Namibia Workshop SANUMARC Univeristy of Namibia, Hentiesbay 3 - 5 June 2010

Presenter Biographies

AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENTAL BIOTECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS FOR

The presentation explores how natural environmental biotechnology incorporating integrated biogas, algal and aquaculture systems can provide small scale farmers and rural households with vital agroecology systems that deliver surplus clean energy and enhanced nutrient recycling from existing resources. The relevance of this presentation is that the IAASTD, the most comprehensive assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology to date and which is endorsed by 45 countries, calls for governments to redirect their focus from chemical and energy intensive conventional farming systems towards productive small-scale agro-ecological farming systems that provide greater yields and more jobs per hectare and which are resilient to drought and disease whilst contributing positively towards climate change mitigation and adaptation.

In South Africa's impoverished former homelands approximately 1.7 million rural households have access to land for farming purposes. Approximately 1.2 million of these households grow farm produce (such as maize, sorghum, etc.) and 0.9 million households have livestock other than just chickens. This means that at about 1 million rural households (representing 5.2 million people, more than 10% of the South Africa's population) have access to land and the agricultural feedstock resources required for the adoption of productive environmental integrated biogas and agro-ecological systems. Furthermore, approximately 1 million of the rural households engaged in agriculture do not have a water source on their land and are solely dependent on rain water for irrigation, a resource which is becoming increasingly unreliable due to climate change. These households require an urgent agriculture water security intervention that could be realised through the adoption of integrated agro-ecological systems that incorporates rainwater harvesting, storage, usage and recycling.

Presented by:

Mark Wells is an Industrial Engineer with thirteen years’ experience in systems design and broad based project management and cross-industry consulting experience, including strategic planning, feasibilities studies and what-if analysis for over US$1.8 billion in projects implemented by the Intel Corporation over a period of four years.

Mark entered the renewable energy sector in 2005 as the project coordinator for the Kuyasa Low Income Housing Thermal Upgrade, the first Gold Standard Clean Development Mechanism project in Africa which involved the retrofit of 2309 low cost houses to include solar water heaters, thermal ceilings and CFL lighting. After meeting with the legendary George Chan (ZERI) and commissioning the biogas digester at the Lvnedoch Sustainability Centre in Stellenbosch, his focus shifted towards integrated biogas systems and associated zero waste nutrient recycling systems. In this regard he has contributed to a number of feasibility and design reports for integrated biogas and zero waste systems for rural and urban contexts including the Fiji National Biogas Implementation Plan and an assessment of the potential for integrated biogas development in the Chris Hani District Municipality.

He has designed and commissioned a number of biogas digester systems including:

• a baffle reactor for sewage wastewater,
• dual stage UASB digesters,
• membrane filter digester (and associated wastewater treatment & purification system) for a 100% recirc mariculture system,
• low cost tube digesters in the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal,
• lagoon digesters and
• a hybrid AlPS digester algal system.

Mark is a founding member of the Institute of Zero Waste in Africa (IZWA) and has contributed extensively to the development of the training material used by IZWA in the DEAT sponsored zero waste world Cup 2010 Champions training programme as well as the IZWA design for community biogas digesters for the DWAF's Integrated Water Resource Management projects on the West Coast.