International development projects can become an outsider telling a local what they need and how to build it. These projects are usually unsustainable and ultimately fail because they don't consider what resources and products are available in that particular country or city.
The Purdue Utility Project (PUP) is designed to be the exact opposite. It functions within a particular country with a set of guidelines and principles that ensures collaboration between local universities or NGOs and Purdue's academics and trainers.
John Lumkes, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue, and two Purdue alumni, traveled to Universidad de los Llanos in Villavicencio, Colombia in July. Once there, they worked at the local university with Los Llanos professor Alvaro Ocampo to train students and build a version of the AgRover, a multipurpose agricultural vehicle.
When building an AgRover, students source all of its parts locally and ask the question, "What does this area need: a maize grinder, planting, tilling, something else?" Local parts and the functions of the vehicle vary country by country.
PUP has now worked in six countries: Cameroon, Uganda, Guinea, Nigeria, Kenya and Colombia. Lumkes discussed the PUP project and what it was like to come up with market-driven solutions in Colombia.
What is PUP and how does it function? What makes it special?
The Purdue Utility Project, which is a Purdue-led initiative to develop access to energy and transportation for small farmers, up until this point had only been in Africa. That started in 2009 with our first trip to Africa in Cameroon. Once we were in Cameroon for five or six years, people started asking "Can we come to XYZ location?"
The AgRover is our mature platform out of PUP team. It is a three-wheel utility vehicle that we started on in 2008. It's locally made in all the different countries; it is never an imported project. We go there, buy the parts regionally and build it in shops in the country, using local manufacturing and skills. The purpose is to haul stuff, power attachments like water pumps, and pull implements like cultivators and planters.
It's designed in modularity. In Colombia we used an old Ford axle; in other countries we use Toyota or Nissan axles, whatever vehicle parts are commonly available in that country.
How did you end up in Colombia?
I knew Andrea Burniske; she was in international programs in agriculture. She has been trying to get me to go to Colombia for a while to build an AgRover. We finally worked it out, schedule-wise and personnel-wise. David Wilson, one of my former students on the project, who created a company called Mobile Ag Power Solutions that works with PUP, and another alum Tyler Anselm both came with me to help set up the classes and training.
David taught computer-aided design and I taught design and market-driven innovation. Tyler taught shop skills and safety, so the participants had a half day in classroom and half day in shop.
What was it like working in Colombia as compared to the other places you've been?
We were excited! Typically we have to fight with not having electricity most of the day, with roads that are not as nearly as developed. We had a nice shop, computer labs to do work, and we didn't have to run generators.
Colombia was easy to work in. And it will be easier to do scale-up work there. Tyler went to visit some of the smaller farmers in the east to see how they'd use an AgRover there.
What kind of students are attracted to the program?
The people most naturally be excited about it would be the engineering type of student. It's not geared only toward engineering, but maybe they benefit the most. However, the ag economists really relate to market-driven needs: What are the needs? If we're going to design, test and build vehicles, what is the current market situation?
But students in general, when they get in the shop and build something to drive and ride on, they get really excited. Everyone has different background, some people have never used a certain tool or welded before.
What is the cultural exchange like for the students?
On the Purdue side, I've engaged several hundred students in service and learning. It's really a community-based co-design. The communities we're working with internationally share their needs and concerns with our students, and also culturally, how they would use or not use products a certain way.
It's challenging for our students to think outside the box. Our students would say, "Why don't we just design it this way?" and I'll say, "Well, you're not going to have CNC machines or certain tools in the shop there. These are the resources you'll have, so let's talk about different ways we can design it to make it locally there."
I don't think it hits them until they travel. I always try to get some underclassmen to travel as they're always the ones that learn the most.
I've had students in three categories: One will say "That was neat, but I don't want to go back." Another will say they liked the opportunity and would go back again. And some say, "I'm changing my career focus because I want to do this after I graduate."
And they just get all fired up about that. None of them have ever said that it didn't change their thinking in some way, and it's hard not to. It's good to mirror that cross-cultural learning with their technical skillsets, because in class it's so hard to teach that.
Last modified: December 4, 2023