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Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)


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Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
2nd Floor, Maninee Apartments,
Survey No. 13,
Dhayarigaon,
Pune 411 041
India

Telephone: 91-20-439 0348/439 2284;
Fax: 91-20-4390348;
E-Mail: arti_pune@...,
Webpage: www.arti-india.org

[top] [end]Institute profile

The Institute was founded in April 1996 by a group of scientists, technologists and social workers, who had devoted practically their entire adult life to rural development. The Institute is registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860 under no. Maharashtra/4703/SATARA and under the Bombay Public Trusts Act of 1950 under no. F-4674.

[top] [end]Registered Address

Karve Bungalow, Near Adhikar Griha, Laxminagar, Phaltan, 415 523, Dist. Satara, Maharashtra Phone: 02166-20533/25200

[top] [end]Administrative Office

2nd Floor, Maninee Apartments, Survey No. 13, Dhayarigaon, Pune 411 041

[top] [end]Objectives of ARTI

The primary objective of the Institute is to develop, standardise, popularise and commercialise innovative rural technologies aimed at improving the quality of life and standard of living of rural inhabitants of India. Special emphasis would be laid on making traditional rural businesses more profitable and on generating new business and employment opportunities in the rural sector through introduction of novel technologies.

The achievements of ARTI in the last six years cover two aspects, namely development of innovative and appropriate rural technologies, and Rural Entrepreneurship Development. The technologies developed by ARTI are enumerated below:

[top] [end]Rural technologies developed by ARTI

ARTI has developed and standardised the following technologies on which enterprises and income generating activities can be based:

(1) New Nursery Techniques: Almost 80% of dicotyledonous species can be propagated by the simple method of rooted cuttings, if the cuttings are treated with a rooting hormone and kept under conditions of high atmospheric humidity. A low cost high humidity chamber, costing just Rs.200 per sq.m. and the protocoll for hormonal treatment, hardening and transplanting were developed. Use of black plastic mulch increases survival percentage and vigour of seedlings that are raised on raised beds. Surrounding the beds with a skirting of plastic film also increases rate of growth of the seedlings. Methods have been developed to modulate plant growth by using red and far red light. Use of root trainers produces better root system than use of plastic bags. Seedlings and saplings grown in root trainers grow twice as fast as those grown in a plastic bag.

(2) Leaf as a propagule: A leaf of a dicot plant, detached from the plant along with its axillary bud, is treated with a rooting hormone and kept in a high humidity chamber, the petiole produces roots, while the bud grows into a shoot. In this way, an entire plant can be produced from a single leaf.

(3) New items for nursery business: We have introduced several non-traditional items into the nursery business. If the cutting or the scion of a graft is taken from an adult tree, the clone shows very early flowering and fruiting. This finding has been used for producing miniature flowering trees in pots (Delonix regia, Spathodia, Nyctanthus arbortrystis, Michaelia champaka, Erythrina indica, various species of Cassia, Ficus, Citrus, etc.). The method has been standardised for nearly 100 arborescent species. Candidate species for a rural nursery are fruit trees, trees yielding non-timber commercial products, as well as flowering trees. Petioles of leaves of a number of species can be induced to produce roots. Such leaves have a life of about 3 months. Rooted leaves of different colours and shapes can be planted in different configurations into pots to make decorative live bouquets. A large number of local tree species can be used as indoor plants, as they were discovered to be shade tolerant in the juvenile phase.

(4) Nursery Business based on seedlings of seasonal crop species: Ornamental plants are difficult to market in a rural area and the market of perennials gets saturated after some time. Producing seedlings of seasonal crop species has the advantage that there would always be a demand for them. Seedlings growing in a nursery bed or in plastic bags occupy very little space. Thus, while one crop is still standing in the field, or while the soil/weather conditions are not right, seedlings can be raised in a nursery and transplanted into the field when the conditions are right. This allows the farmer to grow more crops in a year, to overcome adverse weather conditions, and also to advance the date of planting in order to get an early crop. Methods have been standardised for sugarcane, cotton and pigeonpea. The business based on sugarcane seedlings grown in plastic bags has an annual market potential of Rs. 5000 million in Maharashtra alone.

(5) Plant tissue culture: The cost of plantlets coming out of a tissue culture laboratory is too high for them to be used as agriculturally useful planting material. ARTI uses a small tissue culture laboratory to produce about 2000 plants per month, which serve only as mother plants. They are further multiplied under field/nursery conditions for one or more generations and the progeny is sold to users. at a price affordable by them. The tissue culture laboratory uses pressure cooker instead of autoclave, rain water instead of distilled water and jam jars instead of costly Pyrex or Borosil ware. A laboratory producing a few hundred plantlets per week costs less than Rs. Six hundred thousand to set up. (6) Low cost greenhouse: The primary function of a greenhouse is to provide plants with additional carbon dioxide. Neither heating nor cooling is required under climatic conditions in Maharashtra. Carbon dioxide is exhaled by green plants during the night, and by soil microorganisms throughout the day. Carbon dioxide, being heavier than air, accumulates near the ground. If the crop is surrounded by a skirting of plastic film and even if the top of the structure is left open, one gets the typical greenhouse effect with doubling of the yield. Because our greenhouse has no roof, one can use relatively thin bamboo stakes to support the plastic skirting around the plants. Per acre cost of a conventional greenhouse is Rs. 10 to 20 million per ha. Our greenhouse costs just a tenth of this. The greenhouse technology is combined with farming on permanent raised beds.

(7) Farming on permanent raised beds: Raised beds made of a mixture of sand and soil are laid on a plastic film. All the soil related limiting factors (wrong pH, soil compaction, salinity, nutrient deficiency, poor aeration, weeds, pathogens etc.) are eliminated in this system, so that plants respond well to fertilizers. Using three times the recommended dose of fertilisers, along with the necessary micronutrients, we get three times the yield in most crop species. The system is ideal for a kitchen garden, but even larger areas can be converted into raised bed system. A single person can easily manage an area of about 2000 sq.m. Capital cost of the system is Rs.100 per sq.m and the annual running cost is Rs.5 per sq.m. Gross annual income ranges from Rs.100 to Rs.250 per sq.m., depending upon the species under cultivation and availability of market. The sand bed technology can also be applied for a number of other uses, as described below:

  1. Using sea water for irrigation: If seawater is used regularly for irrigation, even salt tolerant plants are eventually killed, because the salinity level of the soil gradually increases as the water evaporates. In our method, special care is taken to ensure good drainage by raising the plants on a raised bed made of sand, so that with each irrigation, the salts that have accumulated in the root zone are flushed out and the root zone salinity is restored back to the level of seawater. Many species can tolerate this much salinity (e.g.coconut, casuriana, Prosopis juliflora, Thespesia populnea, Salvadora persica, most of the mangrove species etc.).
  2. Growing root drugs in a nutrient flow system: A system has been standardised for growing plants in sand filled channels, through which nutrient solution flows. One can harvest the entire root biomass in this system, with very low labour cost. The roots obtained in this system are very clean.
  3. High intensity cultivation of cattle fodder: African tall maize, planted on artificial raised beds made out of sand-soil mixture, and provided with all the necessary mineral nutrients, yields 20 kg green fodder per sq.m., once every 80 days. Thus, beds having an area of 80 sq.m., of which one sq.m. area is harvested and planted once every 80 days, can give daily 20 kg green fodder, which is enough to feed a hybrid cow giving 10 litres milk per day. The cowdung and even other waste matter produced by the household, can serve as manure for the plants. This system can give a family a monthly income of Rs.2500 to 3000.
  4. Production of root mats: Grasses have a fibrous root system and they can also form dense stands, in which the roots of adjacent plants intertwine to produce a thick subterranian mat. If such plants are grown in sand beds laid on a plastic film, one can easily harvest the root mats. Depending on the species, the mats vary in their texture. The coarse ones can be made into door mats, while the soft ones can be used as carpets, blankets etc.

(8) Bamboo for outdoor structures: Bamboo can be rendered non-biodegradable by impregnating it with a mixture of potassium dichromate, copper sulphate and boric acid. Such bamboo can be used for constructing scaffolding for grapes, greenhouses, fences, and even water tanks. As a crop too bamboo is very paying, yielding about Rs.500,000 per hectare every year.

See the DIV-X video here: Avseq02.avi (23,809 KB)

(9) Low cost water tank: A 120 cm tall palisade structure of bamboo poles, with the intervening spaces woven into a wickerwork of bamboo, and an inset made out of a plastic film, form the tank. It is filled with potable water during the rainy season, after which it is covered by an opaque black plastic film. These tanks cost about Paise 75 per litre of storage capacity. If the bamboo parts used in the tank are chemically impregnated they resist biodegradation and last for even 10 years under outdoor conditions. The water can be used as drinking water in seasons of scarcity.

(10) Wheelbarrow: A wheelbarrow, with a single wheel, is a very simple labour saving devise, especially for women. Owing to its single wheel, this cart can be pushed even along very narrow pathways, avoiding the necessicity to carry loads balanced on the head. (11) Cleansing agents from pods of Acacia auriculiformis: A process has been standardised for making shampoo, soap and washing powder for household utensils from the saponins extracted from the pods of Acacia auriculiformis. Chemically, the saponins from the Australian acacia are identical to those from Shikakai.

(12) New method of irrigating tree plantations: It is an accepted fact, that drip irrigation leads to water saving, but even in drip irrigation, there is wastage of water, because it wets the surface of the soil, from which a large part of the water is evaporated, without benefitting the plants. The wet surface also promotes weed growth. In the new method, a plastic tube is let into the ground to a depth of about 50 cm and the microtubule of the drip system is let into this tube, so that the water is given at a depth of 50 cm. Because the soil surface does not get wet, there is no loss of water due to direct evaporation from the soil surface and there is also no weed growth. Doubling or sometimes even quadrupling of the growth rate was observed in trees watered in this way in comparison to those receiving the same quantity of water by the conventional drip irrigation system.

(13) Sewage disposal through plantation of bamboo: Bamboo grows luxuriantly and remains evergreen, if it is irrigated daily with domestic sewage. Three year old poles are harvested and sold, earning annually about Rs. 500 per clump.

(14) Rural energy systems, devices and processes:
  1. Biomass based systems: It is estimated that agriculture in India generates annually about 500 million tonnes of agrowaste. ARTI has developed a number of technologies to utilise the agrowaste as domestic fuel. They are as follows:
    • Improvedcookstoves: Woody agriculturalResidues such as stalks of cotton and pegionpea are burnt directly in a woodburning cookstove. A traditional rural cookstove, made of unfired clay, has a very low efficiency, it produces a lot of smoke and soot and it has a life of just a couple of years. The cookstoves developed by ARTI not only have a high efficiency of about 25%, but they also reduce the indoor air pollution. Being made of cement concrete, they last for at least 5 years.
    • Fuel briquettes from light Agricultural Residues: Because most agricultural species are herbaceous, agricultural waste is generally in the form of leaves and thin stems. The act of threshing also results in generating powdery agrowaste. Agrowaste in these forms cannot be used as fuel in a wood burning stove. But it can be converted into briquettes by two methods.
      1. Agrowaste of vegetable crops, which has a lot of moisture, can be partially decomposed. The semi-decomposed biomass, which has lost its stiff and springy nature, can be extruded into briquettes with the help of an extruder.
      2. For dry agrowaste such as dry sugarcane leaves, stems and hulls of cereals and oilseeds, etc., ARTI has developed a charring kiln based on the oven and retort system. The charcoal produced in this kiln can be easily powdered. Mixed with a suitable binder, it too can be extruded into char briquettes. See the DIV-X video here: Avseq01.avi (15,521 KB)
    • Sarai stove-and-cooker system: This is an assembly, which is capable of cooking a meal for a family of five using just 125g char briquettes. A housewife, using a traditional wood-burning cookstove, would normally use about 3 kg wood for cooking the same amount of food.
    • Biogas from agricultural waste: Raw biomass is not a suitable raw material for biogas production, because of the excessively long retention period in the fermenter. Therefore, the biomass should first be aerobically decomposed. The partially decomposed waste serves very well as a source of biogas. The advantage of the biogas technology is that only the carbon and hydrogen from the agrowaste are harvested as energy, while other elements in the biomass remain behind in the slurry, which can then go back to the fields as organic manure.
  2. Solar dehydration of fruits and vegetables: A kit consisting of several lengths of bamboo is assembled to form a multi-tray bamboo pyramid. After loading the trays with the target material, the pyramid is covered with a black plastic cladding. The device serves for solar? drying of fruits, vegetables and processed foods. Because the product is not exposed to direct sunlight, its colour remains attractive. It is also protected from dust and flies. After use, the dryer is dismantled. It occupies very small space in the dismantled state.

(15) Operating a rural bakery: ARTI has developed a low-cost and fuel efficient oven for baking busicuits and cakes, which would allow a rural woman to operate a small bakery enterprise.

(16)Mushroom cultivation: Oyster mushroom, Pleurotus sojar-kaju, can be easily cultivated on a number of substrates, such as sugarcane leaves, cotton stalks, wheat stalks, rice straw, etc. The residual biomass can be fed to cattle, after harvesting the mushrooms. ARTI has made arrangements with a biotech laboratory for the supply of good quality of spawn.

(17) Peat substitute from agrowaste: Agrowaste can be converted into peat substitute by aerobica decomposition with the help of Trichoderma viridae, a cellulolytic fungus. This product is in great demnad by plant nursery business.

(18) Liquid organic manure for the kitchen garden and organic farming: A tank made of bricks and mud, and lined with plastic film, is filled with organic waste. The organic matter is kept moist, so that it starts decomposing. The decomposing organic waste is leached out daily by pouring water on the waste and collecting the brown coloured effluent from an outlet at the bottom of the tank. If this water is used for watering plants, no other fertilizer is required to be given to them. The tank is topped up at regular intervals with fresh organic waste.

(19) Milk substitute from soybean and groundnut: In spite of being cheap, this product serves the purpose of milk in poorer households that cannot afford cattle milk. The product is especially suitable to tribals in the Northeast, who are often unable to digest cattle milk.

[top] [end]Rural entrepreneurship development programme

The technologies developed above have the potential of generating business turnovers of literally billions of Rupees every year.

Under the Rural Entrepreneurship Development Programme, the trainee learns not only the technology? but also the business aspects of the technology (e.g. registration as a small scale industry, purchase of a plot in an industrial estate of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, legal aspects of the business, etc.). Officials of banks, Directorate of Industries, and also those of Khadi & Village Industries Commission, are invited to deliver lectures on various incentive schemes, soft loans, their terms and conditions, and how to fill out their respective application forms. Experts on business administration give lectures on book keeping, cost accounting, advertising, test marketing, importance of quality control, importance of after sales service, etc. Because both the technologies and their products are new, ARTI also provides technical backup and marketing support to entrepreneurs who start businesses based on these technologies.

Adoption of new technologies by rural entrepreneurs was achieved in the case of improvedcookstoves, modern nursery techniques, and raising high value crops on permanent raised beds.

ARTI has also produced video tapes and CDs in Marathi, Hindi and English, to serve as training material of these three technologies. A video tape shows the concerned object or action from the correct distance and angle. Time lag between individual stages of the procedure is condensed, and a trainee can watch the tape repeatedly, if he has not understood the procedure in one viewing. He can also purchase the tape and take it with him for future reference. The production of some of the video tapes was financed by The Department of Electronics, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.

To cater to the growing demand for training in various technologies, ARTI established a Rural Entrepreneurship Development Centre (REDC), at Ganeshnagar, village Algudewadi, Tal.Phaltan, Dist. Satara, on a plot of land measuring 4000 sq. m. Funds for constructing the building of this centre were generously donated by M/s ICICI Ltd., Mumbai. An organization called Association for India's Development, founded by Indian nationals residing in the U.S.A., have donated US$ 2000 for the audio-visual equipment at this Centre.

[top] [end]Training programmes

Sensitisation programmes on ARTI technologies are held every year for teacher trainees attending special courses in Teachers' Training College at Phaltan (Dist. Satara). Sensitization programmes are also held for Biology teachers in Maharashtra under the "In-service training programme for higher secondary teachers". Because of the environment friendly nature of ARTI's technologies, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, has been sposoring some of ARTI's training programmes. Training as well as sensitization programmes on modern nursery techniques are regularly held by ARTI under the DST-CAPART Technology Transfer Programme. Funding has recently been granted to ARTI by Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany, for training farmers in establishing nurseries for sugarcane and pigeonpea. In addition, DST is funding similar training programmes in the case of cotton. Training programmes in tissue culture are being conducted under sponsorship of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). ARTI recently received the Ashden Award for Renewable Energy, 2002. The funds received under this award are being utilised for conducting training courses in the production of fuel briquettes from charred agrowaste. Courses on repair and maintenance of solar energy devices are sponsored by Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA).

The trainees are provided with design drawings, manuals, names and addresses of suppliers of hardware and chemicals, as applicable to each training module. If no outside funding is available, boarding, lodging and travel expenses are borne by the trainees themselves. ARTI also charges a moderate fee, which covers the actual costs of conducting such a course. Generally, a batch consists of 5 to 10 trainees. ARTI is in the process of creating its own hostel facilities, but pending their completion, trainees are accommodated in hotels in the town.

Special courses are arranged for trainees who may wish to combine two or more modules, or who may wish to learn only specific parts of a particular module and not the entire module. The fees mentioned below are exclusive of boarding and lodging charges.

Module 1: Nursery Techniques
1. Construction of high humidity chamber and its use in producing rooted cuttings and grafts.
2. Vegetative multiplication through rooted cutting, grafts and through leaves.
3. Transplanting and hardening of plants raised in high humidity chamber.
4. use of auxiliary light to modulate plant growth.
5. Use of root trainers.
6. Use of shade netting, mini-greenhouse and plastic mulch.
7. Production of compost for use in potting medium.
8. Production of liquid organic manure for use in nurseries.
9. Seedlings of seasonal crop species.
10. Bonsai technology.
Duration: 5 days Fee: Rs.500 per trainee

Module 2. Crop production on permanent raised beds
1. Preparation of raised beds for vegetables, floriculture.
2. Fertiliser application (a) chemical (b) organic manure
3. Irrigation (a) by drip (b) by hose pipe/watering can with rose nozzle
4. Construction of minigreenhouse using bamboo poles and plastic film.
5. Treatment of bamboo to increase its outdoor life
6. Special techniques for (a) fodder production (b) medicinal plants (c) root drugs (d) root mats
Duration: 2 days Fee: Rs.200 per trainee

Module 3: Treatment of bamboo and wood and their use
1. Preparing treatment solution
2. operation of pump
3. Treatment without pump
4. Construction of bamboo water tank
5. Construction of scaffolding for vines
6. Construction of a greenhouse/nethouse
7. Fabrication of bamboo furniture
7. Fabrication of a bamboo wheelbarrow
8. Fabrication of a solar dryer for agricultural and horticultural products
Duration: 4 days Fee: Rs.400 per trainee

Module 4. Biomass burning stoves and fuel from light biomass
1. Preparation of clay/cement concrete mixture
2. Design principles of wood burning stoves and various models of stoves
3. Construction of stoves (domestic as well as large size)
4. Construction of bakery oven
5. Technology of charring biomass for making char briquettes
6. Stove-and cooker system using char briquettes as fuel
Duration: 7 days Fee: Rs.1000 per trainee

Module 5. Plant tissue culture
If two rooms of 10 sq.m. each, provided with water and electricity connection are available, the laboratory can be set up at hardware cost of only around Rs. 300,000.

ARTI would give complete know-how for setting up a tissue culture laboratory and train the staff of the trainee organisation in the trainees' own laboratory. Protocols are available with ARTI for sugarcane, banana, turmeric and ginger. ARTI's experts pay regular visits to the laboratory of the trainee institution to solve any problems faced by the trainee institution.

Duration: Flexible

Training fee: Rs. 25,000 per institution and Rs.5000-Rs. 7000 per individual as know-how fee and training . In addition, ARTI's experts should be paid travelling expenses (train fare by II A.C. Class or luxury bus fare, if train service is not available), local conveyance and boarding lodging expenses.

Following kits can be supplied to the trainees against payment: 1.Portable high humidity chamber : Rs.100
2.Hand pump for bamboo treatment together with adapter and chemicals for making 10 l solution (sufficient for about 40-50 poles: Rs.2,500
3. Micronutrient solution for use in raised bed technology.

In ARTI we have a Air quality monitoring and stove performance testing department. Staff from ARTI were provided training in monitoring stove performance, evaluation of indoor air quality and health by Dr Kirk Smith’s group from University of California, Berkeley, USA and Dr Nigel Bruce’s group from University of Liverpool, UK respectively.

1.All the in house stove models developed by ARTI are tested in this department both for performance and emissions.

2.ARTI also undertakes contracts from organizations to test their stoves for their performance both in the field and the laboratory and stove emissions.

For more information contact Dr. Karabi Dutta. or email:karabi_d@sify.com

[top] [end]Videos

Two DIV-X videos are available to download:

[top] [end]See also

Commercialisation of Improved Biomass Fuels and Cooking Devices in India

[top] [end]Contributors






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Page created: 28 September 2003; Last edited: 28 August 2007; Version: 9
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