In Malta news today, I have been working on my depth recognition software. On the flight over I took a good span of time reading about a variety of different depth recognition algorithms. The simplest of these is the Fixed Window algorithm. The algorithm relies on summing the differences in pixel intensities over a box of pixels or a window of fixed size. The pixel box is kept stationary on the left image while it is moved on the right image. The distance between the two boxes that correspond the most, or the two boxes with the fewest differences in pixel intensity, are used to measure the disparity at that point on the image. So, the disparity is equal to the horizontal difference in position of the right box compared to the left box. I have been attempting to implement this algorithm in my code to detect the depth using images from our GoPro cameras. Currently, the code works for very simple images that I have constructed in Microsoft Paint, but not for more complex images.
One downside of using this algorithm is the fact that it computes the disparity at every single pixel in the image. The images from the GoPros are 8 mega-pixels before my correction software converts and updates them. So the depth map for a full image takes more than an hour to compute. Nonetheless, when everything is working, these high resolution images will allow us to have a precise measurement of distance from our underwater images. Time permitting, I hope to implement more efficient depth computation algorithms later. Two such algorithms are Fast Bilateral Stereo and Fast Segment Driven Detection. Both of these produce rapid noisy results that can be corrected with a Logically Consistent Stereo algorithm.
The other members of the team were working on their own coding projects today. Eric had a great deal of progress with Unity3D and Google Earth. Tyler was similarly productive with his image correction software. He used a number of techniques related to thresholding that masked off the non-textured areas of the image. Ultimately, this will allow us to texture images from the ROV onto the sonar and image generated cistern meshes because it will remove the dark water regions from the textures leaving only wall images. Both of us will be working on the projective texturing code over the next few days.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Greetings from Malta!
Hi readers,
Yesterday we touched down in Malta! The days blurred together during the flights, but passing over the Swiss alps at 10,000m made up for the rest of the mind numbing travel. Once we arrived, we took a precarious bus ride to our apartments to get situated. All of us promptly passed out and woke up some inordinate amount of time later to a fresh morning in Malta! Upon waking, Jeff, Sara and I took a ~2 hour long walk down the coast of Sliema. Here's what that looked like:
After we got back everybody else was up so we unpacked the gear to check the condition of the robots. We all got a little bit of work done with our projects, and shortly after Tim and I went to the ironmonger (hardware store in Malta) to get some sandpaper/rubbing alcohol/superglue/various other odds and ends. We returned and finished some more work. At around 1:00PM (it felt more like 4:00AM...) the group went out in search of lunch. We stumbled upon a traditional Maltese restaurant and took a seat inside. Everybody in the group tried some wild orders. Billy and I were a little bit tame, and got crab and lobster ravioli. Some of the other orders were more interesting. Jeff got sea urchin pasta, and Tyler got rabbit (below)!
After lunch (which is 3 hours and 6 courses long in Malta), we headed to the grocery store and then back home. Sliema is an incredibly dense city, so navigating can be difficult. We had some trouble in this manner, but found our way back home. Back to work!
Yesterday we touched down in Malta! The days blurred together during the flights, but passing over the Swiss alps at 10,000m made up for the rest of the mind numbing travel. Once we arrived, we took a precarious bus ride to our apartments to get situated. All of us promptly passed out and woke up some inordinate amount of time later to a fresh morning in Malta! Upon waking, Jeff, Sara and I took a ~2 hour long walk down the coast of Sliema. Here's what that looked like:
After we got back everybody else was up so we unpacked the gear to check the condition of the robots. We all got a little bit of work done with our projects, and shortly after Tim and I went to the ironmonger (hardware store in Malta) to get some sandpaper/rubbing alcohol/superglue/various other odds and ends. We returned and finished some more work. At around 1:00PM (it felt more like 4:00AM...) the group went out in search of lunch. We stumbled upon a traditional Maltese restaurant and took a seat inside. Everybody in the group tried some wild orders. Billy and I were a little bit tame, and got crab and lobster ravioli. Some of the other orders were more interesting. Jeff got sea urchin pasta, and Tyler got rabbit (below)!
After lunch (which is 3 hours and 6 courses long in Malta), we headed to the grocery store and then back home. Sliema is an incredibly dense city, so navigating can be difficult. We had some trouble in this manner, but found our way back home. Back to work!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Meetings and Technical Update
It truly has been a busy week. As that all us Cal Poly students leave tomorrow, much preparation was done this week. Many of us had to take one or more final exams, and finish final projects for our classes. Thursday night the team went out to dinner to take a small break from preparations and plan the packing of our technical equipment. On Friday we packed everything we needed from the Lair and confirmed some last minute details.
For a little more than the last week I have been helping Sara with the water and society part of ICEX. I worked to install the Omeka database system on the server space provided by the Cal Poly Computer Science Department. Due to my lack of experience in database installation it took longer than expected but on Friday it was successfully installed. The website for the database is not currently in a state that we would like to share with the public but I expect that it won't be very long until it is. Unfortunately, due to the time it took me to set up the database among the other work for this past week, I have not had the chance to work on the programming side of my project but Tyler and Tim have gotten some work done on the mounting of the Otter Box cases.These will house the salinity sensor, the pressure/temperature sensor and the PAM. See the post below for more details.
For a little more than the last week I have been helping Sara with the water and society part of ICEX. I worked to install the Omeka database system on the server space provided by the Cal Poly Computer Science Department. Due to my lack of experience in database installation it took longer than expected but on Friday it was successfully installed. The website for the database is not currently in a state that we would like to share with the public but I expect that it won't be very long until it is. Unfortunately, due to the time it took me to set up the database among the other work for this past week, I have not had the chance to work on the programming side of my project but Tyler and Tim have gotten some work done on the mounting of the Otter Box cases.These will house the salinity sensor, the pressure/temperature sensor and the PAM. See the post below for more details.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Technical Update: Mounting Hardware
The time for Malta is almost here!
Work on the ROV is progressing nicely. The GoPro's have been mounted to the ROV using modified GoPro hardware. Each GoPro camera came with a set of mountable sticky pads that are designed to be clipped into by GoPro mounting clips. Instead of using the adhesive, holes were drilled into the sticky pads to allow them to mount to the ROV, as shown below.
From the mounting clips the cameras are attached to a series of plastic joints as seen below.
The camera then protrudes from the underside of the ROV, giving a similar view to the main drive camera.
A more complex mounting bracket was installed to hold the Otter Box. It consists of three metal plates. One of these is mounted to the ROV. The other two are used to sandwich the Otter Box. The plates are all bolted together using two bolts at either end of the plates (see image below).
Mounting the bottom plate to the ROV required the use of a number of washers to prevent the plastic on the ROV from bowing towards the metal plate.
Work on the ROV is progressing nicely. The GoPro's have been mounted to the ROV using modified GoPro hardware. Each GoPro camera came with a set of mountable sticky pads that are designed to be clipped into by GoPro mounting clips. Instead of using the adhesive, holes were drilled into the sticky pads to allow them to mount to the ROV, as shown below.
From the mounting clips the cameras are attached to a series of plastic joints as seen below.
The camera then protrudes from the underside of the ROV, giving a similar view to the main drive camera.
A more complex mounting bracket was installed to hold the Otter Box. It consists of three metal plates. One of these is mounted to the ROV. The other two are used to sandwich the Otter Box. The plates are all bolted together using two bolts at either end of the plates (see image below).
Mounting the bottom plate to the ROV required the use of a number of washers to prevent the plastic on the ROV from bowing towards the metal plate.
Maltese Farming Update
In my last cultural blog I discussed the state of Maltese agriculture with respect to the water situation on Malta. In this entry I plan to address my latest research on Maltese agriculture, organic farming. I have come to the conclusion over the past two weeks that organic farming has not taken off in Malta to the degree that was desired by either the government or the organic activist groups.
Let me begin by defining organic farming compared to normal farming. The first important distinction is that organic farming requires that crops be rotated every year. This is due to the fact that different plant families add and remove different nutrients from the soil. Rotating crops allows soil nutrients to be replenished between years.
The second important distinction is that organic farming requires farmers to use non-chemical insect controls and fertilizers. Insect control may include "friendly" insects and insect repelling plants. Farmers may only choose to use organic fertilizers such as plant compost or manure from organically raised animals.
The third and final distinction is the fact that farmers may not use any genetically modified organisms (GMOs). That is, farmers can grow any variety of plant that has not been genetically tampered with by humans.
The importance of organic farming was highlighted by the Government in the National Climate Change Adaption Strategy report in 2010. They recommend the use of organic farming methods primarily to help stop soil erosion, decline in soil organic matter, and soil contamination. They also stated that organic farming should be encouraged because of its environmental benefits and biodiversity benefits.
Unfortunately, before 2003, there was no way for organic farming to take place on Malta. No governmental bodies existed to approve organic farming methods or organic produce. As a result of this the Ministry for Rural Affairs was tasked with setting up the Organic Farming Unit, which is solely concerned with promoting, certifying, and inspecting organic farming in Malta.
A number of activist groups have cropped up in Malta to support the organic movement as a way to combat global warming. Perhaps the biggest of these groups is the Maltese Organic Agriculture Movement (MOAM). The group lists a number of reasons that all Maltese farmers should choose organic farming including economics and water supplies. Their argument for economics is that while Maltese farmers cannot out produce farmers in larger countries like Spain they can produce better products and charge more for them. For water, the MOAM argues that organic farming methods encourage good soil development and soil retention. Good soil is able to retain water much better than arid or sandy soil. So, in the end, less water will be needed on organic farms.
Reports from the Organic Farming Unit indicate that, in 2004, 20 farms were in the process of converting to organic farming. This accounts for 0.09% of the total agricultural land in Malta. However, even by 2010, only 0.19% of the total agricultural land was being used for organic farming. This represents a little more than a doubling of interest in organic farming over a 6 year period. While this shows growth, it is not substantial growth.
So, organic farming is moving forward but is off to a slow start. A professor at the University of Malta suggests that farmers are afraid to trust their crops to purely organic farming methods. It could also be the case that because 98% of farms in Malta are family owned and only 3.8% of farmers have training in farming methods, farmers are not willing to experiment with new farming methods. Both of these are potential reasons for farmer's lack of interest in organic farming, but there is doubtlessly more information that I have yet to find.
Let me begin by defining organic farming compared to normal farming. The first important distinction is that organic farming requires that crops be rotated every year. This is due to the fact that different plant families add and remove different nutrients from the soil. Rotating crops allows soil nutrients to be replenished between years.
The second important distinction is that organic farming requires farmers to use non-chemical insect controls and fertilizers. Insect control may include "friendly" insects and insect repelling plants. Farmers may only choose to use organic fertilizers such as plant compost or manure from organically raised animals.
The third and final distinction is the fact that farmers may not use any genetically modified organisms (GMOs). That is, farmers can grow any variety of plant that has not been genetically tampered with by humans.
The importance of organic farming was highlighted by the Government in the National Climate Change Adaption Strategy report in 2010. They recommend the use of organic farming methods primarily to help stop soil erosion, decline in soil organic matter, and soil contamination. They also stated that organic farming should be encouraged because of its environmental benefits and biodiversity benefits.
Unfortunately, before 2003, there was no way for organic farming to take place on Malta. No governmental bodies existed to approve organic farming methods or organic produce. As a result of this the Ministry for Rural Affairs was tasked with setting up the Organic Farming Unit, which is solely concerned with promoting, certifying, and inspecting organic farming in Malta.
A number of activist groups have cropped up in Malta to support the organic movement as a way to combat global warming. Perhaps the biggest of these groups is the Maltese Organic Agriculture Movement (MOAM). The group lists a number of reasons that all Maltese farmers should choose organic farming including economics and water supplies. Their argument for economics is that while Maltese farmers cannot out produce farmers in larger countries like Spain they can produce better products and charge more for them. For water, the MOAM argues that organic farming methods encourage good soil development and soil retention. Good soil is able to retain water much better than arid or sandy soil. So, in the end, less water will be needed on organic farms.
Reports from the Organic Farming Unit indicate that, in 2004, 20 farms were in the process of converting to organic farming. This accounts for 0.09% of the total agricultural land in Malta. However, even by 2010, only 0.19% of the total agricultural land was being used for organic farming. This represents a little more than a doubling of interest in organic farming over a 6 year period. While this shows growth, it is not substantial growth.
So, organic farming is moving forward but is off to a slow start. A professor at the University of Malta suggests that farmers are afraid to trust their crops to purely organic farming methods. It could also be the case that because 98% of farms in Malta are family owned and only 3.8% of farmers have training in farming methods, farmers are not willing to experiment with new farming methods. Both of these are potential reasons for farmer's lack of interest in organic farming, but there is doubtlessly more information that I have yet to find.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Technical Update - Mapping and Image Processing
Departure is nearly upon us! We have been doing a great deal of work the last few weeks getting everything ready. Erik and I had an opportunity recently to drive the ROV in the pool and perform a full mapping run. We positioned the ROV in strategic locations throughout the pool and captured a series of sonar scans. These were fed through Billy's mapping program to generate a map of the pool.
It was an excellent opportunity for us to practice the teamwork and processes necessary for a full deployment, including setup, un-boxing, deployment, scanning, assembly, and take-down. After the session I feel a great deal more comfortable with the equipment and software we will be using in Malta.
In addition, I have been doing further research on the topic of image processing. In particular, I need to smooth the back-scatter out of the cistern photos, then sharpen the images and equalize their appearance for texturing. Smoothing will be done using a median filter, as shown below. Notice how an increasing filter size greatly reduces the noise in the picture. However, it also blurs the subject of the image. This effect may be reversed using a laplacian mask to re-sharpen the transitions of the image. Once this process is complete, I hope to have a clear, sharp picture ready for texturing. The final step will be to equalize the gamma across all images so they blend smoothly together on the final mesh.
Tim is also doing some image processing work with his 3D imaging project. I am hoping that the research I have done for texture smoothing will also be able to help him in generating his bump and disparity maps.
Malta's Military History
My cultural research project for Malta is focused on the island's military history and its influences on their culture. The island's strategic importance and history of occupation has contributed to a very rich and colorful history dating back several hundred years. While the Maltese have never been an aggressive military force, the defenses on the island were an active focus for a prolonged period of time.
While on the island, I intend to visit several of the museums and sites of importance. Hopefully these visits will provide a considerable insight into military development and history. In addition, I intend to perform a few in-person interviews to get a better feel for how much of an effect, if any, the island's unique history has had on her modern citizens.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Brent's Cultural Research Project
All the ICEX students from Cal poly are doing a cultural research project and my project is on Computer Science and Information Technology as a major source of national income in Malta. The topic came out of the startling fact that Malta has very few natural resources that it can base it's manufacturing sector on. My idea was that if Malta couldn't make physical products then why not make information based products?
In Malta I plan to talk to Computer Science and Information Technology professors to get their view of the current state of the industry and what they believe might happen in the future. The final product for my project will be a piece of writing explaining the findings of my research.
In Malta I plan to talk to Computer Science and Information Technology professors to get their view of the current state of the industry and what they believe might happen in the future. The final product for my project will be a piece of writing explaining the findings of my research.
Cultural Update - Engineering Degrees in Malta
Hi everyone!
Last week in our ES410 class, we gave final presentations that detailed our ethnic studies research papers and how we would be collecting data. Seeing as our ICEX team is splitting off from the rest of the class in one week, we will be completing our projects while in Malta! This gives our team some exciting benefits such as the ability to conduct on-site interviews and publish a primary source document.
My research project is on the difference between the engineering educations offered at Malta's two main tertiary educational facilities: University of Malta and Malta College of Art, Science and Technology (MCAST). The final product of my research will be in two segments. I will have a formal document, and online information that will go up on our website that will discuss the similarities and differences between the two schools. I intend to include information from interviews (WHEW! what an alliteration!) with professors from both universities discussing the degree to which the engineering work at each school could be considered "hands on" or "strictly theoretical". I would also like to include information about the reason for the formation of MCAST back in the 1970s. Both parts of my research project will come into a more clear context once we take off for Malta, so for right now I will wrap this up by saying that I am very excited to have this opportunity!
Last week in our ES410 class, we gave final presentations that detailed our ethnic studies research papers and how we would be collecting data. Seeing as our ICEX team is splitting off from the rest of the class in one week, we will be completing our projects while in Malta! This gives our team some exciting benefits such as the ability to conduct on-site interviews and publish a primary source document.
My research project is on the difference between the engineering educations offered at Malta's two main tertiary educational facilities: University of Malta and Malta College of Art, Science and Technology (MCAST). The final product of my research will be in two segments. I will have a formal document, and online information that will go up on our website that will discuss the similarities and differences between the two schools. I intend to include information from interviews (WHEW! what an alliteration!) with professors from both universities discussing the degree to which the engineering work at each school could be considered "hands on" or "strictly theoretical". I would also like to include information about the reason for the formation of MCAST back in the 1970s. Both parts of my research project will come into a more clear context once we take off for Malta, so for right now I will wrap this up by saying that I am very excited to have this opportunity!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Cultural Project Update
Hello All!!
Sorry for the delay in blogging!
So there has been just a little bit of progress in the Omeka Project. Recently, the team has received server space on which to save and run the Omeka database information. Currently, Brent is helping me to try and update the server system so that Omeka may be downloaded and used. Brent is having a little trouble with it because it isn't accepting some of the most recent software programs, but he met with Alan, one of the IT's at Cal Poly and I believe has almost solved the problem! So it's all very exciting and I can't wait to get started working on it.
More information to come, but for now that is about it. Huge thanks to Brent for working on this; I definitely wouldn't have been able to get this far this fast without him. Thanks Brent!
I'll post a blog when the website is up and running!
Until then.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Pool mapping test run
In the past week Tyler and I mapped the pool as a test run before we take off for Malta (12 days to go!!). We drove the ROV around and took SONAR data at 5 or 6 spots along the bottom of the pool, and another 5 readings 1 meter from the bottom. We grabbed Billy's software and put the scans together to make a mosaic and a map of the pool.
The next image is the SONAR map that was generated using Billy's software. After creating special files that contain information on the bearing, depth, and time that a SONAR reading was taken, a scan can be loaded in. Then we load in a second scan, and a particle filter is used to converge the two scans. This can be done with different SONAR scans until a complete map is generated. Since this was the first set of SONAR data that Tyler and I took, we did not have the gain up high enough to fill in all of the holes around the pool. This makes Jeff's hole filling algorithm work a bit harder to produce a final map a little further down the line.
The image to the left is the SONAR mosaic. This is a dry copy/paste of all of the SONAR scans after being cropped and rotated in an image processor. The 6 spots in the middle of the image are noise around the location that the scan was taken from. When the SONAR map is made all of this noise gets cut out.
The next image is the SONAR map that was generated using Billy's software. After creating special files that contain information on the bearing, depth, and time that a SONAR reading was taken, a scan can be loaded in. Then we load in a second scan, and a particle filter is used to converge the two scans. This can be done with different SONAR scans until a complete map is generated. Since this was the first set of SONAR data that Tyler and I took, we did not have the gain up high enough to fill in all of the holes around the pool. This makes Jeff's hole filling algorithm work a bit harder to produce a final map a little further down the line.
This is the method that we will use in Malta to produce our cistern maps. After the map gets generated, Jeff runs his hole filling algorithm and the map file will get passed to Tim and Tyler. They will add textures taken from the GoPro cameras strapped to the ROV. After that, the file gets passed to Brent who will be modifying it to include salinity and temperature visualizations. The map will finally get passed to me, and I will upload the mesh into Unity3D to create a 3D version that can be rotated, translated, and scaled by the viewer. This file will be embedded into an online frame, and anybody that wants to will be able to view our data!
More to come soon!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Scientific Data Acquisition and Modeling Project Update 2
Progress has been made since my last post. As for the sensor part of the project, the salinity sensor has been built. Tyler is currently adjusting it to be able to measure the range of salinity we expect to encounter in the cisterns. The pressure sensors that we will be using to take temperature measurements arrived about a week ago along with the PAMs. We are currently in the process of acquiring the cable used to program them. Once we program the PAMs we will connect everything together and start testing. Also the otter boxes which we will be putting the sensors in to protect from the water should be here by Wednesday
or Thursday.
As for the modelling part of the project, I have made some modest progress. I have written a CSV file parser to parse the salinity, temperature, and position data and represent it in the cistern. The visualization for this can be seen to above. Also I implemented a bounding box that will help me calculate what is in the cistern and what is not for when I do the scattered data interpolation view. This can be seen to the right.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Ethnic Studies Module 1 Response: Styles of Communication
The Peace Corps Workbook, Culture Matters, includes a chapter discussing styles of communication. I found this chapter interesting, primarily because it focuses on a concept that I hadn’t previously considered. A style of communication is the manner in which one member of a group contributes his or her thoughts to another. While words that this person is saying guide the conversation during an everyday encounter, their style of communication is more focused on the directness, context, and subject that they choose to speak about. Style of communication varies wildly from culture to culture. The words spoken in a discussion in Denmark about taking the kids out to the park could be different from the words spoken in the United States, but both conversations would produce the same understanding between the two people in the discussion. Likewise, if two people do not share the same style of communication, they will walk away from a conversation with less information than what the other person intended. It is important to define and understand style of communication when discussing relations between two cultures.
Culture Matters breaks a culture’s style of communication into four categories. These are degree of directness, role of context, importance of face, and task vs. person. Degree of directness focuses on whether a person means what they are saying. If I am indirect, instead of telling someone that they are doing something wrong, I might ask them to try it another way. This avoids conflict, something that may be valued in one culture, or frowned upon in another. Role of context is how much preconceived information about the other person is brought to a conversation. In countries like Thailand, “people carry within them highly developed and refined notions of how most interactions will unfold” [1]. This is completely different from the United States, where people tend to be more individual, and therefore do not assume much about the other person. Importance of face is a culture’s emphasis on preserving politeness in a conversation. For example, a culture with low importance of face values facts and efficiency of words over the harmony of the exchange. Task vs. person is the degree of connection between business and personal matters in conversation. While it is acceptable to discuss the two together in the United States, people in other cultures might find it rather offensive to bring up family during a discussion about business.
Culture Matters emphasizes that individuals of a given background tend to share a similar style of communication with others from the same background. What is the extent to which this remains true? In personal experience, a stranger who has grown up in the same hometown as me can still identify with a completely different style of communication. I consider myself indirect and low context, but have met many people who are just the opposite. What degree of variance do individual cases introduce when binding a style of communication to a culture? Does this variance, in itself, vary with culture? Having lived in a close proximity to my home for my entire life, I am not yet able to answer these questions using generalizations about whole cultures. However, contemplating them prepares me for any future encounters with people that do not share my style of communication.
As an engineering student preparing to embark on a trip to another country with a completely different culture than the one that I am accustomed to, it is important to keep style of communication in mind. In The Globally Competent Engineer, Gary Lee Downy mentions that “engineering increasingly involves working alongside engineers from different backgrounds” [2]. In order to accurately invoke a technical, detail oriented idea into the mind of a person who does not share my background, I must bend my style of communication towards what he or she is more comfortable with. To do this, I must first identify the style of communication in the host country, which is the part that will take the most time and effort. While I am slightly afraid of offending a host or local to the country that I am visiting, I’m sure that if they have cognition of the fact that I do not share the same background as them, the offense will be dampened and we can laugh about it. Instead, I’m more interested in making my conversations with the locals meaningful. I would like to take away as much knowledge of another culture as I can. Altering my style of communication during conversation will add to my knowledge because the efficiency of the exchange will increase.
Style of communication is an inheritance to most, but can also be used as a tool to gain additional insight into the minds of others. It is a subcategory of a culture that is more or less present in every member. It takes an encounter between two cultures to become aware of it, and I hope that having knowledge of it serves to my benefit in my travels.
Works Cited
[1]"Styles of Communication." Culture Matters. Washington D.C.: Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange. 75-108. Print.
[2] Downey, GL, JC Lucena, BM Moskal, T Bigley, C Hays, BK Jesiek, L Kelly, J Miller, S Ruff, JL Leer, and A Nichols-Belo, 2006. The Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently. Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 95, No. 2, p. 107-122.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Malta Cultural Update:
In our ethnic studies class we started our Malta-related research projects this week. I am doing my research on Maltese farming and how water shortages have affected it. I heard a number of other interesting topics from developing educational plans to an investigation into gun usage.
May of the articles I have been reading about Maltese farming refer to the results of the 2010 census which estimated that 28.2 million cubic meters of water was used for farming between September 2009 and August 2010. However, I also found that, to date, Malta does not have an agricultural policy. Instead, farmers, like many other people and corporations, use private boreholes, or wells, to extract water from the small water table.
Water usage is a big deal on Malta, which is why a number of people are now calling for metering of all water extraction. One newly formed group called the "Malta Water Association" is calling for the immediate closure of all non-agricultural boreholes. They also want all agricultural boreholes to be metered by the end of this year. I think that this shows a practical attitude towards farming, because while the group wants to reduce water extraction, they also realize that farming relies on extracted water and cannot simply be cut off from that source. The group goes on to imply that the agricultural water meters are to be used to prevent gross over usage of water and are not to hinder typical farming needs. Again, I think that this is a good attitude to have towards water usage and farming.
Another big trend in Maltese agriculture is the Maltese Organic Agriculture Movement (MOAM). The farmers and institutions that support the organic movement suggest that organic farming will reduce damage to the environment, reduce water usage, and give Malta an economic edge. This argument seems very agreeable to the current Maltese outlook. Malta is very concerned about climate change, so doing things greener makes sense. Obviously the country has limited water resources, so water conservation is attractive to any Maltese person. The last point about an economic advantage refers to being able to markup organic crops over typical crops. It makes sense that Malta would want to produce more valuable crops because they have so little land for production. A larger country like Spain might be able to produce quantity, but Malta could try to corner the quality market.
I still have a lot of research to do, but farming on Malta is already turning out to be an interesting lens into current Maltese culture.
May of the articles I have been reading about Maltese farming refer to the results of the 2010 census which estimated that 28.2 million cubic meters of water was used for farming between September 2009 and August 2010. However, I also found that, to date, Malta does not have an agricultural policy. Instead, farmers, like many other people and corporations, use private boreholes, or wells, to extract water from the small water table.
Water usage is a big deal on Malta, which is why a number of people are now calling for metering of all water extraction. One newly formed group called the "Malta Water Association" is calling for the immediate closure of all non-agricultural boreholes. They also want all agricultural boreholes to be metered by the end of this year. I think that this shows a practical attitude towards farming, because while the group wants to reduce water extraction, they also realize that farming relies on extracted water and cannot simply be cut off from that source. The group goes on to imply that the agricultural water meters are to be used to prevent gross over usage of water and are not to hinder typical farming needs. Again, I think that this is a good attitude to have towards water usage and farming.
Another big trend in Maltese agriculture is the Maltese Organic Agriculture Movement (MOAM). The farmers and institutions that support the organic movement suggest that organic farming will reduce damage to the environment, reduce water usage, and give Malta an economic edge. This argument seems very agreeable to the current Maltese outlook. Malta is very concerned about climate change, so doing things greener makes sense. Obviously the country has limited water resources, so water conservation is attractive to any Maltese person. The last point about an economic advantage refers to being able to markup organic crops over typical crops. It makes sense that Malta would want to produce more valuable crops because they have so little land for production. A larger country like Spain might be able to produce quantity, but Malta could try to corner the quality market.
I still have a lot of research to do, but farming on Malta is already turning out to be an interesting lens into current Maltese culture.
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