MOHAMMED BAH ABBA
Sectors:
Target Population:
Mobah Rural Horizon
Nigeria,
This profile below was
prepared when Mohammed Bah Abba was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2008.
INTRODUCTION
Mohammed Bah Abba has invented an innovative earthenware cooling system to preserve perishable foods in developing countries with arid climates. As a Nigerian teacher, Mohammed was motivated by his concern for the rural poor and by his interest in indigenous African technology to develop practical, local solutions to rural problems. His simple and inexpensive earthenware “pot-in-pot” cooling device, based on a simple physical principle and used as far back as ancient Egypt, is revolutionizing lives in this semi-desert area of Nigeria.
THE NEW IDEA
The art of pottery is deeply rooted in African culture. In northern Nigeria, earthenware pots have been used since ancient times as cooking and water storage vessels, wardrobes, banks, and coffins. Today, these clay pots are almost extinct, replaced by ... Read More [+]
aluminum containers and more modern methods of storing clothes, saving money, and burying the dead.
The pot-in-pot refrigeration device consists of two earthenware pots of different diameters, one placed inside the other. The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand that is kept constantly moist, thereby keeping both pots damp. Fruit, vegetables, meat, and other items such as soft drinks are put in the smaller inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth. The phenomenon that occurs is based on a simple principle of physics: the water contained in the sand between the two pots evaporates towards the outer surface of the larger pot where the drier outside air is circulating. By virtue of the laws of thermodynamics, the evaporation process automatically causes a drop in temperature of several degrees, cooling the inner container, destroying harmful microorganisms and preserving the perishable foods inside.
Mohammed’s invention has already had significant impact in more than a dozen Nigerian villages. By preserving food, the pot-in-pot increases family income, reduces disease, and even frees young girls from having to hawk food every day so that they can attend school. Best of all, the invention is simple and affordable, made from local materials, and can thus be quickly introduced to villages facing similar problems in Nigeria and across Africa.
The pot-in-pot refrigeration device consists of two earthenware pots of different diameters, one placed inside the other. The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand that is kept constantly moist, thereby keeping both pots damp. Fruit, vegetables, meat, and other items such as soft drinks are put in the smaller inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth. The phenomenon that occurs is based on a simple principle of physics: the water contained in the sand between the two pots evaporates towards the outer surface of the larger pot where the drier outside air is circulating. By virtue of the laws of thermodynamics, the evaporation process automatically causes a drop in temperature of several degrees, cooling the inner container, destroying harmful microorganisms and preserving the perishable foods inside.
Mohammed’s invention has already had significant impact in more than a dozen Nigerian villages. By preserving food, the pot-in-pot increases family income, reduces disease, and even frees young girls from having to hawk food every day so that they can attend school. Best of all, the invention is simple and affordable, made from local materials, and can thus be quickly introduced to villages facing similar problems in Nigeria and across Africa.
THE PROBLEM
To understand the relevance of Mohammed’s Rolex Award-winning project, it is necessary to look at the geography of northern Nigeria and the restricted lives led by its people. This region is primarily a semi-desert scrubland inhabited by a large, mostly ... Read More [+]
agriculture-based population, the majority of whom live in abject poverty. Polygamy is a dominant feature of the family structure, and women, living in purdah, are confined to their homes and have few educational and employment opportunities, and little access to health care. Young girls are forced to go out each day and rapidly sell food that would otherwise perish, in order to add to the meager family income.
In Northern Nigeria, rural communities eke out a living from subsistence farming. With no electricity, and therefore no refrigeration, perishable foods spoil within days. Such spoilage causes disease and loss of income for needy farmers and venders who are forced to ‘rush sell’ most agricultural products, even though they are well aware of the negative impact flooding the market has on their profits. Even in towns and cities where erratic power supply is available, most of the urban poor cannot afford refrigerators.
In Northern Nigeria, rural communities eke out a living from subsistence farming. With no electricity, and therefore no refrigeration, perishable foods spoil within days. Such spoilage causes disease and loss of income for needy farmers and venders who are forced to ‘rush sell’ most agricultural products, even though they are well aware of the negative impact flooding the market has on their profits. Even in towns and cities where erratic power supply is available, most of the urban poor cannot afford refrigerators.
THE STRATEGY
In the context of an economically drained nation facing severe communication, transport, and utility problems, Mohammed set out to try and help improve the ailing economy particularly in Nigeria’s most isolated rural areas. His work as a consultant for the ... Read More [+]
United Nations Development Program and the state’s Ministry for Women Affairs and Social Mobilization brought him into close contact with rural communities, where he observed the extreme hardships suffered by subsistence farmers and their families. Through these observations, Mohammed became motivated to revitalize earthen pot usage and extend the life of perishable foods. His first trials of the pot-in-pot proved successful. Eggplants, for example, stayed fresh for 27 days instead of three, and tomatoes and peppers lasted for three weeks or more. African spinach, which usually spoils after a day, remained edible after 12 days in the “pot-in-pot”. Mohammed continuously refined his invention for two years between 1995 and 1997. He then tapped into the large unemployed local workforce and hired skilled pot makers to mass produce the first batch of 5,000 pot-in-pots. Manufacturing these devices at his own expense, he began distributing them for free to five villages in Jigawa. For this initial phase of his project, he received limited financial backing from his brother and assistance in the form of transportation, fuel, and labor from the UNDP, the regional government, and a local women’s development group. In 1999, he supplied another dozen local villages with 7,000 pots, again at his expense. Sold for US$2 for the smaller pot-in-pots and US$4 for the bigger version, the pot-in-pot has remained affordable, while proceeds from sales help finance manufacturing and distribution costs.
The impact of the pot-in-pot on individuals’ lives and incomes has been overwhelming. Farmers are now able to sell on demand rather than ‘rush sell’ because of spoilage, and income levels in some cases have nearly tripled. Married women also have an important stake in the process, as they can sell food from their homes and overcome their age-old dependency on their husbands as the sole providers. In turn and, perhaps most significantly for the advancement of the female population, Mohammed’s invention liberates girls from having to hawk food each day. Instead, they are now free to attend school and the number of girls enrolling in village primary schools is rising. These factors, coupled with the effect that the pot-in-pot has had in stemming disease, have made it a tangible and simple solution to a severe local problem.
The impact of the pot-in-pot on individuals’ lives and incomes has been overwhelming. Farmers are now able to sell on demand rather than ‘rush sell’ because of spoilage, and income levels in some cases have nearly tripled. Married women also have an important stake in the process, as they can sell food from their homes and overcome their age-old dependency on their husbands as the sole providers. In turn and, perhaps most significantly for the advancement of the female population, Mohammed’s invention liberates girls from having to hawk food each day. Instead, they are now free to attend school and the number of girls enrolling in village primary schools is rising. These factors, coupled with the effect that the pot-in-pot has had in stemming disease, have made it a tangible and simple solution to a severe local problem.
THE PERSON
Born in 1964 into a family of pot makers and raised in the rural north, Mohammed was familiar from an early age with the various practical and symbolic uses of traditional clay pots, and learned as a child the rudiments of pottery. Subsequently studying ... Read More [+]
biology, chemistry, and geology, and then becoming a lecturer in business studies at Jigawa State Polytechnic in Dutse in 1990, he unraveled the technical puzzle that led him years later to develop the “pot-in-pot” preservation cooling system. Mohammed was selected as a Rolex Laureate in 2000 for this ingenious technique that requires no external energy supply to function and preserve fruit, vegetables, and other perishables in hot, arid climates. Mohammed says he developed the pot-in-pot to help the rural poor in a cost-effective, participatory, and sustainable way.
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