon’s first Bio-pesticide. The project was funded by the Swiss organization, Wise, that funded the research and the complete construction of a plant with a capacity of 600 L production per week. Bio-pesticides are particularly important when it comes to dealing with forest pests, as it targets a specific pest in our case Lepidoptera, it does not harm the overall bio-diversity, and can be safely spread via planes/helicopters. In 2015, Lebanon’s pine trees were hit by an outbreak of Lepidoptera that reduced the nation production of pine by around 40%. And to deal with such outbreaks, it is strictly forbidden to use chemical pesticides in forests; organic solution are the only allowed options.
Regarding the compost, arcenciel partnered with LARI, the Lebanese University, municipalities and farmers, to work together on innovative solutions to restore Lebanon’s soil to its former fertility. LARI and arcenciel both develop the product, to then be sold to municipalities and farmers.
By providing cheap and effective products to the stakeholders, we render their expenses, which is both economically and environmentally beneficial; and farmers and governmental entities will increase their yield and protect the environment simultaneously.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
In the last decade Lebanon’s agriculture endured a series of heavy blows; Syrian refugee crisis (2013), the worst drought recorded in Lebanon’s recent history (2014), and the garbage crisis (2015) all these phenomena affected the entire agriculture value chain. The available agriculture land and products increased while the net exports decreased (most of Lebanon’s exports are through Syria to the Gulf countries). Furthermore, raw materials and natural resources are scarce and expensive, and the water and soil are contaminated. In order to face these new and on-going threats, arcenciel’s agriculture program tackles the issue from its core. The program offers services to farmers from pre-harvest to post-harvest, we will however in this document focus on pre-harvest. Since 2015 arcenciel has developed a potent and effective compost in order to provide an affordable substitute to chemical fertilizers, that benefits the environment (restores soil microbiote), the farmer and the consumer
Describe the context in which you are operating
arcenciel has been a pioneer in recycling in Lebanon, winning the Ford Award twice 2011-2013 for its Rolling Caps Initiative, and has since developed its recycling program to collect all types of waste including organic waste. In order to complete the value chain, arcenciel teamed up with the Lebanese Agriculture Research Institution (LARI) and the Lebanese University to isolate 11 strains of Actinomyces bacteria that hastens the composting process while improving its quality. The tests were conducted in the Domaine of Taanayel, a 280 ha agricultural land managed by arcenciel, with a dairy farm and many pilot projects (bio-pesticides, post-harvest, etc.). The compost was tested in the domain, using cow manure and agricultural waste, and after optimizing it, the compost was then distributed to local municipalities and farmers. The aim is to be able to distribute compost to farmers across Lebanon, to protect our soil, consumers and farmers from the dangers of chemical fertilizers.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
After 6 months of testing we created the optimal pile of compost that was then pulverized with an inoculum containing a mixture of 11 isolated strains. This compost was then examined in a laboratory, showing a high increase in colonies, and was then used on the domain of Taanayel’s 300 ha land. Our compost is a substitute for chemical fertilizer which proved to harm soil and plant biodiversity; where the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus found in the soil has doubled in the last 50 years. Although this phenomenon is allowing some plants to grow faster, it’s killing a lot of different plants due to the increase in competition in the land spots (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1169640). After conducting the preliminary studies to identify the nutritional value of the compost for the plants when added to the soil, produced results showed that there were prominent additional trials that must be conducted at the field level.
Language(s)
Arabic, French and English
Water
Current water conditions are the worst in the history of Lebanon; it has deteriorated in terms of quality and quantity in all regions. Our efforts to preserve water quality are both through providing eco-friendly substitute products for farmers to use on the lands, and thus, reduce underground water pollution, and through the waste water treatment plant in the Domain that uses biological techniques in the treatment process.
Food Security/Nutrition
Most of the agriculture products in Lebanon contain high levels of chemical residue, this not only poses a threat to the consumer’s health but also inhibits exports to many foreign countries with strict regulation like the EU. The availability of healthy affordable alternatives, allows farmers to increase their overall production and their nutritional value. Our compost is a natural substitute to these chemicals.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Most of the energy cost required to produce compost and bio-pesticide are covered by the solar panels installed in the domain of Taanayel, this allows us to ensure that our products remain cheap. Being positioned in the heart of one of Lebanon’s biggest agricultural regions allows the domain of Taanayel’s production and supply to remain accessible to farmers; of small, medium and large lands.
Climate
Methane gas, mostly produced by farms, specifically cow farms, is one of the most harmful greenhouse gas, 23 times more harmful than CO2Using cow manure to produce compost prevents the anaerobic fermentation of the manure that produces methane. And that’s why arcenciel has taken it on as one of its main pilot projects in the domain of Taanayel to fight climate change.
Sustainability
An arcenciel strategy is to fund projects through grants and awards, and ensure their sustainability through market-based revenues. All funds from external sources like grants or awards finance new research and pilot projects, which arcenciel designs in ways that ensure their sustainability beyond the funded duration. The Bio-pesticide Plant was funded entirely by a grant, it is sustainable now through the sales of the product and its relatively low upkeep costs.
arcenciel reinvests its revenues in running its different existing project and operational units; all in order to best help and protect the marginalized communities.
Return on investment
The compost production facility’s initial investment cost was around $40,000. Today, the Facility generates an annual revenue of $7,000. That amount increases slightly every-year due to the increase of demand and supply. We sell and use a total of 250 tons of compost a year, the market demand however is a lot bigger. The Bio-pesticide has a low fixed cost, our revenue is entirely dependent on demand which itself depends on the level of pest outbreaks.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
In order to replicate the system elsewhere, only few parameters are required. First, the purchase of the proper equipment, a tractor, polyethylene nets, etc., this should then be followed by site rehabilitation and the construction of concrete drains. Since the production of compost should be operated with care and expertise, we have developed a strict and comprehensive protocol to follow in order to allow municipalities and farmers to create our compost in their own lands without difficulties. We mostly focus though on working with municipalities to encourage them to increase recycling in their regions; and since they’re also the ones controlling their local waste sorting. In order to ensure the facility is self-sustainable and operates smoothly, arcenciel’s engineers train the municipalities in both the production and management of the product.