____________________________________________________________________________________RE-CAP___
A bit of a delayed blog... but Wednesday was a key day for me in determining the projects focused direction. So I felt the need to spend the rest of the week transcribing all my old interviews and reflecting on the real issues of storing food, specific to small-scale urban farmers. Before we all left for the field visit on Wed, I spoke to Naude' about my concerns of last week and the project direction in general. It was determined that once I have come to understand as much as I need to about small-scale farmers in Soweto (I call it the big problem cloud), I must then lock down on a specific issue so that I can properly solve it. This required me to disregard some of last week's progressions as they were based on many aspects of the problem cloud. This is fine because some valid issues and observations raised last week with Earl will still contribute to the design solution.
I felt also that the 'design' up until last week was based too much on existing literature about the gap between small farmers and big farmers. (On the concept that the small guys are missing what the big guys have, one of those things being stock, hence the long term storage I was pondering about). It is so so important that I address the issues of small farmers as they exist, the solution is nowhere on the internet, it will come... So in more fancy words... The solution cannot be deduced from faults of a precedent line of products (which is what we are all too used to in varsity, sitting in our fancy studios, clicking on important buttons, making all the decisions and drawing pretty pictures because design is a skill you know). Success will rely on the progressive realisation of the problem ecosystem. This will result in the solution being closely aligned with the true needs of small-scale farmers, to be identified. So aspects of the design will emerge and through successive points of contact with the key informants, these aspects will become refined. shme, shme, shme...
On the way to Siyazenzela the team debriefed the structure of their plans and I just mentioned that somewhere in the middle I need a flexible period of time to discuss specific problems and sketches I had done after last weeks meeting. We discussed questions we want to ask so we didn't repeat anything. We didn't debrief last week and that didn't go so smooth so this time was better. Anyways...
_______________________________________________________________________MEETING 3__
When we arrived at Siyazenzela on Wednesday I was pleased to see so many farmers going about their farming. I quickly greeted Sakhile as he had to leave with Naude'. The other farmers were busy transplanting seedlings so I greeted everyone and introduced the team. I introduced myself to Nkosimaye. A farmer whom I had not met yet. I acquainted myself with him whilst helping him to transplant some cabbage in the front of the farm. He was explaining the exciting time of the new season and how production is going to boom. The team individually introduced themselves and offered their help to the other familiar farmers, Earl, Phumlani and Mpila. Although I had called the familiar participants prior and asked them to notify the rest about the meeting, I did not want to disrupt their daily farming. I also notice the one pipe was still broken as I was washing my hands. After about 40 minutes of transplanting I went with Nkosimaye to their storage classroom to fetch some chairs and the meeting began. It's a nice space to have but it was a bit unorganised in there.
I was a bit worried about communicating with Phumlani and hoped that Magaba (asset mapper) would be able to make him feel more comfortable. We semi-formally introduced ourselves starting with the social scientist students, then me and then the farmers, who did a comical introduction... Mpila introduced himself as the director general. We then asked for formal consent from the farmers, all agreed but Mpila said he wanted to read the document and he would sign it at a later stage, he did say that he still wants to participate and that I can record the session. I am now glad for this as his input proved valuable... I need that consent though. I thanked Earl and Phumlani for last week and said that we will have to back track to get everyone on the same page and before we talk about the storage design I would like to do an informal interview to find out current problems with storage.
This was time for me to sit back while the farmers talk, look at my special sitting-back-chair (image below).
4 participants... yay! This is were the images of the discussion stop but it took the majority of the day, 1h30min with a 15 minute break. Last week we discussed needs of storage for longer periods, transportation to points of purchase and off-grid preservation methods like cold, cool, (cool and moist, cool and dry), dry, vacuum storage and air circulation... And how different modules of storage can address the needs of different kinds of produce. The topics are relevant but given my resource of time a decision was to be made.
By this time, after many interviews with similar and smaller farmers, I was familiar with storage needs specific to small-scale farmers (and the general ecosystem). It was also understood that commercial farming is a game of its own and small-farmers of Soweto have prospects of their own. Basing the project on the current agriculture system in Soweto it was noted that long term storage is not yet relevant and may never be. It has also been noted that within small-scale farming in Soweto there are different grades of farmers. It ranges from bed sized gardens to ones like this one at Siyazenzela. Farmers goals range from subsistence farming to much higher business prospects. Storage seems most relevant for farmers who are selling and so the product is focused on facilitating the transport of produce to points of purchase with the prospect of growth to a farms full potential. This type of farming is very unique as scales of farms selling produce can range from approx 3 squared metres to 8000 squared metres (need to check that figure). That is why it is important that the product is modular and can grow with a farmer to it's individual full size. An important observation is that many farms I have visited have unused space and thus a potential for growth (The growth is limited by different things on different farms so it can get complicated and maybe that is not my problem to solve. Sometimes it is man power issues, sometimes time issues, and I don't fully grasp this problem).
So that means the product still tackles issues of transport and short term food preservation. This will most probably use a traditional/ precedent cooling method, and so I wont be exploring methods of storage too much. The design, however, will focus specifically on human centered design that addressed the needs of a small-scale organic farmer and his/her actions at points of sale like markets. This brings into play another user of the storage units... THE CONSUMER... who is concerned with aesthetics. A farmer's main goal is to sell their produce and they mention that it is important to attract customers. When Earl walks with his produce in the streets of Soweto, he wears bright green... I have seen other famers ringing bells... I need to consider presentation of the food whilst walking in the street and also at market events.
In this meeting we spoke a lot about the two main selling activities of a farmer. It would be in-house and market scenarios. In-house refers to activities like customers coming to the site of the farm (this is where the storage does not come in), walking in the streets targeting walking customers and houses, dropping food at a site like a corner vendor or a spaza shop... these in house activities take place to generate a cash flow and help to economically sustain a farm. It is important to consider how the storage can facilitate this. The other one, market scenarios, is an important, mass income scenario for a farm and this involves the 'mass' preparation of produce to be displayed and maintained through the proceedings of a market day. The modularity factor of the product will help to tackle these varying scenarios depending on the different amount of produce coming from each farm.
This all involves relatively short storage times like a maximum of 3 days. The farmers mentioned that harvesting takes place at 3am as they can only sell produce that looks fresh 6 hours after it has been harvested. For this reason they do not harvest anything leafy or fleshy the day before they sell... They laughed when I said it will still look fresh the next day. They say that consumers are first attracted to only the freshest most attractive, best smelling produce. An this works because it will be most nutritive. (They could harvest the day before for produce like onions and herbs and anything they classify as 'dry' and tomatoes if they are harvested greenish)
We took a break and had some snacks. During this the farmers casually and comfortably spoke about how they have seen some farmers using chemicals because their stuff grows too quick. They are angry about this. They spoke and laughed about safety issues and vandalism like a few spiteful people coming in and burning their irrigation and tearing their greenhouse cover long ago. They said how a pad lock on the classroom storage door doesn't stop people from vandalism. This is different to other community farms that are surrounded by houses. Masarame on the other site says that the community looks out for one other. The bad things happening on Siyazenzela could be because of the position on a busy road or something mentioned by the farmers that they are not Sowetans, they are from town.
In the last 30 minutes we spoke, I showed the farmers some sketches I had done after last weeks discussion. I excluded the sketches on alternative storage methods as the decision to do so was made on the farm on Wednesday, given the info from the informal interview. We continued the discussion of problems around their current transportation systems like ease of transportation and use of the units when packing and selling. As well as an inefficient use of space.
I explained the drawings showing different functioning doors and stacking methods. I then did the silliest thing... the hand over of the pen.
Mpila was naturally loud spoken but the visuals further encouraged the other participants. Showing sketches really help communicate different ideas with out so many questions of what I was talking about. I'm not ready for mock ups yet but this will help me get there. I was happy that a lot of things in the sketches were criticised like:
packing and unpacking of crates, stacking crates, accessibility of crates when stacked, visibility of the goods to the consumers whilst they are in the crates, and presentation at a market set up.
The farmers mentioned how they now, unlike many emerging farmers, have a bakkie and this is how they transport mass goods to the market. They said last time they lost out big time because, while having 250 bunches of spinach in their garden, they were only able to pack 50 into the bakkie (in crates with only one layer of bunches in each crate because stacking produce on produce will squash the goods... so much space wasted!). They said they could of made 1 grand instead of R250 on the day of the market. They also didn't have time to harvest the rest as it all has to be done on the morning to insure freshness. If they could harvest the day before with a means of preserving the freshness they would. They mentioned that they would like a trailer to stack the storage crates on. It is important to note that not all farmers are at this stage but they have the potential to get to this stage of production. The crates cannot only be designed for a trailer set up, I must consider smaller scale transport as well. The farmers gave me input on smaller guys because they said they have been there, their input has really moved the concept I think I'm realising here how small I am in this process!
Earl and Nkosimaye say things... All the paper pressing made for a bad recording from the nearby phone but I got it all down with red marker!
Director general... directs...
It all made for some messy drawings which I left there in case they think of something that didn't come up in the meeting.
The meeting took one step backwards but two forwards so I am glad. I'm new to this participation stuff but its way useful. It is so nice to have a group of social scientist honors students around. Terri is a passive observer but really steps in when he has a concern which helps. Magaba makes strong efforts and raises concerns of who owns the bakkie and the land and the future of these things as well as the vandalism issue. He also managed to have a few conversations with Phumlani which comforted him somewhat. Phumlani has a jem of input to contribute, but we will discover it later. Jessica's prepared questions added structure to the meeting. Wamkelwa observes the happenings and this helps. Jane makes sure all of the above do all of the above and corrects my sloppy english =). Slowly we are tapping into the resources we have but its new ground.
I thanked the participants and said that their participation next week will be much appreciated. I'm excited to talk to some small farmers again and get some context from the market scenario. I know it's holidays on 2 Sep which is the next market but I must go if I can.
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