: the photo to the right is a pile of vermicompost, or compost made from worm castings (scientifically known as poop). And it's the project that I'm working on for GLOBASE India, along with my teammates Avjit, Patrick, Stephanie, and Evan.No, we're not going to be making the stuff or teaching anyone in India how to--this is an MBA program, not an ag-tech extension office. But our host organization CORD has asked us to help them figure out how to get poor Indian farmers to produce vermicompost. Why? First of all, vermicompost is up to 70% more effective than chemical fertilizer, which must be produced by large, non-local commercial operators, is energy intensive to manufacture, and has negative effects over time on soil. Small-time farmers who work with CORD have already started making vermicompost to reduce their own dependence on chemical fertilizer--and a few produce a little extra to sell to other farmers or local large-scale commercial growers.
A little background: To make vermicompost, a farmer only needs a starter batch of the right kind of worms and a proper bin, to which food scraps, animal manure, and other organic matter like newspaper are added--most of which a small-time farmer has plenty of as a byproduct of daily operation. The worms eat (and poop) their way through the waste every 2-3 months, leaving behind a fine mixture of castings and decomposed organic matter full of micronutrients. The worms take care of repopulating themselves, and a fraction of them can be used to start a new vermicompost bin (where the worms will conveniently scale up their population to match the food available).
Can our team of five produce a plan to help CORD and the farmers of Himachal Pradesh build supply and demand for vermicompost? That's been our challenge over these weeks since Spring Term began. We have only a few more weeks of emails and late night/early morning calls with our CORD contacts to develop a game plan for the week we'll spend in the village of Sidhbari. So far, we've gathered a lot of basic data about the situation on the ground there--how much chemical fertilizer sells for, barriers to adoption by farmers, how farmers interact with local cooperatives and the government, and much more. We're trying to get a complete understanding of the facts before making any recommendations or spreadsheets; as MBAs, we're used to having all the data we need attached to the back of a case or available online. We've had to learn to show patience as we deal with barriers of time, language (thankfully, Avjit is fluent in Hindi), and cultural understanding (Indians use much more indirect forms of communication). It's great practice for operating in a global business environment.
The most important advice that our faculty advisers Jim and Pam have given us is to not interrupt the people we're interviewing and start interjecting our solutions prematurely. Trust me, after 1 1/2 years of MBA work, it's hard not to do that. But as any student of design thinking knows, a solution that makes sense on paper (or in PowerPoint and Excel) means nothing if it cannot or will not be adopted by the people whom it is meant to help. We have to be careful to solve the problems that CORD wants us to solve, not the ones that appear to us to be critical. Disrespecting the time and thought they have already put into the problem is a recipe for disaster, and arrogant besides.
We'd love to hear from any outside experts, prospective Kelley students, vermicompost enthusiasts, or the secretary of the Indian Department of Agriculture! Share your advice and comments. We know that we as students will benefit from GLOBASE--but we truly want to make sure our Indian partners benefit and that GLOBASE India is even better positioned to make a difference in 2012.
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