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Shuliang Hui Dr.Hagerty ENGL 1127 25 April 2013 Alleviate Poverty with Appropriate Technology Maybe next time when we are in line waiting for fast food to be delivered, we should stop complaining when the line moves slowly but rather thinking about the fact that there are still people dying from hunger and diseases because of lack of the method to access clean water, nutrition and health care. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates there are 925 million hungry people in the world which means almost is 1 in 7 people are hungry. Its hard to believe that there is more than enough food produced every year for every one single of us living on this planet earth: World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day according to the most recent estimate that we could find. The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food (FAO). Poverty and unsettlement then rises as the result of hungers and diseases in those regions. We can certainly help those people with technology years ahead of what they already have, but such action will demand installing large scaled and labor-intensive production processes. This strategy will also require large amounts of capital to start productions which could not help alleviate poverty effectively. Instead, it will widen the gap between the rich and poor like what Grieve professor at University of Strathclyde has noted: A strategy of concentrating on modern sector development would therefore tend to produce a situation of

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dualism the creation of a small, relatively high-income modern sector as an island in a wide sea of traditional economic activity (Grieve 176). The modern sector is harmful to other economic activities because it would cause massive migrations of rural population into the city to seek employment. Subsequently, it will leave the society unbalanced where its rural places are empty but cities are full of unemployed people. Furthurmore, in most of the developing countries, their medical care and social security system are not efficient enough to cover those migrantsneeds which means they live in a worse situation just for the higher wages at modern sectors. Therefore, a new strategy to fix the social imbalance must be implemented in the less developed worldintermediate technology or appropriate technology. Appropriate technology is a type of technology that is aimed at meeting the basic needs in local communities. The technologies could be applied in the manufacture of agriculture and transport equipment, building materials and textiles, in food processing, energy supply (biomass, biogas, micro-hydro, solar and wind), and in the provision of safe water and health care (Grieve 178). They are relatively small scaled, people friendly, and environmentally friendly. It helps units of people living in rural areas stay self-sufficient and establishes an economic system not depending on others. There are various ways to develop appropriate technology as professor Grieve noted: Such methods can be developed in various ways: by upgrading traditional technologies via the application of modern knowledge, by scaling down and adapting modern sector techniques, or through the ingenious application of modern know-how introducing completely new techniques for coping with old problems in the traditional environment (Grieve 177). Over all, the method could be sorted in two different categories---Tweak and Shift. Expert Leary who has worked for U.S Departmentg of Agriculture offers some in field examples of how these two principles are apllied: Tweaking the weakness might make the grinders more

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durable, stronger, better secured, but without the need for significant design changes (Leary 40). This example is based on the all- purpose food grinder used by thouthands of poor in Africa where the poor use it for all kinds of food like grains, beans, nuts and some seeds. So replacing the blade with stronger ones or changing the way it grinds could save manys time and perhaps lives. The other principle of applying appropriate technology is that: A shift, on the other hand, might be simply to push, rather than to pull a tool; to use ones legs rather than ones arms to power a tool; to rotate a shaft around a vertical axis rather than a horizontal axis to operate a tool (Leary 40). To shift an old technology means applying modern scientific knowleage to improve old methods. Like the water pump in Africa, new improments found that it is much easier to pump the water by treadling instead of pumping a handle up and down. No body there would have known that without any mordern physiology backing it up. These two examples well demonstrate how appropriate technology could faciliate peoples lives in poverty. Imagine what would happen if there is solely mordern sectors and no appropirate techonogies helping? First of all, it would take all the residents money in forms of tax ot tributes to build a facility which would occupy all the resources producing products at twice or at a even highr rate, even thogh they had the capability to sustain themselves. Appropriate tecnology is all they needed. German economist Schumacher first developed the concept of intermediate technology in his book: Small Is BeautifulEconomics If people Mattered. In his book, He talks about how intermediate technology could be more productive than the indigenous technology meanwhile being immensely cheaper than the sophisticated technology. Indian economist Gandhi has developed similar ideas as well. In later years, more and more organizations have been set up for developing intermediate technology---the Intermediate Technology Development Group in UK,

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Volunteers for Technical Assistance and Engineering without Borders in the U.S. as well as many church mission teams. However, the Appropriate Technology Movement has started to decline over the years. There are several limitations of appropriate technology which has caused declinations. 1) AT seen as inferior or poor persons technology 2) Technical transferability and robustness of AT 3) Insufficient funding 4) Weak institutional support 5) The challenges of distance and time in tacking rural poverty (Zelenika 1) In order to preserve a dynamic economic structure in developing counties, we ought to preserve the use of appropriate technologies. First, we should view it correctly: most of us would think appropriate technology is inferior or a poor persons technology but it is no less than any other modern technologies. It is a good substitute for modern technology in remote parts of the world. Professor Zelenika from Queens University explains that the aim of AT in principle is generally not to replace existing industrial systems but to promote technological innovation in the areas where it is weak or ineffective (Zelenika 4). Second, a new technology must be in accord with the local community culture since it would eventually change their lifestyle permanently. A design and its implied methodology must be acceptable to locals and their economic status. Establishing a long term trust relationship between developer and client is the first step. Many AT teams have done overcome culture barrier successfully. For example, in Engineering without Borders Auburn University chapters appropriate technology projects in Bolivia, the team has committed itself into a five years contract with the village. In this way, each side gets to build a long lasting relationship. Consequently, the local culture, their needs and

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feedbacks could be processed easily. Then there must be sufficient funding for engineers to overcome the social-economic barriers. In many communities, they could not afford to purchase any materials to construct the technology which means they will get the first product for free. Because of the lack of consistency, most of them would get left behind with a broken piece. Therefore, a self-sustaining system could hardly start running. Finally, the most important of all is the lack of public inters and strong institutional supports. Zelenika mentioned that: some people do not even consider AT to be technology, or they do not see how even simple things can change someones life (Zelenika 6). This is the main reason that appropriate thchnology has such poor public intrest. If there is neither strong institutional support nor broad public attention, its impossible for groups to make appropriate technology available for people in poverty, because most of the poor areas are located in rural places of the world and projects could not be afforded by most non-profit organizations. In addition, engineers need funds to travel extensively to have more accurate information about the need from the habitants and then design a product which is suitable to them. Appropriate technology would hold back a society in global scaled competitions it there are no sufficient industrializations. Appropriate or intermediate technology should only be used to facilitate the hardships caused by industrialization but not to replace it. Grieve recommended that We should achieve a firm grasp of modern technology, learn from it, and on this basis, seek to develop innovations and technological capabilities, which will allow industries in the developing counties to compete successfully in world market (Grieve 179). During the learning period, society might be very unstable because the wealth concentrates in the ruling class and bureaucracts which makes life a coutinous struggles for a great mass of people (Akubue 1).The use of Appropriate Technology could alleviate the ever widening gap between the rich and the

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poor while modern industialization could prevent the developing countries being left at fringes of globlized world.

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Works Cited
Akubue, Anthony. "Appropriate Technology for Socioeconomic Development in Third World Countires." The Journal of Technology Studies (n.d.): 1-11. FAO. worldhunger. 2002. <http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts %202002.htm>. Grieve, Roy H. "Appropriate Technology in a Globolizing World." International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development (2004): 173-185. Leary, Rolfe. "Appropriate to the People." Mechanical Engineering (2011): 38-43. Zelenika, I. "Barriers to Appropriate Technology Growth in Sustainable Development ." Journal of Sustainable Development (2011): 1-11.