Question 1: What roles does ICT play in producer organizations? Support examples with specific reference to an organization, the technology tool(s), and content delivered.
- How can ICT facilitate accountability and transparency among members of an organization and between different organizations?
- How can ICT facilitate climate change adaptation among members of an organization and the rural communities where the organization is active?
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Efaminu,
This is appropriate. By using mobile phones, one of the major costs hs been effectively eliminated leading to higher income for the producer and/or lower price for the consumers. Here in the Philippines, 10/10 farmers have mobile phones. I am pretty sure that farmers would have other use for their cell phones which are related in agricultural production.
I beleive ICT can be very useful to facilitate transparency in transactions but it is always dangerous to try to remove middlemen as they have a role to play. Farmers are to farm and traders to trade. ICT can provide market information not to remove the middleman but to have "fair" price for the farmers. This is not the job of the government to distribute fertilizer to farmer even using ICT.
Dear Pierre,
You are abosultely right, ICT will play a critical role, but at the same time, middle man cannot be over looked. For instance, in India they are the lifeline of farmers, they are the first line of support when they are in trouble, bringing in technology which will over look there shoulder would be a big issue. In fact, they should be part of the sytem, given the economic role that they play in sustaining the farmers.
ICT plays a very important role in producer organizations. It helps a team run the organization more efficiently and it also enables better management when used competently. This has been proven in a Hungarian case study on vegetable-fruit producer organizations that made use of various ICT tools like internet, wireless technologies, and particular software packages. The said tools and the utilization of e-marketing also helped a lot in the producer organization’s increased productivity.
Globally an estimated one third of global food production is wasted or ‘lost’; that’s the equivalent of 1.3 billion tonnes or the amount produced in the whole of the sub-Saharan Africa. In the developing world, food loss occurs mainly in the production and at the post-harvest stage. Up to 40% of food harvested might be lost due to financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions and infrastructure.
Given that many smallholder farmers in developing countries live on the margins of food insecurity, a reduction in food losses could have an immediate and significant impact on their livelihoods.
Food loss (which happens in the production and distribution stage while food waste is what happens in the retail and consumption end of the food supply chain) causes an enormous drain on natural resources and is a contributor to negative environmental impacts. Given conventional, resource-intensive agriculture, the significant rate of food loss means all the resources – land, water, inputs – used in food production along with the greenhouse gas emissions that result from every stage of the food supply chain (agriculture is responsible for 30% of total GHG) are all in vain.
Could this be an opportunity for ICT-based solutions that assist small-scale farmer organizations to identify and develop centralized storage and cooling systems, for example, that can help reduce losses at the production and post-harvest stage?
Could an ICT system perhaps help smallholder farmers learn and be trained to abide by food safety standards to minimize distribution rejects and reduce losses?
Could an ICT system help smallholders be in touch with ‘secondary’ markets for cosmetically rejected harvests that do not meet weight, size and appearance standards instead of these ending up in dumpsites?
There are several examples of farmers forming organizations that invest in technology or facilities to reduce post-harvest losses. Most of the well known examples focus on facilities like silos or refrigeration units.
Are there examples of producer organizations using ICT to reduce food loss?
You have post challenging questions Lucy. I believe that ICT can be a powerful tool in ensuring food security. Food are being lost during calamities (drought, floods, frosts), post harvest mishandlings, inadequate drying facilities (drying in public roads causes 5-15% loss) and inappropriate technologies. Technologies are available but are not practiced due to poor dissemination. A functional ICT system would very much promote reduction of food losses. Strategic location of post harvest, storage facilities and processing centers are easier located through ICT, technologies on substitute commodities (drought or flood resistant), post harvest handling technologies can be readily accessed and market requirements (standards, packaging style - whether in sacks or in small bags, size etc) can be immediately known.
Geotagging, showing location of production centers, post harvest and processing centers, storage facilities and service centers, when perfected can significantly help reduce food losses.
The Vegetable Industry Council of Southern Mindanao, Inc. (VICSMin) Philippines hosted the 8th Mindanao Vegetable Congress last August 2012. Participants were mostly small farmers, vegetable producers, vegetable supply chain players, government sectors and other support organizations from Mindanao, Luzon and Visayas with the aim to improve market accessibility. The ultimate goal of this congress is for the farmers to use the information and knowledge in improving market accessibility and production capacity to enhance their standards of living.
The system to be provided by the Smart Communications will allow farmers to use mobile phones in marketing vegetables. Vegetable farmers in Davao and other parts of Mindanao will subscribe to an extensive information management system in marketing their products with the use of mobile phones. Using the system enables farmers to reach out to a wider market by informing consumers via text on availability of supply. This will also enable farmers to be updated on relevant information regarding price fluctuations in the market.
At the moment internet trading is not possible because most vegetable farmers have no access to computers and are not computer literate.
Advantages are (1) slowly eliminate numerous middleman or jobbers to benefit farmers and consumers. (2) Assurance of competitive of price (3) Unite farmers to come up with the right volume of supply to cater to the demands (4) Develop opportunities outside Mindanao.
Mobile texting by farmers is a good start in getting connected but still communication technology's effectiveness depends on how management implements the technology into the organization.
Thanks Fatima, this is an intersting example. Is there any information on who is supporting the initiative? Is the vegetable industry council working alone, or do they have financial support from government or another party? Also, is the local mobile network operator directly involved in the project (or is the project just making use of the mobile network service)?
Thanks.
HI Michael, the Vegetable Congress last August was supported by The University of the Philippines Mindanao, other support agencies are the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit XI, Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM 3 Program-USAID), and the City Government of Davao- City Agriculturist’s Office. The System is to be provided by Smart Telecommunication. Fingers crossed – wishing for its success.
Principally, ICT as such is supposed to facilitate or enable transparency.
The level of application directly links up with the organisation which it wants to adopt.
In case of PO's , where there exists apprenhension and weariness towards the new element of ICT, often the technology looses its edge. For example , in India when first computers were introduced, it was seen as something which will take away employment. But today, It has become the biggest job creater and enabler enchancing job opportunities.
Similarly, the biggest challenge facing today either at PO level or individual farmer level is connectivity, again in India a grand scheme of connecting every village was undertaken, the results are astounding. Now each village is getting connected, a slow process but happening and results are great.
ICT plays the role of virtual connector- again , mixed response in the Indian context, where in various attempts were made to bring in the Information Kiosks- Common Service Centers- CSC's , announced with much fanfare, but on ground did'nt find any takers- as they lacked any concrete reveune model for self sustainence.
Today, mobile penetration as everybody is highest in India, however the mobile based platform for providing services, is much lower than what is prevelant in Africa, where in acceptability of M apps for livelihood is amazing.
ICT In indian context, has found more resistence then acceptance specially in the rural space, where farmers predominantly , this is despite the fact that both mobile and interest connections are farily well entrenched into the hinterlands.
However, what we are seeing is producer groups/organisations are making sporadic usage of mobile based services, like SMS for getting market information etc. Also some amount of good agricutlure practices are being sent across over the same medium.
The above is ground reality in Indian context.
Having said that, I personally think, ICT is the only medium which will enable effective crop production- as information is the key for making any decesion, hence if the farmer is empowered with the right kind of information , there is no reason why he would'nt be able to produce better.
Now today, if you look at , each of the following is avaliable:
1. WEather information ( most accuate)
2. Market linkage platforms ( exchanges)
3. Issue resolutions ( via video/IVR)
4. Pear to Pear connectivity ( CUG)
5. Crop survey- using GIS
6. Soil Testing ( with mobile N,P can be monitoered)
All that is needed is to bring across all of the above onto a portable device which is handy, easy to use and is accepted easily by the producers. I think Tablets will play a pivotal role in todays time, which can actually cover up all that is stated above.
So going forward, Tablets are key components, infact currently we have developed certain solutions whichi are based on tablets and is finding greater acceptance.
Dear Ravishankar, thank you for this overview of the situation in India and the types of information and services involving ICT. As there are many types of producer organizations in India, from self-help groups to IFFCO, are you aware of any examples where the organizations are using or faciliting their members' use of ICT?
Thanks.
Dear Michael,
Yes very much, both IKSL & Reuters Money light are sms based programs- both are active today. Efficacy of there success remains a big question, given the overall response to SMS based services that we have experienced.
The biggest issue in SMS acceptance is the dialect ie local languages, given each state and district practically has a different dialect, often it challenging to create a single sms which can be sent across to all the farmers.This has been a major issue.
We ourselves have developed a different approach to reach our, via corporates who are working with farmers. We are working on Andriod based tablets to provide or bridge the connectivity and provide a multitude of services.SO we are banking a lot on Tablets, which we belive will be more robust then mobile's
We stronlgy belive that Voice , is going to play a bigger role in Indian context & Tablets will surely be finding more accpetance. Now this will not be at farmer level, but at service provider or those interacting with farmers on daily basis say a company representative etc who are on the field working farmers regularly.
Maybe my assumptions are wrong,but they are based on what has been seen or experienced by us over the past 3-4 years.
Hi Ravishankar,
I read from the Journal of Information Development that IKSL has recently started building a database infrastructure for the helpline and the source material for the delivery of the five voice messages per day, however, these databases are closed to public access. Too, IKSL farmers reported that the voices messages are preferred to regular SMS because of literacy concerns.
This raises the issues of developing the capacity of farmers in using this ICT platform and the access to digital repositories of public agricultural information, like the case of IKSL disseminating agricultural information to farmers for a fee.
-Arnel
Dear Mr. Arnel
The problem in ISKL is interlinked with Airtel Service providers (Mobile). Other users like Vodafone, BSNL, Idea could not access the content, voice SMS, where they have to pay extra service charges. Further, it gives common technological information than the farm specific as like KCC (1551)
Regards
Anandaraja
Yes very much, both IKSL & Reuters Money light are sms based programs- both are active today. Efficacy of there success remains a big question, given the overall response to SMS based services that we have experienced.
We ourselves have developed a different approach to reach our, via corporates who are working with farmers. We are working on Andriod based tablets to provide or bridge the connectivity and provide a multitude of services.SO we are banking a lot on Tablets, which we belive will be more robust then mobile's
Regards Ravishankar Mantha Founder AgRisk Research Technology Pvt.Ltd Mumbai Mobile: +919892502419 www.agrisk.in AgRisk Motto:"Sincerity & Integrity and Originality & Innovation" Twitter Handle:rsmagri Humata Hukhta Huvarshta Good Thought Good words Good Deeed On Friday 16 November 2012 01:33 AM, [email protected] wrote:
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Dear Ravishankar, thank you for this overview of the situation in India and the types of information and services involving ICT. As there are many types of producer organizations in India, from self-help groups to IFFCO, are you aware of any examples where the organizations are using or faciliting their members' use of ICT?
Thanks.
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Dear All,
Thanks for sharing potential areas of ICT in Indian Context and rest of world.
I would like to add few more points to have better understanding of Indian farming,
National Commission on Farmers Report (2007) says that 40 % of farmers don't want continue the traditional livelihood system of farming. Many of the farmers are forcing their sons and daughters to get better education and leave the ancestral property and settle it elsewhere.
The most important crippling factor in agriculture is labour, irrigation and price for the commodity.
Keeping the above factors, how ICT tool like tablet alone will deliver the 60 per cent of uneducated farmers in 30 states with 18 regional language.
Our experience in TNAU, we need to use both conventional and new media tools on parallel way. It is sorry to inform that Edgar Dale who made the cone of learning experience in 1967. Till now, we don't have any quality research with different categories of farmers (in India, we are following the farmers category of Rogers & Shoemaker developed in 1969 for USA context).
Among the State Agrl. University in India, first of kind, an ICT center named e-Extension center was established by TNAU (2008) for experimenting Portal (http://agritech.tnau.ac.in), Video Conference (http://vcon.tnau.ac.in), weather network (http://tawn.tnau.ac.in), market information through mobile (www.tnau.ac.in), Agro Advisory services through mobile, IFPRI-TNAU (http://www.advanceagriculturalpractice.in/w/index.php/Main_Page), Expert System (Static, DSS and Crop Doctor-off line mode) and Call Agri. Network.
Our center is implementing the Precision Farming Project through which TNAU is facilitating to promote producer companies to over come the crippling factors in Agrl.
Further, we don’t have a policy or central hub in ICAR / Govt. of India to coordinate the various ICT-A initiatives. Many of the intervention are piecemeal kind of approach not the integrated or holistic nature.
Our vision is Participatory Farming with Producers Companies.
Looking forward to work collectively reaching the unreached,
Regards
Hi anandaraja_n, thank you for sharing this information with us. Participatory approaches can empower collective groups of farmers and help to put decision-making in the hands of the farmers. Although no single ICT will be satisfactory for farmers, the use of a wide range of ICTs in agriculture can improve the livelihood of the farmers in rural areas and help in their socio-economic growth. Various participatory approaches such as participatory communication and participatory learning for effective use of ICTs in agricultural domain may highlight how participatory approaches can assist in information and communication technology for rural farming community.
Dear Fatimalorine,
Thanks for sharing your proactive feedback,
Kindly view the http://www.worldwide-extension.org/ which gives you world wide extension network linking five continents
With regards
Anandaraja
Hi Michael,
I have tried to look for cases that could exemplify ICT’s role in reducing food loss at the level of smallholder farmers and one resource I tried is the data base of case studies undertaken by the Equator Initiative (www.equatorinitiative.org) of the Equator Prize winners which presents these community groups’ best practices. Of the close to 50 such case studies under ‘Ecoagriculture and Food Security’ category, only two addressed post-harvest losses due to inefficient transport and storage and none of the solutions were ICT based. The solutions were more centered on the farmers’ groups undertaking value-added processing themselves which reduces spoilage, adds skills to the community particularly to the women members, generates income at a premium in some cases as the products come with an artisanal touch or with cultural authenticity as they are made using traditional methods.
According to the FAO’s report called Global Food Losses and Food Waste (2011), premature harvesting is another cause of food loss, particularly in developing countries and driven by cash needs or food deficiency. This results in less than optimal economic value for the harvest or in the produce getting wasted altogether if not suitable for consumption. The report suggests diversification of produce and greater access to credit from agri-finance institutions.
The report further suggests that farmers get closer to the consumers through farmers markets. This also enables them to avoid the cosmetic (weight, size, appearance) standards of supermarkets and reduce the amount of food rejects. However, for the farmers and the consumers to converge at some market location, there has got to be roads and transport facilities available so this again goes back to issues of infrastructure and the need for governments and private sector to invest in this.
Food loss is indeed a significant area where ICT solutions can be of crucial difference and value given the extent of the losses, the amount of natural resources that get squandered in the process, and the fact that one in every seven people go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 people die of hunger every day (UNEP Avoiding Future Famines, 2012).
Small farms continue to contribute significantly to agricultural production, food security, rural poverty reduction, and biodiversity conservation despite the challenges they face in the access to productive resources and service delivery. They confront new challenges on integration into high value chains, adaptation to climate change, and market volatility and other risks and vulnerability.
In developing countries, the use of ICTs by farmers to overcome hunger and food security remains in early stages. The phenomenal increase in mobile phone acquisitions when combined with other ICT platforms (like radio) has great impact on agriculture. It is very important that as ICT platforms are rolled out their content or the message that is sent out is validated to ensure authenticity of the knowledge and information to sustain the interest of users.
There are several ways in which ICT can address this problem at the local and global level. ICTs are used by many international organizations for mapping and monitoring world food supplies, early warning systems, and to respond when disasters strike. In this area, telecommunication and radio communication standards is essential.
In complementing incentives to the private sector to innovate, governments must play an active role in coordinating the delivery of inputs, technical and output marketing services to small farms. Support is also needed to enable them to adapt to climate change and market volatility.
Interesting post Lucy,
Food production and distribution systems are becoming more interdependent, integrated, and globalized. At the same time, escalating and heavily publicized outbreaks of foodborne diseases have raised awareness of the need to ensure food quality and safety. This need drives much of the technological innovation to trace food consistently and efficiently from the point of origin to the point of consumption.
Traceability is an increasingly common element of public1 and private systems for monitoring compliance with quality, environmental, and other product and/or process attributes related to food. Small-scale farmers may lack the resources to comply with increasingly strict food safety standards, particularly traceability requirements. Given the role of traceability in protecting consumers, ensuring food safety, and managing reputational risks and liability, it is vital to integrate and empower small-scale agricultural producers in the food supply chain through ICTs.
(http://www.ictinagriculture.org/ictinag/sourcebook/module-12-improving-…)
Dear All, My name is Kiringai. I practice ICT4D and ICT4Ag in Kenya and Africa. I support communities to embrace ICTs and Knowledge Management in Agriculture, which is my current life, my first life was in ICT. I am sorry I came late from the field and thought the exchanges flowing across present very good discourse. When I read some of the posts, of people who think they studied a long time ago, I get the impression that I am prehistoric...that aside though, I would like to support the thinking of the posters who seek to present the need to gather the knowledge of the farmers. Much of the posts are on the 'what'...we are missing much of the 'how', which is easy to explain as most of the posters are agriculturalist. I was poached from the ICT side and brought to agricultural research and hence try to fuse both the ICT and Agriculture in what I do with communities. The challenge is to ensure that the farmers relate with the technology, it promotes or supports their social orientation, and that it is affordable. The model adopted by Digital Green in India and driven by the Microsoft Geek who got swept out of ICT from Microsoft to integrate technology to communities has been a good example of what can be done using ICTs for communities. Video capture and storage and its integration with communication to users using the now freely available Google product YouTube - Google buys everything that has potential for the future particularly in driving its focus on owning ICT for the common people including Android! I am about to leave for another field trip to work with the farmers where I try to help them create physical spaces like what is referred to as telecentres---am an enthusiast of this--- and have developed a model of interaction with the smallholders which you can see at: http://www.vacidafrica.or.ke/section-layout/3/143-avaak-implementation-model-.html. The critical challenge is making the farmers come to the point of investing in this model. My experience is that we can manage to get people not necessarily smallholder farmers alone much as they will be value chain actors in the ownership. The investment in the model is driven b y a share based organizational framework. I am still researching on the model and would like to know how many people would be keen in working on this with me so that we can try to promote ICT usage using green energy solutions for which I have global partners working with me on the implementation side. Visit also www.af-mip.net to see our mobile technology driven portal that we hope to link producers with the market using mobile money whose infrastructure we are currently finalizing. The learning curricula which is to be driven by the video perspective captured using smart phones as demonstrated by one of our trial sites at http://mobilemovement.tv/marketplace. The collection of produce from smallholders is done through a weighment technology which was the basis of my engagement with agriculture which you will see at www.octagon,co.ke, which ensures that farmers do not lose their produce to clerks who are keen to falsify weights from illiterate farmers. As you can see, we are trying to do a lot and therefore need to work with all researchers to bring the technology that works to agriculture, so if you miss me, know that I shall still read your posts even when in the budus! Kiringai Kamau
I am sorry I came late from the field and thought the exchanges flowing across present very good discourse. When I read some of the posts, of people who think they studied a long time ago, I get the impression that I am prehistoric...that aside though, I would like to support the thinking of the posters who seek to present the need to gather the knowledge of the farmers. Much of the posts are on the 'what'...we are missing much of the 'how', which is easy to explain as most of the posters are agriculturalist. I was poached from the ICT side and brought to agricultural research and hence try to fuse both the ICT and Agriculture in what I do with communities. The challenge is to ensure that the farmers relate with the technology, it promotes or supports their social orientation, and that it is affordable.
The model adopted by Digital Green in India <http://www.digitalgreen.org/> and driven by the Microsoft Geek who got swept out of ICT from Microsoft to integrate technology to communities has been a good example of what can be done using ICTs for communities. Video capture and storage and its integration with communication to users using the now freely available Google product YouTube - Google buys everything that has potential for the future particularly in driving its focus on owning ICT for the common people including Android!
I am about to leave for another field trip to work with the farmers where I try to help them create physical spaces like what is referred to as telecentres---am an enthusiast of this--- and have developed a model of interaction with the smallholders which you can see at: http://www.vacidafrica.or.ke/section-layout/3/143-avaak-implementation-model-.html. The critical challenge is making the farmers come to the point of investing in this model. My experience is that we can manage to get people not necessarily smallholder farmers alone much as they will be value chain actors in the ownership. The investment in the model is driven b y a share based organizational framework.
I am still researching on the model and would like to know how many people would be keen in working on this with me so that we can try to promote ICT usage using green energy solutions for which I have global partners working with me on the implementation side.
Visit also www.af-mip.net to see our mobile technology driven portal that we hope to link producers with the market using mobile money whose infrastructure we are currently finalizing. The learning curricula which is to be driven by the video perspective captured using smart phones as demonstrated by one of our trial sites at http://mobilemovement.tv/marketplace.
The collection of produce from smallholders is done through a weighment technology which was the basis of my engagement with agriculture which you will see at www.octagon,co.ke, which ensures that farmers do not lose their produce to clerks who are keen to falsify weights from illiterate farmers.
As you can see, we are trying to do a lot and therefore need to work with all researchers to bring the technology that works to agriculture, so if you miss me, know that I shall still read your posts even when in the budus!
Kiringai Kamau
On Mon, Nov 19, 2
Thank you Lucy. You may have identified an area where development organizations, in collaboration with producer organizations, should put greater emphasis on the use of ICT.
Another example of farmer organizations playing a central role in ecological conservation by adopting agroforestry and using ICT is the Camalandaan Agroforestry Farmers Association (CAFA). This farmer group helps to conserve fragments of lowland limestone forest in Negros Occidental, Philippines, offering an example of a farming community that practices ecosystem stewardhip.
Through a participatory land management plan, the group is able to equitably balance the allocation of land resources according to the various needs of the community and of a fully functioning ecosystem. CAFA helps protect the Southern Cauayan Municipal Forest and Watershed which feeds four major river systems and houses nine forest patches that host some endangered species.
In partnership with a group of biologists from Silliman University, the area was mapped using GIS, and a biodiversity data base was developed to identify the unique and threatened species in the forests. CAFA farmers were trained to conduct wildlife monitoring, evaluation and even in the data entry of field observations. The farmers also serve as forests wardens. They mark mature trees with paint to alert illegal loggers and these trees are mapped using GPS readings and also regularly monitored.
The farmers are equipped with communication equipment and as these also serve as emergency communication systems, the municipal government supported them with an erial antennae and solar panel power source.
Apart from the improved land tenure security for the farmers, CAFA has also empowered a community that has historically been isolated and marginalized in terms of access to social services. Reforestation and protection of riparian areas have helped mitigate against flash floods which help increase the resilience of the community to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change.
(Source: Equator Initiative, www.equatorinitiative.org)
Some interesting comments have been made about traceability and post harvest waste. Primarily, for post harvest, I think that that ICT can be a good tool for education for post harvest storage (reduce waste and improve safety), perhaps in the future also for alleopathic considerations in storage. Most importatntly, I see it being a good tool for getting inforamtion about getting produce to market effiently. However, the most important role I think would be at disemminating information about what are the most cost effective and market applicable post harvest chemicals for farmers to use.
Traceabilty, is an interesting issue but I am not sure how appropriate/applicable it is on a local scale. I am not familiar with tracibilty issues in developing nations. From the perspective of Japanese food saftey, for Japanese companies (espceially importing to Japan) it means completely controling the process (COMPLETE - total management systems) from the "farm stage" stage right up to domestic delivery. So althought tracibilty is becoming a more important food safety issue, I believe that more and more importanting nations will look to "more complete" food management systems that cut the local producers out (in favor of large agricultural "factiories" and seek to control more of the process. So tracilbilty fro the global market is not such a "key" issue.
Peter
Through other interactions in the e-Agriculture Community we know that traceability is increasingly important to local communities and producer groups, particularly those producing products with high value or export potential. A well known case is the shea butter producing women’s groups in Ghana that Oumy Ndiaye wrote about here http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/blog/rural-women-want-more-access-icts
Another example is Sustainable Harvest’s RITS, which is used by coffee cooperatives in Africa and Latin America http://www.e-agriculture.org/content/sustainable-harvests-relationship-information-tracking-system-rits-ict-and-ag-profile-usaid
Through other interactions in the e-Agriculture Community we know that traceability is increasingly important to local communities and producer groups, particularly those producing products with high value or export potential. A well known case is the shea butter producing women’s groups in Ghana that Oumy Ndiaye wrote about here http://www.e-agriculture.org/es/blog/rural-women-want-more-access-icts
Another example is Sustainable Harvest’s RITS, which is used by coffee cooperatives in Africa and Latin America http://www.e-agriculture.org/content/sustainable-harvests-relationship-information-tracking-system-rits-ict-and-ag-profile-usaid
From
Dear all,
During the last days, Question 1 has received tremendous participation, with over 200 posts from all over the world! At this point, I have closed Question 1 in order to focus our thoughts on the remaining issues this week. However, if you have something specific that you would like to add, you may email your comment to [email protected] and we will review and post if appropriate. We look forward to continue this engaging forum over the other 3 questions! Michael Riggs, facilitator