For the last ten years our Rochdale based club has been involved in growing fruit and vegetables, particularly for landless people living in extreme poverty in developing countries, for which we won the RIBI Environmental Award in 2009/10.

Our UrbanFarm system is extremely low cost, organic, requires minimal water and provides food and / or income for families.

Information and the full technical manual are available on www.accessible-edibles.org. Although the system has been used world-wide it is ideally suited for Sub-Saharan Africa and we are just adding the technical manual in Swahili to our website.

While the system uses only small amounts of water, we know that this may still be difficult for some families to access.

We have now developed a new version of UrbanFarm that can use seawater or salt contaminated freshwater by means of a low cost, passive desalination technique.

While the prototype has proved that the system works, we now need to optimise the volume of water that it generates. Our freshwater target is 1 Litre per unit per day and at the moment we are achieving 250mls hence we need a Scientist / Physicist to help us increase the efficiency and finalise the development.

If you or a family member are able to suggest a way forward our Club would be very grateful. Being a Rotary project, it goes without saying the only reward would be a mug of tea and possibly a Chocolate digestive!

If you can help my Mobile is 07831221796 or email: acton.sheila@btinternet.com.