Jim Schwai (BSIE 1964), and his wife, Joan, travel three times a year to Belize, Central America, to teach sustainable gardening to rural farmers in the mountains near the Guatemalan border.

Schwai, from Milwaukee, WI, spoke recently to an IE 200 class of sophomores. He explained that the four top basic needs of developing countries like Belize are air, water, sanitation, and food. When he first began visiting Belize in 2005 at the request of the Archbishop of Milwaukee, he found two main problems: lack of food and jobs.

"We started going to Belize in 2005," explained Schwai. "There was a severe hurricane in 2003 that wiped out most of the rural churches. We helped rebuild seven churches with the help of the Mayan villagers. Then we got involved with building a senior center in Punta Gorda, the main town in the Toledo district, the most southern and poorest."

With a population of almost 325,000 people, Belize is only about 300 miles long by 40 to 80 miles wide. Bordered by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, its year-round temperature is warm enough to grow crops. However, Belize experiences three months of drought followed by heavy summer rains which can wash out many garden crops. Animals and birds also eat the vegetables, so the area often doesn't produce enough food. 

Another problem is that many youth are moving away to cities hoping to find work. Minimum wage is only about $1.50/hour, and 65% of the area's 18-30-five-year-olds are unemployed.

That's where Schwai and his team come in. Although he initially visited Belize to form relationships between his Wisconsin diocese and to construct churches, he began to see other needs that outsiders could help provide. He started visiting villages to assess needs, then planned a solution, put it into practice, and measured its results. 

"One of the problems is growing vegetables year-round in southern Belize," says Schwai. He used his industrial engineering training to come up with a solution, a pilot project he calls "Sustainable, appropriate, organic gardening in southern Belize". According to Schwai, appropriate technology is low-cost, locally-sourced, and uses at least some recycled materials. In his system, he uses sustainable technology such as subsurface irrigation, rainwater collection, and composting.

Before retirement in 2017, Schwai held manufacturing management positions at Allen-Bradley and Briggs & Stratton, and owned a company that bought and sold businesses until retirement. He has also been an active advisory board member for Stonehouse Water Technologies, makers of a unique water purification system which he hopes to install in Belize.

"Industrial Engineering has been the backbone of my career from manufacturing, selling of businesses, and the design and installation of the dome," said Schwai. "A design is no good if the process cannot produce the product at the desired cost and sourcing. That’s what IEs do, and Purdue's IE program meets those goals."

The project's purpose is to increase food production and provide more job opportunities. Phase 1 of the project teaches sustainable gardening using ZipTie Domes, geodesic garden domes originally produced in Tennessee. The domes are made from plastic-and-chicken-wire-covered PVC frames, and protect growing crops from harsh weather, animals and birds. The dome system provides an easily-tended area to produce a dense amount of small vegetable crops. 

Schwai calls his method "soilponics". Its objective is to grow vegetables and herbs organically in soil using appropriate materials and sustainable processes year round. The dome method uses circular growing beds for up to 30 plants, protects growing plants from sun and rain with plastic on the upper portion, and is ventilated on the sides to better regulate growing temperatures. The design works well in Belize and is sustainable, because 80% of the materials can be sourced there - the chicken wire, plastic sheet, and wood strips. Only the plastic hubs machined in a kit from ZipTie Domes come from outside Belize. 

Within the domes, Schwai uses two types of planters - one for small crops like herbs, and another for bigger crops like cucumbers and melons. He created an appropriate technology called a "SIPer" (pronounced "sipper"), a Subsurface Irrigation Planter, using five-gallon buckets that draw water into the soil when needed through wicking strips. He also uses two-foot circular growing beds made of chicken wire and plastic sheeting which hold soil for seeds, and dispense water through perforated, recycled 1-liter water bottles embedded in the soil. Both methods allow water to go to the roots of the plants, thus decreasing surface evaporation.

The domes also provide water collection and irrigation from rainwater running off the plastic sheet. Water runs into "gutters" direct the water to a central point and the water flows down and collects in "water boxes" and then into the two types of planters via irrigation tubing. 

Schwai teaches sustainability through composting to provide essential soil nutrients without the high cost of fertilizers, which most subsistence farmers can't afford. His team plants marigolds around the outer perimeter of the domes to ward off insects.

Phase 2 of the project will use smaller ten-foot domes to raise chickens adjacent to the garden domes. The chicken-wire-covered domes will provide a safe place for growing chickens to live and eat. Each day these smaller domes will be repositioned to "rotate" around the garden dome, allowing chickens to eat insects and planted "peanut grass", and to naturally fertilize the perimeter.

Schwai is proud of the fact that one garden dome costs less than $500, with 80% of the materials easily obtainable in Belize. The chicken dome is estimated at $250 each. He's also proud of the fact that farming this way will provide food and income for local people. "The output of vegetables is estimated at $3000 per year by growing 30 plants - which is 12 times over the yearly income average of $250," he said.

"The vegetables are growing at a rate of three times faster than a conventional garden," said Schwai, after his latest trip to Belize in March 2019. "Harvesting peppers, cucumbers, pak choi (bok choy), cilantro, and tomatoes in a week. Our theory is that the open sides on the dome allow air circulation into the dome generating condensation (water) on the plants from the heat of the sun on the plastic sheet."

"This year's projects were: a schoolroom in the remote village of Dolores, 2-1/2 hours on very poor roads from Punta Gorda, because the current classroom with a thatch roof leaked on the students when it rained and was beyond repair," he continued. "And the second project was a geodesic garden dome."

While Schwai concentrates on the garden and teaching, his wife doesn't just sit around. On this most recent trip, she and the other women on the mission trip sifted sand to make concrete, mixed sand, mortar, and water to make the concrete, carried lumber after cutting, and did craft projects with the younger schoolchildren. 

Other highlights of the March 2019 trip:

• Attending the dedication of the schoolroom in the remote Mayan village of Dolores, with short talks by the principal, teachers, village officials, pastor, students, and Schwai, and a dance by the third-graders for whom the schoolroom was built
• Installing a solar system with panels on the schoolroom roof to provide LED lighting and electrical outlets
• Providing an LED projector for the teacher to project tests on a screen instead of costly printing
• Assessing whether providing limited Internet access would be feasible for village students

Schwai's approach has shown that food can be grown organically, appropriately, and sustainably year round. The geodesic garden domes, five-gallon buckets, and circular growing beds combined meet the weather constraints and are cost-effective methods of growing food. 

And best of all, jobs and nutritious food are products of the system and are helping meet needs in southern Belize as Schwai helps "Rethink IE".

Source: Jim Schwai, jschwai@yahoo.com

Writer: DeEtte Starr, starrd@purdue.edu