About — Spirulina Farms Feasibility (Djibouti)
Winter 2019 - D-Lab I
Bilisso Abdi, a Mandela fellow from Djibouti, is working to address the issues of food insecurity and nutrient deficiencies in urban and rural communities within her country. Partnered with Sounah Al Haya and supported by the Djiboutian Ministry of Agriculture, Bilisso has identified small-scale spirulina farms as a potential solution for preventing nutrient deficiencies. As Engineering and Agricultural Development students at the University of California, Davis, D-Lab collaborated with our client to construct a feasibility study comparing the proposed solution to other malnutrition approaches and then identifying the technical, economic and social inputs necessary for such a project.
Through the analysis of prior art and communication with Ms. Abdi, our team worked for ten weeks to development a study that may assist our client in the potential implementation of small-scale spirulina farms. Through the construction of needs assessments, SWOT analysis, and alternative analysis for the purpose of exploring different nutritional methods of addressing malnutrition, the D-Lab team has identified that there must be specific social, technical and economic components put into place before implementing small-scale spirulina farms in rural or urban communities within Djibouti. This feasibility study contains our team’s analysis of prior art, methodology used to identify essential inputs for development, results of our research and complementary information provided by our client, and recommendations regarding the future development of this project.