Global Forage and Fodder Oat Network

Pre-Covid Pandemic, families in fragile ecologies characterized by marginal economies depended heavily on foreign remittances and/or tourism. Long since evaporated, leaving resident families destitute and ecologies they live in more heavily depleted than ever. Exacerbated by returnees. Families have through necessity returned to traditionally depletive livestock management practices. Free grazing and excessive harvesting of forest fodder resources. Purpose-bred forage and fodder oats are a proven solution here and in lowland cool-season ecologies. Facilitating zero grazing and stall feeding of more productive and suited milk and meat breeds (NepalOat).

Broadly adapted purpose-bred oat cultivars are pivotal. There is no international support center like CIMMYT for wheat. Marginalized economies like Nepal are badly affected. This need has languished since the 1970s. Filled in ad hoc ways through individual collaboration like NZ-Nepal. Worthy of formalization and developing into a global network. This we have done at a pilot scale, ready for up-scaling.

Widespread farmer acceptance and utilization of fodder oats in Nepal after 40 years of farmer-based improvement projects now far exceeds seed supplies. Quantity, quality and seasonal availability of breeders and foundation seed at the top of this seed chain requiring science-based as well as production-oriented support, is the bottle neck.  So far unresolved using conventional approaches.

Lack of an internationally mandated Forage and Fodder Improvement Center for assisting developing economies, comparable to CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) founded in 1943. Is a, if not the major reason. Nepal is not alone here. Millions of families throughout the rest of the developing world continues to suffer. Especially those who are resource poor, like Nepal. Unable to develop and sustain their own programs. Or systematically access, network and utilize globally, other countries'  resources. On the basis of overlapping agro-ecologies. A standard procedure dating back to the beginning of modern plant breeding. Adapted to and adopted by this project for forage and fodder crops, creating a virtual International Collaborative Center for the first time. Operationally spanning public and private sectors locally, regionally and globally. Networked and coordinated by overlaying machinery as a neutral conduit and platform for plant-based and other activities. 

Up-grade and expand our pilot participatory network supporting purpose-bred forage and fodder oats within and across developed and developing economies. As an overlay to existing global year-round North-South Hemisphere plant breeding and early generation seed chains. Including that established for milling oats (as well as many other crops) during the 1950s - ongoing. Where New Zealand has become the major Sth Hemisphere focal point. Coordinating main Nth/Sth contributors and reaching out laterally on the basis of agro-ecological overlap through the Flexiseeder Nordic - New Zealand Industry Interface Support Group. Into Nepal and Bosnia and Herzegovina for example. Using our global machinery and support network as the core neutral conduit.

For 21 years our Group has been successfully, inventing, developing, producing and providing novel seed machinery globally, collaboratively with its' end users. As open-source technology for developed and developing economies.  Our single ear and small sample thresher originally designed and developed for Nepal, subsequently went global, paving the way for this oat project. Drawing in necessary start-up forage and fodder oat genetic resources (segregating materials as well as finished lines) adapted globally. Not otherwise available philanthropically. Including unique materials that are relatively day length insensitive and in some instances broad leafed. 

Leading Authors in this submission partnered and started working together in 1979 in Nepal building on previous experience in the highlands of Peru, Azad Kashmir and Pakistan. Continuing un-interrupted up to the present. Collaboratively and directly with targeted beneficiaries and established institutions in the public and private sector locally and globally. As team members / counterparts of ADB, UN and NGO initiatives. Covering a succession of livestock-based village-level agronomic crop, cultivar and seed projects. Most of them, we helped identify, formulate and then implement. Starting nationally then narrowing in on specific areas as case studies. Reaching out additionally from this base variously on-site through UN, ADB, WB and other missions into needy communities. Much of it as emergency agricultural multi-crop seed-based relief. Bridging into rehabilitation and development in Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan; and the Balkans, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Without exception, always limited regarding successful forage and fodder oat cultivars, in sustainability, exit strategies and inter-generational succession. Through the lack of a globally coordinated and internationally funded and supported forage and fodder oat center / program including appropriate training overlays. As we are proposing. Having now established and tested through case studies. Including a range of companion and/or supplemental crops.

Repeatedly over the years we raised this constraint on behalf or our target beneficiaries. Variously endorse by FAO publications. Particularly the FAO Fodder Oat Overview that we were invited to contribute to and co-author sections - to no avail. This MIT submission is our last attempt. As a core group, we are past retirement age.

Historically we advocated from the top down through seed. Trying to gain needed traction to mobilize such a center. This time we have adopted the reverse. An end-user global "grass-roots" approach through supporting machinery which is "neutral". And, applicable  world-wide across all levels of economic development and ecologies where oats apply (milling as well as forage and fodder), plus many other crops.

Through our own efforts and at our own expense over the past 21 years we have through working models / case studies. Built up and operationally commissioned at a pilot level, through philanthropic endowments of germplasm and equipment from our end-user members.

The core local, regional and global infrastructure of a virtual global forage and fodder oat network is now complete. Endowed philanthropically with a core suite of forage and fodder oat, fodder pea and triticale genetics; functional and ready to expand. Including virtual centers of excellence in the Nth and Sth Hemisphere with regional outreach focal points. All done collaboratively in participatory ways. By overlaying existing public and private-sector infrastructure that is on-going. Sourced and coordinated through our Flexiseeder network of machinery end-users. Across and including developing and developed economies. Thanks to the Internet. Reinforced by quantum leaps made through necessity due to Covid Pandemic, with on-line networking and education, virtual meetings including field walks of breeding materials, collaborative scoring of plots, etc. Inconceivable between our end users two years ago.  The missing link in making our virtual network reality.

This infrastructure is immediately ready to grow, subject to strategic funding a) at the top end for plant breeding and early generation seed and b) further down, for more farm-level case studies / outreach. Overlaid with training an integrated food security / disaster mitigation, emergency relief, rehabilitation and development mandate. Needed to formally commission our virtual initiative as reality. In total, exactly the the type of functional center which has been lacking since the beginning of modern oat breeding during the 1950s. Already addressed for other food-grain crops.

Starting during the late 60s / early 1970s and growing into the CGIAR network. NOT AS A SINGLE-COUNTRY CENTRALIZED AND THEREFORE POTENTIALLY HIGHLY VULNERABLE "HOME BASE". BUT A ROBUST DECENTRALIZED ENTITY OVERLAIN AND MULTI-PURPOSED TO EXISTING AND FUNCTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE. MOST OF IT MULTI-CROP. MAKING IT EVEN MORE RESILIENT. BUT STILL DESPERATELY SHORT OF OPERATIONAL CAPITAL. FOR CONTRACTING AND SUPERINTENDING OVERLAID GOODS AND SERVICES - IN THE DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING WORLD. Administered within a Program Setting, as a portfolio of sub projects.

While specifically targeting those beneficiaries we have been working with as case studies. If our virtual global center / network initiative is funded into reality. Globally, all end users of forage and fodder oats will benefit. Including in milling oats as well as companion (legume and other) crops, subsequently. Through out developing and developed economies. Across the total global agro-ecological span of ecologies where the crop is presently grown. 

As well as new areas of potential / critical need highlighted in the Challenge Overview. Mostly supporting initiatives at strategic bottlenecks at the top end of the seed and supporting machinery chain. But also including provision to start new pilot initiatives / case studies at farm level, suitable for attracting additional funding from other sources. So as to build up a program portfolio of "sub-projects" holistically. Adequately resourced and supported at the top end of the year-round Nth-Sth Hemisphere forage and fodder oat seed, machinery and training "chain / pyramid".

REACHING OUT LATERALLY ON THE BASIS OF AGRO-ECOLOGICAL OVERLAP as a participatory and collaborative network. Mutually beneficial to contributors and recipients. Because of the extremely wide agro-ecological adaptability of the core suite of philanthropic purpose-bred forage and fodder oats and essential equipment endowed. Not precluding commercial linkages between network participants.

Part A: Marginalized farming communities mostly already aware of and using forage and fodder oats to secure their family well being in association with livestock. But, lacking modern cultivars and adequate early generation seed and other resources in terms of quality, quantity and seasonal availability to realize their potential in economically and environmentally sustainable ways. Particularly systems seriously impacted by the continuing Covid pandemic. Exacerbated by climate change and associated growing human pressure on fragile environmental resources. Across the wide range of ecologies where forage and fodder oats are grown from the tropics to sub arctic. 

Part B: Globally resourced and coordinated on-line training resources in forage and fodder oats. For plant breeders, early generation seeds people, technicians, students and farmers. To address critical global shortage across developing and developed economies. Encompassing up-grading and adapting existing materials already with our end-users, including from other crops. As well as new materials needed.

Reaching out via agro-ecological overlap to developing economies in dire need of this specialized assistance professionally and philanthropically. Through broadly adapted purpose-bred forage and fodder oats backed up with training and supporting equipment. Ultimately made possible through the internet.  Plus the endowment of Flexiseeder technologies (worth more than NZD 2.5m) into the public domain. So that these products can be manufactured and serviced locally, near to end users.

By helping these populations through our network, where overall genetic gains in breeding forage and fodder oats that help them will also be of reciprocal application amongst contributors' and better-off and less threatened economies. Spanning the developed as well as developing world across an exceptionally wide range of latitudes, altitudes and cropping cycles. Seldom achievable in other crops but achievable with forage and fodder oats due to broad adaptation of materials.

Needed to address these types of constraints.

Fodder Oats in Nepal

Womens’ Groups Empowered with Oat Seed

There have been 40 years of Farm-level promotion and use of Fodder Oats in Nepal benefiting from modern plant breeding in overlapping agro-ecologies in New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and the USA for example. Used by a succession of very successful projects like the one explained beautifully in this video (NepalOat). Simultaneously providing an effective conduit for a range of other assistance, enabling a substantial positive knock-on multiplier effect, overall.

However:

• AFTER 40 YEARS THERE IS STILL NOT ENOUGH EARLY GENERATION SEED MOVING THROUGH LOCAL SEED VALUE CHAINS (PYRAMIDS) TO MEET FARMERS’ NEEDS.
• A MAJOR REASON IS THAT THERE IS INADEQUATE ON-GOING AND SUSTAINABLE INTERNATIONAL AND LOCAL BACKP-UP SUPPORT BACK INTO ESSENTIAL SOURCES OF TRADITIONAL AND NEW CORE GERMPLASM.
• THIS IS A, IF NOT THE MAJOR BOTTLENECK. Resolving this has become critical post Covid-19.
• There is no alternative to forming and commissioning an International Forage and Fodder Improvement Centre and collaborative network. Proposed more than 20 years ago spanning and linking developing and developed economies on the basis of agro-ecological overlap.
• Jump starting and facilitating this is our aim and objective. Simultaneously providing a conduit for womens’ health, education and wellbeing overlays as well as other overlays.
• A virtual center with a full-time co-ordination cell hosted within existing infrastructure including donor interface is all that is needed to make the center operational. Overlaying existing local and global seed and machinery infrastructure already in place and functioning but, critically short of third-party operational funding, post Covid-19.
• OUR SOLVE SUBMISSION # 26289 PRO-ACTIVELY ADDRESSED THIS ISSUE on farm. As down-stream outreach from our initiative. Building on the Nepal Video linked earlier in this submission. Although not funded by SOLVE. This earlier solve submission continues to provides an excellent model for drafting "farmer outreach" project submissions to donors. Specifically targeting community-oriented  sub-project funding. To be implemented and executed by our partners / group members. Under this current umbrella program-oriented submission. Lying at the core of our business model and plan.

Note: Fodder oats have proven potential for poverty alleviation encompassing emergency relief, rehabilitation and development in lowland as well as highland areas throughout the world. Stretching all the way from latitude 48 Degrees South (Chile and Argentina) to more than 60 Degrees North (the former Soviet Union). This includes many areas inhabited by poor minority groups living within larger ethnic majorities in Central and South America, the Horn of Africa, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Balkans, Central Asian Republics, South and North Korea for example. Fodder oats can be produced wherever and during whatever season temperate vegetables can be grown, interfacing well. Spanning and integrating disaster mitigation, emergency relief, rehabilitation, development and regular production as a continuum. World-wide.

General aims and Objectives: 

Preserve and restore carbon-rich ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots, whether terrestrial, coastal, or marine. Indirect contribution via intercropping which allow for lower use of chemical resources, and their foot prints in terms of pollutions in the production, transport and distribution processes, as well as reduced environmental impacts through less risk of leaching of nutrients to surrounding (water) environments, etc.

Provide scalable and verifiable monitoring and data collection to track ecosystem conditions, such as biodiversity, carbon stocks, or productivity. Direct contribution to increased production (yields and quality) due to biotechnological improvements in terms of locally suitable varieties and intercrops.

Aggregate local projects to enable access to financial capital for ecosystem services such as natural hazard mitigation, water quality, and carbon storage. Indirect contributions as stated under the first condition. Direct contribution in terms of yield stability.  

Create scalable economic opportunities for local communities, including fishing, timber, tourism, and regenerative agriculture, that are aligned with thriving and biodiverse ecosystems. Direct contributions to local communities in terms of improved livelihood (developing countries) through improved yields and forage quality (developed and developing countries), and indirect impacts due to reduced negative environmental and climate impact as stated above. 

Specifically: 

1. Most certainly what our forage and fodder oat group has brought together, strengthened and most recently made quantum leaps with institutionalization and handing over to subsequent generations is worth considering.
2. Not solely, but as the catalyst of a larger multi-disciplinary global package / team approach. 
3. For example in Nepal, as an alternate source of forage and fodder, it is pivotal to forest and rangeland management, education and female health and well being. It allows for and promotes stall feeding. A change in livestock away from free grazing animals.
4. In Bosnia it helps mitigate the loss of foreign remittance amongst marginalized farmers. Allowing them to stay on their land without putting additional stress on the environment. The reverse in fact as inter crop.
5. In NZ for example it is important as a winter crop for limiting surface run off and sediment pollution in streams. And capturing and utilizing nitrates which otherwise leach into the water table. In winter months where pasture stops growing, cereals continue to grow allowing for the update of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate that would otherwise leach into water tables in lighter soils. Crops growing through the winter can also help to prevent erosion and provide additional benefits of winter feed for grazing animals. Caradus et. al., 2018 (Caradus), demonstrated that triticale grown in winter months in New Zealand can remove significantly more nitrogen that would otherwise be lost from leaching compared with pasture. Oats are also used in this space with the objective being to keep plants growing and avoid fallow that can lead to leaching and erosion.
6. In Sweden, main crops are wheat and grass-based forages, creating a production landscape in need of alternatives for diversification, for the promotion of ecological processes in terms of nutrient acquisition strategies, pest sanitation etc. Sweden also holds a great competence in agricultural research, thus providing a suitable arena for basic agronomy research on forage and fodder oats production, not the least in terms of intercropping practices. Furthermore, the geographical setting provides several regional climate and growing conditions, where varieties and intercrops can be tested followed by the knowledge transferred to developing countries with marginalized farmers located under similar climatic conditions.
7. There are so few oat breeders working in the world, particularly in forage and fodder oats they need to be encouraged, enabled  and facilitated to network more across all such range of ecologies. Because there are common overlapping genetics of mutual benefit to the developed and developing world, which we now have a core collection placed into the public domain. Honestly they have application from tropical through to sub-arctic ecologies. All the more so as we move forward with refining day-length tolerant materials. An area where NZ has more by chance than anything shown leadership over the past 40 or more years. Because of their collaborative working interaction with other oat breeders and agronomists in the Northern hemisphere as well as outreach into tropics and sub-tropics. The basis is there for (launching) a virtual global forage and fodder oat center and network equal to those within the CGIAR for wheat, barley and triticale. I say virtual because of affordable and comprehensive IT that can be used today compared with when CIMMYT started. This is key consideration.
8. Can you (MIT) help us and/or take the lead in building up a broad-based team, of which we would be part including making available the core resources in kind that we ourselves have built up? This would take things into the workable range of reality.
9. No matter how good our side is, it is just beyond us to do justice to it. Additional broad-based outside help is needed.

Moving away from free-grazing to stall-feeding domestic animals facilitated though purpose-bred forage and fodder oats, which are critically under-supported and under-utilized. Is central to regenerative agriculture in a multitude of ways aligned with thriving and biodiverse ecosystems throughout the developing and developed world. From the tropics to the Sub-Arctic and Antarctic regions. Within which overlapping ecologies already strategically and systematically recognized, resourced and networked as a case study described in this submission. Provide a proven nucleus of the worlds first dedicated forage and fodder oat virtual center. Including  outreach networks needed to create scalable economic opportunities for local communities.

Purpose-bred forage and fodder oats remain amongst the most under-recognized, under-supported and under-utilized modern-day crops in regenerative agriculture. Despite their lasting popularity with farmers and proven utility across a wide range of soil and other environmental conditions, globally. Largely because there is no globally supported and coordinated network. Acerbated by commercial breeding and production of seed being barely sustainable economically.  Irrespective of the level of economic development. Because, farmers tend to save their own seed. "Good cultivars" are widely and universally adapted and adopted, for longer periods than optimal, relative to their tolerance to evolving diseases strains.

Common cultivars bred collaboratively between Nth and Sth Hemispheres (Canada and New Zealand for example) are used in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We transformed this nucleus into a global philanthropic organization / network with an established product, service and business model rolled out in several communities, poised for further growth.

Creating and endowing a conventional Global Centre hosted as with CIMMYT, in a specific country is not required. For forage and fodder oats it would be overly restrictive. Indeed, detrimental.  Because, the core genetics of purpose-bred forage and fodder oats are extremely widely adapted and adopted through out the developed and developing world. Including  considerable geographic spread of common cultivars able to be drawn in as philanthropic endowments. Including companion and supplementary crops. Particularly legumes which provide a complementary source of nitrogen. Not however, at the expense of other companion crops.

Forage and fodder oats can be grown wherever and within what ever season temperate vegetables are grown.  Spanning practically all latitudes where agriculture takes place presently including adapting to climate change targeting zero carbon status. Keeping in mind latitude, altitude and other seasonal gradients. A holistic approach is required.  Not achievable within the traditional single center concept. But fully realizable in affordable and manageable ways including an immediate start-up horizon, as a virtual program such as ours. Coordinated and managed philanthropically within a very lean, IT capable trust.

As an overlay to existing global, regional and local public- and private-sector infrastructure that is on-going. Within and as outreach as an additional overlay to the existing and well proven year-round Nth-Sth Hemisphere seed and machinery chain reaching out laterally on the basis of overlapping agro-ecology. Overlain with on-line training. This is multi-crop / multi-use. Supporting and integrating developed and developing economies in reciprocally beneficial ways. Philanthropically as well as commercially.

The exact number of people served is difficult to determine. Because we focus at the top end of seed and machinery chains. Often referred to as pyramids. By continually developing and feeding in new and/or re-generated breeding materials at the apex. To be multiplied through three-to-four subsequent generations of planting and harvesting into commercial seed. Each with at least 1:50 to 1:120 increase ratio per cycle. Meeting the needs of literally hundreds of millions of farmers across the developing and developed world. From the equator through to sub-Artic and Sub-Antarctic latitudes. Including producing surplus food for non-agricultural communities.

Mostly it is only possible to gain one cropping cycle per year at any location (i.e. 1:120 increase). By quickly moving ( shuttling) this seed to other locations (Nth-Sth Hemisphere / higher to lower altitudes) with juxtaposed seasons. Two cycles of production can be achieved in one year. Giving dramatic outcomes 120 kg squared for example. Depending on how much seed per cycle is retained in storage security.

Shuttle breeding as supported by ours and most other crop improvement programs. Is particularly effective with small quantities of breeding/breeders nucleus seed of lines with improved disease tolerance. Of particular strategic importance when countering rapidly mutating diseases / pathogens. "A race against time. As with vaccine development for Covid pandemic mitigation."

Our network's under-lying measurable indicators "distill" down to quantitative data recording background, quantity, scope and the "hands-on working grass-roots nature". Of our cumulative globally proven genetic, machinery and human resource endowments. Which continues to grow. Operationally in day-to-day pragmatic ways along-side of and as an integral supporting part of UN Sustainable Development goals. Exemplified through our student and technician training and farm-level seed / livestock outreach interface. Embodied, as a catalyst and facilitator for health and education overlays. Facilitating nodes for other public- and private-sector individuals, entities and their initiatives.

Namely to contribute directly as well as indirectly facilitate the efforts of others to:

• Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2. Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3. Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4. Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5. Improve maternal health
• Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8. Develop a global partnership for development

Currently accelerated advancement of donated seed lines is underway in New Zealand in preparation for distribution to around 20 international genotypes by site evaluation (GxE) and selection in 2022. Concurrently, our base-line tester cultivar bred and released in New Zealand is under research site as well as  on-farm evaluation plots across altitude and latitudes in Sweden (Ulnap, Lanna, Upsala and, Umea near to arctic circle. And, in Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia at three locations across an altitude sequence. Promising segregates are being marked and harvested individually, to capture any positive genetic segregation.

Ten persons at the core. Working part-time. Voluntarily and philanthropically. Some since 1970s. To build up and endow a core asset that can be leveraged to donors. We have reached that point. Additionally goods and services are variously contracted from up to 40 additional entities. Local and international.

Our world-class global, multi-crop, multi-faceted team for forage and fodder oats including companion crops and supporting machinery, have worked together since the late 1970s. In the public and private sectors in developed and developing economies, self employed and with UN, ADB, WB and NGOs / programs and projects.  Accumulating and endowing genetic materials and machinery technologies as a result of their life work. Driven by a common professional and ethic grass-roots desire to work hands-on with and support marginalized rural agricultural families in cool-season environments. Higher altitudes and latitudes  during summer season, and lowlands in winter.

Spanning and integrating disaster mitigation, emergency relief, rehabilitation, development and sustained production as continuums. Viewing through villager's eyes, especially womens' groups. Including formal and in-formal needs assessments, soci-economic surveys and collaborative on-site brain-storming of project concepts, themes and skeletal outlines. Followed through with participatory planning and collective monitoring including self evaluation. Overlain with formal third party superintendence, where necessary. 

Targeting their perceived needs, priorities, opportunities and pathways to achieving their goals in environmentally friendly ways that are economically and logistically realizable and sustainable. Able to be facilitated and augmented in collaborative and participatory ways through regenerative agriculture. By linking them to and networking regional and global multi-crop, livestock, agro-forestry and machinery opportunities on the basis of agro-ecological overlap.

There are many suitable younger generation people amongst our group. They cannot afford to contribute philanthropically.  Funds are needed urgently to pay them so as it implement our succession plan and grow the initiative.

As a global team including our end-user network. Given our aims, objectives, modus operandi, life skills training and experiences. We are inherently diverse, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and inclusive. Women play an equal and important and equal role at all levels, particularly amongst the younger generations involved (50 and under). Over that age, it is a fate of history that our active members contributing philanthropically, are male. We need funds to expand that stratum. To involve a broader spectrum of eligible and suitable persons with necessary skills and experience.

At our core we are highly trained, globally experience, humble and un-assuming. Many of us have experienced first hand, the lesser side of humanity. At the "coal face" of some of the worst human disasters in modern history. Learning and surviving from that. How could we be any different. It makes one particularly sensitive to the plight of women, the aged, the young and the disabled. More than anything, it is the look in the eyes of kids. That on the one hand keeps you going when times are tough, and on the other. Is the ultimate reward for "getting it right". Enough said!

If we qualify as a Solver Team and receive a $10,000 grant. That amount will be gratefully acknowledged and immediately go to supporting the next cycle of increase of endowed seed. Already planted in the ground here in NZ with Southern Seed Technology (SST). Even if additional funding is not received (imminently) that amount will be enough to secure the required multiplication of existing endowed materials. Needed to prepare up to 20 sets of international nurseries. By enabling a further 1:120 (one seed planted 120 produced) cycle if core genetics, often coming from a single panicle.

Beyond that, through endorsement of this submission, our initiative. We strongly desire global exposure - the pathway to donors and other like-mined organizations, entities and individuals in the public and private sectors. With respect of seed, machinery and educations. Hopefully it will bring on board additional entities willing to overlay our network with help for womens health and education; UNICEF, included.

Namely:

• Access mentorship, coaching, and strategic advice from experts, as well as the Solve and MIT networks. 

• Receive monitoring and evaluation support to build an impact measurement practice. 

• Gain exposure in the media and at conferences.

• Access relevant in-kind resources such as software licenses and legal services from Solve Member and partner organizations. 

We believe there are areas that we can contribute reciprocally in collaborative ways, as part of "the partnership". For the betterment of mankind. With lease impact on the environment. Through regenerative agriculture.

We have a proven working model ready to grow. To achieve this, a holistic support package is required. Therefore we have ticked all the above categories. As a result of doing our best to "paint a comprehensive picture" which articulates where we came from; where we are at; and where we think we can grow. Achieved so far on the absolute minimum of resources, through necessity. A phase which has passed, precipitated significantly by the Covid Pandemic.

Having presented our initiative to the world on-line, through MIT, by way of a pledge for assistance. We now need to see what responses it elicits. Was our presentation compelling to donors as an appeal document? Relative to their current funding guidelines and priorities. Perhaps so, if the historic track record of a team member for raising emergency agricultural relief can be repeated. Eleven million USD raised in one meeting was a record during the 1990s.

Or needs are truly holistic. We are open to "brain storming". No matter that it may at first glance seem "out field" and perhaps un-related. Therefore rather than dictate. We would like to see who responds and how. After reading our submission and reflecting. On what they may have to offer and in turn how our initiative may reciprocate. We will review each response as a potential member of our network. Beside a contributor, also as an end-user. Perhaps in exciting new ways within achievable dimensions. They never anticipated.

Refugees, displaced persons and minority disenfranchised groups are throughout all levels of our seed, machinery chains and educational overlays. An integral part of our initiative. Plus the life works of other team members. Across a range of crops, including fodder oats. The core model for our initiative. 

Hand-in-hand with temperate vegetables. Grown during the same seasons and complementary. From the equator to the sub-Arctic and sub-Antarctic. Where ever there are needy families with animals. Under-utilized though lack of suitable genetic materials, administrative concurrence and matching donor support.

In Nepal they empowered women's groups. Reducing labor, changing the type of livestock from free grazing and low producing. To stall fed milk producing. Generating commercial surpluses. Pivotal to improved health and well being of children, mothers and the old. Cash surplus re-roofed houses and enabled the education of girls, aided by sanitary pads.

Within the Khost area of Afghanistan littered with mines. It facilitated refugee families returning with dignity from Pakistan. Along with buffalo. Housed and stall fed using fodder oats. Grown on key areas of land cleared from mines. After other family members (the old men and young - often very young) returned in advance to clear mines.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, our core local team dates back the era of conflict. Without exception, they were displaced / refugees. As was the across border "UN" Ag team for Afghanistan.

Here there is an un-told story. Worth considering, evaluating and on its merits, supporting.  The platform of a new initiative.

Explaining STEM/STEAM

Rather than teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into “interdependent” learning units based on real-world applications.

With the aid of IT including on-line training overlay to our seed and machinery chains including outreach. It can only be done more affordably, effectively and sustainably through STEM. In economically viable ways.

Enabling us to capture and build on the "New Era" of on-line teaching which has come up in response to the limitations of Covid Pandemic. Particularly that it would be globally-based on-line. So that foreign students could easily access at prices affordable to projects and individuals. Locally, regionally and internationally. It would involve real-time teaching in the field, evaluating breeding materials and plots for example. No longer requiring international travel as before Covid-19 era.

It would overlay, encompass and utilize what is already on-going variously within our initiative, amongst members. Year round, globally - "at grass roots". As an affordable way of networking and sharing collaboratively our work and achievements. Including how we operate and reach our en-goals with and for farmers. Through regenerative agriculture. In ways that are participatory and of reciprocal benefit across and within developing and developed economies.

It would not be expensive to award free access scholarships in recognition of potential and prior achievement. Including issuing diplomas at various levels for satisfactory completion. 

In these respects, we urgently need funding plus mentoring, to do justice with capturing and leveraging what is otherwise on-going on a day-to-day basis. With far wider application and utility than is presently being realized / can otherwise be realized.

This money would go directly to funding one of our village projects in Nepal.

Title: Nepal Post Covid-19: Oats for Life

Summary: A novel science-based self-help action plan driven by Womens' Groups empowered with seeds for food production, education and health recovery

Link: Empowering Womens' Groups with Seed - Nepal

The world is critically short of forage and fodder oat breeders, technicians and trainers at all levels of the seed and supporting machinery chain. Encompassing the developing and developed world where our genetic resources have broad adaptation and adoption. Particularly including, mentoring and fostering the younger generations. To enable and facilitate the succession of key knowledge and experience which presently lies disproportionately with generations aged between 50 and 80+. To build up a balanced resource pool of applied knowledge and operational capability. Matched operationally with cutting-edge applied IT skills. This combination is essential for the survival and growth of this initiative. Time is running out.

 Prize money will be use develop training plus develop data handling and sharing of skills-based knowledge. Integrated as a core element of our recently initiated on-line virtual training overlay to our existing seed and machinery network. As a response to the impact of Covid. Building on and strengthening existing materials already on-line with our end-users. Reaching out to and networking scientists, students, technicians and farmers both within and across developed and developing communities.

In turn strengthening the developing world IT elements of our initiative. Such that besides meeting local and regional needs. They can contribute significantly through their service to the developed world. In reciprocally beneficial ways. Including through collaborative partnerships in regenerative agriculture. With good prospects of achieving economic sustainability as an viable and realistic exit strategy. Reaching out from forage and fodder oats, holistically in environmentally friendly ways.