Green House
Greenhouse
Ensuring food security in developing countries is one of the biggest issues facing the global community in the 21 century. The UN estimates that by the year 2025, 83% of the global population will be living in developing countries, where the capacity to satisfy the need for food is most uncertain.
The greenhouse is made out of local stones for the walls all around, thus creating a significant thermal mass. Further locally available and prepared wood beams are used to build the greenhouse roof. Only the doubled layered UV stabilised plastic (to create a layer of insulating air and thus minimizing the energy losses during the cold nights) was shipped in from Kathmandu and the additional thick winter night covering. Lessons learned with the HASO greenhouse are integrated in the greenhouses built in the local villages.
RIDS-Nepal started in 2004, a prototype and test greenhouse at the HASO (High Altitude Simikot Office) in Simikot Humla at 3000 meters altitude, where the temperature, according to NASA falls below the freezing point for 199 days per year.
What other than a challenge is it to work and struggle towards the improvement of the present food security of the local people, who until now were able to grow only a few crops on their meager land during 3-4 month per year? Aiming for greater food security in a land hostile and harsh such as in the high altitude district of Humla is not just to confront head towards the naked reality of the Humla people, but a great importance towards more sustainable development.
From previously 3-4 months growing season RIDS-Nepal could extend the growing season up to 10 months per year with the greenhouse. Additional clear plastic (with 75 L/H2O each) and black HDP pipe (with 5 L/H2O each) "water sausages" are installed to capture additional solar energy during the day and to radiate the stored energy during the night. Only locally made pesticide is used beside practicing mixed plant cultures.
Each of the plastic "water sausages" contains 75 liter water and lies on a black "plastic sleeve" filled with pin needles which are locally available and create a good insulation to the ground soil. In this way the stored energy is radiated mainly in horizontal and vertical upwards direction, enabling small plants to have a more comfortable climate to grow during the cold seasons. The smaller black HDP "water sausages" can easily be moved around and thus are particularly good to support the growth of young plants and shoots.
Every new approach of a project has to be first tested, tried out and evaluated before the idea and the project is carried into the villages and disseminated on a bigger scale. In the same way the greenhouse, new to Humla, has to be first better understood in order to be appropriate and applicable for the local people and context. Thus in order to comprehend the potential and possible changes a greenhouse can bring to the permanent food shortage and harsh life conditions in the villages in Humla, its potential has to be recognised and its achievements proven. That demands a greenhouse research project with a detailed monitoring and data recording programme. The major parameters, such as the greenhouse inside air and soil temperatures as well as the inside air humidity, have to be measured and recorded throughout the year. In the following pictures and comments we show how we learn to understand what kind of micro climate can be created inside the greenhouse through the monitoring and recording of the greenhouse's key parameters over the course of the four seasons in Humla.
Greenhouse Build
All the research, trials, data measuring, recording and work aim to have ultimately a type of greenhouse design which is appropriate and applicable for the local people's context in their villages. Thus after the first 2 years intensive work and studies, the first few greenhouses have been built together with the local people in their communities.
It is RIDS-Nepal's aim and desire to participate in the lives of the local people as much as possible. That's why we partner with them in all the HCD projects implemented in the 11 villages we work in 2008.
But any technology, in order to be useful, life changing and supporting the people's overall development in a long-term and sustainable way, has to be developed, tested, evaluated and improved according to the local context in order to be relevant. But such technologies can not be purchased over the counter in a shop in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital. There is no short cut if we intend to be relevant and appropriate for our partnering villages' context and aim for dignified and sustainable development. That's why RIDS-Nepal develops new, for the local context appropriate technologies, often initially through student research projects at the Kathmandu University. Often new developed technologies of successful student projects are then installed in RIDS-Nepal's main field office HASO for their first real field applications and tests (see picture below). It is here where these new technology prototypes are tested and monitored in order to understand in great depth their benefits and shortcomings. Only in this way it is possible to understand the technologies in the given context and to improve the technologies so that they become more useful for the local context and the local people for whom they were developed and meant from the very beginning.
RIDS-Nepal HASO, Humla. It has become more than clear that the greenhouse has to be an integrated part of the long-term Holistic Community Development (HCD) approach we aim to develop as part 
of our central vision, work and life in Humla. That's why we have not only all the components of the "Family of 4", the Pit Latrine, the Smokeless Metal Stove, Indoor Lighting and Clean Drinking Water, implemented and in use in our office, but as well the greenhouse, the solar drier to dry some of the products of the greenhouse, the solar water heater for hot showers and the slow sand water filter, as they all have proven to be important parts of a long-term HCD project. They have to be implemented and used alongside each other in order not only to bring forth synergetic benefits from the various applied technologies, but in order to enjoy more long-term and sustainable development in the villages. Thus the initially "Family of 4" concept, which is RIDS-Nepal's basis of any HCD project has been extended to the "Family of 4 PLUS" concept, including either one or more of the above identified technologies alongside the "Family of 4" according to the local communities' own identified needs.