In the Media
Land of 10,000 Stories: George's Marvelous Machines
KARE 11 News
January 2012
"People choose their retirement homes for all sorts of reasons. But it's less about the retirement part than the work space for George Ewing.
"This is the workshop," Ewing says proudly as he enters the resident's wood shop at Covenant Village in Golden Valley. "
For 36 years George worked as an engineer at General Mills, but it wasn't until he retired that his found his true passion. "Oh yeah, this is great," he proclaims as he cranks the handle a hand-built peanut shelling device. "This is the machine I'm working on right now."
George explains that only unbroken, shelled, peanuts will grow when planted. To achieve such a nut, Africans, often women, are tasked with shelling peanuts by hand.
If his work is successful, Ewing hopes it will someday help Africans grow food."
Full Article and Video
Breadfruit flour effort aims to enrich Haiti
United Methodist Church News Service
January 2012
CTI volunteer Hank Garwick is featured in an article by the United Methodist Church News Service on his efforts in Haiti. Mr. Garwick has spent over a decade helping CTI develop a process for converting breadfruit into a flour. The introduction of breadfruit flour could improve food security in Haiti and other tropical nations struggling with hunger.
Non-profit takes on breadfruit challenge to fight hunger in developing areas
Minnesota Public Radio
January 2012
"Breadfruit may sound like a dessert grandma used to make, but it's actually a fruit that grows on tropical islands.
You won't find breadfruit at your local grocery store, mainly because it has an extremely short shelf life.
But a Minnesota-based non-profit group wants to help people in developing countries turn the fruit into flour. The group has asked the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul for help, and in turn the school is sponsoring a contest to gather ideas on how to dry the fruit to prepare it for milling." Full Article & Audio
Breadfruit Challenge Seeks to Fight Hunger
KSTP-TV
January 2012
"A Minnesota-based nonprofit has teamed up with the University of St. Thomas in hopes of using breadfruit to fight hunger in developing countries.
Breadfruit is a staple in some tropical countries. But it has an extremely short shelf life. It rots within 48 hours of ripening.
St. Paul-based Compatible Technology International develops simple devices to harvest and process crops. It's working on a way to shred breadfruit, dry it and grind it into breadfruit flour, which has an almost an unlimited shelf life." Full Article
Wanted: A New Breadfruit Dryer
Star TribuneJanuary 2012
"The School of Engineering at the University of St. Thomas and a Nonprofit -- Compatible Technology International -- have launched a "Peace Engineering" contest. The partners seek teams of two to three people to design, build and deliver a breadfruit-drying device to the Breadfruit Institute, a subdivision of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii, in March." Full Article
Nourishing the Planet TV: Empowering Impoverished Communities with Compatible Technologies
Nourishing the Planet Blog
January 2012
"In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet discusses how Compatible Technology International (CTI) is providing rural farmers with technologies—such as cool storage sheds and food processing grinders—to better help them harvest, store, and sell their crops."
Lost Crops of Africa Program Featured on North Suburban Beat
CTV
North Suburbs
October 2011
Executive Director Roger Salway is interviewed at CTI's Lost Crops of Africa plot for a segment aired on CTV's North Suburban Beat. To see the video, click here and select the link for October 12.
Lost Crops of Africa
Pioneer Press
October 2011
Photo gallery of oxen from Oliver H. Kelley historical farm harvesting CTI's peanut crops. As part of a McKnight Foundation-funded program, CTI is investigating peanut harvesting techniques in an effort to develop more efficient tools for peanut growers in Malawi and Tanzania.
What's cooking: Bread festival at Mill City Market
Star TribuneSeptember 2011
"Bread bakers have a chance to show their stuff Oct. 1 at the Mill City Farmers Market first Bread Festival, sponsored by Gold Medal Flour. Categories are quick breads and yeast breads, with prizes awarded as well as general adulation. There also will demos by baking experts Zoë Francois and Michele Gayer, using the market's outdoor kitchen and a brick oven. Compatible Technology International, a nonprofit group working to fight hunger in the developing world, will be demonstrating its grain grinders..." Full Article
Minnesota soldiers will have support back home
AgriNews
September 2011
"Minnesota National Guard's first team headed to Afghanistan specifically to support farmers has a lot of support waiting back home.... Compatible Technology International, a non-profit organization in St. Paul, can give advice if they have questions about post-harvest processing and water issues." Full Article
U researchers grow vital African crops in St. Paul
Minnesota Daily
September 2011
"The plants growing on a one-acre plot of land in St. Paul may hold the key to ending the famine that has ravaged East Africa.
The University of Minnesota’s Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics is tending to a variety of foreign crops traditional to Africa in hopes of developing post-harvest farming devices and tools for subsistence farmers.
Under a banner proclaiming “The Lost Crops of Africa,” it planted in an experimental field on the St. Paul campus with the help of Tiffany Stone, an applied plant and science major who works as a student assistant on the project.
The group has grown crops such as ivory teff and pearl millet, generally considered to be drought-resistant crops. Most of the unique crops being used in the project may be unknown to many in developed countries, but millions depend on them for their daily nourishment in Africa.
The department has teamed up for the project with Compatible Technology International, a nonprofit organization that alleviates hunger and poverty in the developing world by designing and distributing simple, life-changing food and water technologies.
CTI will use the harvested African crops to develop and test post-harvest farming devices and tools for subsistence farmers. By growing the crops so close to home, CTI ultimately hopes to refine their new equipment more easily to fit a particular crop." Full Article
St. Paul harvests a piece of Africa
Star Tribune
September 2011
"Most Minnesotans have never heard of grains such as ivory teff or pearl millet -- much less wondered how to harvest them.
But a variety of odd-looking crops, traditional to Africa, are being grown for the first time in an experimental field in St. Paul under a banner announcing "Lost Crops of Africa.''
The folks behind the strange site, all workers at Compatible Technology International of St. Paul, are part of a growing movement to encourage African farmers to plant more of these drought-resistant crops and improve yields. Partnering with agronomists at the University of Minnesota, they are inventing equipment to revolutionize the way poor small farmers harvest and husk the grains." Full Article
Gates Foundation launches new mission: Toilet 2.0
Star Tribune
August 2011
"Compatible Technology International Inc., of St. Paul, also welcomes a toilet design that doesn't just cover up human waste. The nonprofit disinfects drinking water in developing countries.
Village water often comes from mountain streams that pick up contaminants -- including human waste -- on the way downhill. The waste also winds up in fields where crops are grown.
Anything that keeps the water supply clean improves public health, said Roger Salway, executive director." Full Article
TTF Foundation brings 600 new breadfruit trees to Jamaica
Jamaica Observer
August 2011
"The Trees That Feed (TTF) Foundation will next week ship some 600 breadfruit trees to Jamaica, as part of its ongoing efforts to reforest tropical areas that produce edible fruit.
The goal, the foundation's website explains, is "to feed people while benefiting the environment"...
To get its work done, the TTF Foundation also works in conjunction with several partner organisations, including Michigan State University, the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, the National Tropical Botanic Gardens, and Compatible Technology International -- all out of the United States.
"Together we are actively working to develop methods to preserve and process the breadfruit into flour and other products, and ultimately create an export demand." Full Article
Innovation of the Week:
Empowering Impoverished Communities with Compatible Technologies
Nourishing the Planet Blog
June 2011
"World agriculture produces more food today than ever before. Since the 1960’s, massive funding has gone to new crop varieties, machinery, pesticides, and fertilizers—dramatically boosting yields in even some of the poorest parts of the world. Unfortunately, we’ve tended to ignore some simple—and inexpensive—tools, including grain stores, crop drying equipment, crates, and refrigeration that are needed to ensure that harvests make it to market. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that, globally, as much as 50 percent of crops go bad before they can be eaten.
In its effort to alleviate poverty and hunger in the developing world, Compatible Technology International (CTI) designs, builds, and distributes affordable post-harvest tools—such as a cool storage shed and food processing grinder—for rural farmers in the developing world. CTI’s devices can help farmers process, store, and sell their crops." Full Article
Appropriate to the People
Mechanical Engineering Magazine
June 2011
"In the early 1960s, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, I had a colleague who, like me, grew up on a farm in Iowa. In St. Lucia, he worked with small farmers in a remote area. He was really out there in the field, more isolated than the rest of us.
When he returned to his hilly, southeast Iowa farm, his father suggested they clear some timber from their bottomland to have more pasture for their cattle. George thought that was a good idea and immediately went to town and bought a machete.
“Gosh darn,” his father told me later, “I thought it was a good idea for George to go to St. Lucia and help those farmers get ahead, but now he comes home and wants to set me back 200 years.”
Sometimes I think technology developed in a first-world country like the United States and taken to Africa would, in fact, set the people who were to use it back at least a bunch of years, if not quite 200.
The question comes up often today, in light of the literally thousands of highly creative, motivated persons from many nations who are doing an astounding amount of work in the area of appropriate technology." Full Article
Banquet highlights food disparities
Minnesota Daily
March 2011
"Deqa Muhidin was expecting a lot more than 4 ounces of rice and a glass of water for dinner when she attended Oxfam America’s Hunger Banquet on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus Friday. She joined more than 200 people for the interactive experience that explored issues like poverty, hunger and women’s rights by placing participants in the very different realities of men and women around the globe...Glenn Corliss, a volunteer with sponsoring organization Compatible Technology International, was one of the lucky few to eat a complete meal that evening. "This illustrates the problem of poverty and food distribution in many ways," he said, motioning to those sitting on the floor and eating rice. "It’s not just the food but the relative discomfort. To be honest I feel privileged and a little shameful." Full Article
Technology Programs for the Poor Seek Recipients
America.gov
February 2011
"Technologies themselves can provide a platform for microentrepreneurship, according to Roger Salway, executive director of Compatible Technology International, a not-for-profit group. For example, the use of an adjustable grinder for different crops designed by his organization for West Africa not only cut the grinding time from between eight and 10 hours to less than one, but also “allows women to educate their children, take care of family’s health needs or earn extra income from additional flour they produce,” he said." Full article
Young Inventors Set Out to Improve Lives
America.gov
February 2011
"In 1993, Englishman Trevor Baylis designed a windup radio that does not need electricity. He hoped his invention would help spread information about AIDS prevention and treatment in Africa’s rural areas. But when he approached manufacturers, they rejected his invention, questioning its commercial value. Eventually, he got the radio into production in South Africa, where a local investment firm decided to fund it." Full article
Malnourished kids to get new diet
Hindustan Times
January 2011
"A centre for nutrition, rehabilitation and research with a new treatment for malnourished children will be set up in Dharavi. LTMG Hospital, Sion, Compatible Technology International (CTI) a US-based non-governmental organisation involved in designing food and water technologies in developing world
and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) have come together to start the centre." Full article