VIDEO: Gaza Farmers Fighting for Their Lives

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been a dire diplomatic issue for the past half century, and unfortunately the situation is not getting any better, at least for those caught in the line of fire.

The Gaza Strip has been one of the most dangerous places for Palestinians ever since Israel set up a blockade in 2005, preventing Palestinians from accessing imports and exports out of the area, or even access the outside world. Violence in the area has increased in the last few years, with incidents such as Palestinian protesters being killed by Israeli snipers, drawing the eyes of the world to the conflict.

Still, the civilians must find a way to survive each day. This video tells the story of farmers in Gaza, who have to deal with both cripplingly low wages and Israeli gunfire to make ends meet. Matthew Cassel’s filming is gripping, thought-provoking, and painfully honest, showing that even those who have no desire for conflict cannot escape its deadly consequences.

4 Little-Known Facts About Rural Thailand

Thailand is a country known for its beautiful landscape, beaches and ornate Buddhist temples. Its largest exports include technology such as computers and automobiles, and it is also the world’s largest producer of rubber and second largest of rice and sugar. People from all around the world come to visit the cities and experience the cuisine and culture that Thailand offers. However, beyond city life, the rural parts of Thailand are like a whole different country. 

Outside of the big cities, rural Thailand takes up most of the country while holding many of the historical pieces of Thailand. Villages and towns such as Kanchanaburi are found near the border with Myanmar and are surrounded by mountains. Sitting right next to the River Kwai, it houses the “Bridge on the River Kwai,” the Death Railway, wartime cemeteries and museums. In Thailand’s northeastern village of Ban Na Ton Chan, people make textile fabrics to sell by softening them with mud and boiling them in salt water to produce soft and naturally dyed textiles. You may have heard of Chiang Mai - the largest city in northern Thailand - but just an hour north is Mae Kampong, a beautiful village nestled within a bright green forest with jungles nearby. Finally, if you go further south, you’ll find Baan Bang Plub, where they harvest and cultivate coconuts to sell and are quick to teach the curious traveler about it. In short, going into the north of Thailand you are sure to find mountains, wartime villages and rivers that flow with historic importance. If you’re looking to find a more quaint village, going further south you will find more waterfront villages with basket weaving, boats, jungles and lush forests. 

Regardless, if you’re looking to master the skill of basket weaving or hope to visit wartime museums, rural Thailand offers a completely different experience than any city in the country. Here are some facts you should know before visiting. 

Lost Tourists Find Unmatched Hospitality 

Thai farmer. Eric Bagchus. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Visitors traveling to see the landscape of foreign countries often find themselves lost with no signal, no travel plans and no surefire way to communicate with locals. However, in Thailand the local farmers are known for being incredibly hospitable. Often, many take in lost travelers, give them food and a place to rest and help them on their way. Chittiya, a native Thai who immigrated to the United States, stated, “they’re the nicest people you’ll ever meet. You never have to worry about getting lost because there will always be someone to help you along the way and make sure you have food and water to get there.” Ultimately, if you find yourself lost along the way and pass through a village, ask someone for help and they will most likely go out of their way to help you or find someone who can.

Rural Villages: The Simple Life 

Chiang Mai harvest. Ol’ Pete. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

When moving from the large, bustling cities to the villages in rural Thailand, one might feel as though they’ve entered a completely different country – or even moment in time. Many in the villages like to hold to the old, simple way of life that was prevalent before Thailand’s industrial development truly took off. Farmers are dependent on the turn of the seasons, growing their own crops and raising their own animals, hoping to sell them at local markets and in the cities. During the off-season, most young people travel into the city for temporary labor work until the monsoons end. They then head back to join the family farm and help tend to the animals and crops and the cycle continues.

 Men’s Duty to Give Back

Thai monks. Carl Parkes. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

More traditional Thais observe Buddhism and spend their lives trying to live well and do good according to their religion. Many men believe it is their duty to help pave the way for their parents and ancestors to reach nirvana or have a better life after their reincarnation. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for young men to feel obligated to spend around three to four months at a monastery to truly understand their duty, and what their purpose is. These men spend a lot of time praying, giving up worldly material things and staying celibate during this period. 

The Negative Impact from Technology

On the road in rural Thailand. Lee Craker. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Finally, the impact of technology has started to create negative consequences for farmers. When living the simple rural life, materialism is not prevalent. However, now with developing technology, views such as “everyone needs to have a car” are common and many have become more materialistic. Problems with debt have been on the rise as farmers lack credit but still want to buy more – even though their current lifestyle cannot support it. A lot of cars get repossessed or taken back when the period to pay them back passes. In the old days, rice farmers kept some to feed their families and sold the rest of the rice to buy what they could not produce themselves. However, nowadays everyone wants cars and gadgets even when they do not need them. The problem is that the nature of their livelihood depends on unreliable seasons that mean they cannot always pay back their debt. Additionally, in today’s age many young people have lost interest in continuing the family farms. Most grow up and move into the cities and work corporate jobs, leaving their families to take care of the farms themselves or ultimately selling them. 

Thailand is a beautiful place to visit, and the culture that hides in the rural, more obscure countryside is almost an entirely different one from the cities. In the past and even into the present there has been tension between city people and village people, and many crimes or issues that take place are usually one side pitted against the other. Taking the time to understand both the city people and farmers is important in getting a full picture of Thai culture. 

Elizabeth Misnick

is a Professional Writing and Rhetoric major at Baylor University. She grew up in a military family and lived in Europe for almost half her life, traveling and living in different countries. She hopes to continue writing professionally throughout her career and publish her writing in the future.

Bridging the Food-or-Energy Gap

Should land be used for solar panels or agriculture? The burgeoning Solar Sheep movement argues: Why not both?

Affectionately called "lambmowers," these sheep graze among a field of solar panels.All Photos from the American Solar Grazing Association

Lexie Hain tucks a chunk of business cards in her back pocket before bounding up to speak to a room of 75 livestock farmers. On a rain-dumping January day, they’ve driven in from around New York and New England. A polite lethargy has set in by the time Hain, the final presenter, stands up, but her talk, “Solar and Sheep: The New Power Couple,” jolts the crowd like a dozen diner-coffee refills. By the end, Hain is slapping backs, handing out cards, and promising to talk farmer to farmer to the dozens lined up. The conference sponsor, Cornell Cooperative Extension, has to boot her out of the ballroom before the hotel’s next scheduled event. 

Hain had projected image after image onto a big screen: the woolly, timeless faces of sheep munching among the sweeping, futuristic angles of solar arrays. Hain and her wife, Marguerite, farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, where Hain tends a flock of 100 ewes. For the past few years, she has grazed those sheep on a 4-acre Cornell University solar field. It’s part of the 100 acres that Hain and her business partner graze, a third of which belong to Cornell. In 2017, Hain co-founded a trade group, the American Solar Grazing Association, after realizing that sheep like hers could not only help earn a farm living, but also solve a larger problem.

A key element in good solar grazing practices is letting the land rest and recover periodically.

The question lies in how to define “productive use.” Are fields of open, often fertile land better used for producing renewable energy or food? The U.S. already hosts more than 2 million solar installations, and photovoltaic capacity is projected to more than double over the next five years. Meanwhile, our growing global population means we’ll need to produce 70 percent more food to feed 2.2 billion more people by 2050. An emerging land-use solution is called agrivoltaics: co-locating solar panels with agriculture. 

Benefits in kind

Within the small-but-growing U.S. agrivoltaic industry, an early winner is making solar ground into pasture for sheep. It’s common practice in countries such as the United Kingdom and Uruguay. When sheep graze on fields that also support solar arrays, the same land can produce energy, wool, and meat, all at the same time. Not to mention the benefits of their manure and hooves to the soil health. 

Some farmers are installing solar to power their own farms. Others, including the American Solar Grazing Association’s several hundred members, are renting out their sheep to solar companies for vegetation maintenance.

At the end of the grazing season, sheep are rounded up and hauled away from a solar field.

The collaboration is a win-win—the shepherds earn extra income, and the sheep keep greenery trimmed for less than it would cost solar companies to mow. Lots of news coverage has called sheep cheaper, nimbler, lower-emission lawnmowers. Hain likes to joke about how simplistic it sounds: “Solar brings jobs. Some of those jobs could be ours!” she tells her fellow livestock farmers, to chuckles, at Cornell’s grazing conference. But then, for the next 45 minutes, she talks about how much deeper the solar sheep solution goes than jobs and cost-savings. 

The sheep benefit from the windbreak and shade of solar panels, often napping under them on sunny days. In turn, they keep plants from growing high enough to shade or disturb the panels. The solar field’s vegetation provides the sheep food. Sheep will eat almost anything, with the  exception of thistle. That includes turf grass (though it sometimes has a fungus that keeps the sheep from gaining weight.) Rotating the sheep’s grazing around different parts of the solar array, fed on a mix of grasses, is optimal. Their manure then turns around and fertilizes the land. 

“This dual use of the land adds a layer of efficiency that wouldn’t be there,” Hain says. “You start seeing layer after layer of benefit, benefit, benefit.”

Shepherd Kim Tateo loves the sound of that. She has come to the grazing conference expressly to hear Hain speak. Part of the fresh generation of urbanites-turned-agrarians, Tateo left her work in New York City’s composting industry several years back to farm upstate. She now grazes about 20 sheep at Albany’s Tivoli Lake Preserve. But with city grant funding for the project drying up, she says, she needs a new income stream.

An informal meet-and-greet with a flock of solar grazers.

“Learning more about it, it makes total sense to have sheep there,” Tateo says. “These sheep will eat the grass and improve the soil. Instead of just having dead panels, you can have something that is very alive and at the same time producing energy.”

Power tools

In San Antonio, Ely Valdez sees even more benefits. Five years ago, he owned a traditional landscaping business. He lived on a ranch with about 20 sheep, which he raised mostly as a learning project for his young sons, Ely, Eric, and Emilio. Then, in 2017, he read a news story about solar sheep. It struck him with the force of the Texas sun hitting a photovoltaic panel. 

“Running all over with weed wackers gets pretty hard on my guys when it gets to 102 or 105 [degrees Fahrenheit] in the summertime,” he says. “It’s relaxing to go see the sheep underneath the panels.” His whole business model changed.

In the midday heat, sheep graze in the shade under the solar panels.

Valdez’s ranch sits in a hot but surprisingly lush spot between the San Antonio and Medina rivers. The water quality is frequently tested by San Antonio River Authority, so to prevent chemical runoff, Valdez has a company rule that prohibits the use of herbicides. In the rainy season, Valdez says, the Johnsongrass plant can grow 2 to 3 inches per day. High-reaching sunflowers can quickly shade solar panels, too. His animals nibble both while the plants are small. “Sheep have been the best result for the problems we have here,” he says. “It’s a great impact for the environment.”

There are challenges, though. Making sure the sheep have enough water takes constant vigilance, Valdez says, especially in the Texas heat. A coyote snagged one of his lambs once. And a couple times, sheep have rubbed up against the emergency-stop button, calling a technician to the site. But it’s worth the occasional trouble, he says, especially when summer temperatures rise. 

After the lambing season that began in January, Valdez will be up to 400 sheep this year, with a goal of getting the flock to 1,200 sheep that can graze on multiple solar arrays.

A flock of solar grazers gathers by a solar array.

Fuzz, buzz, and beyond

Sheep, of course, aren’t the only livestock that graze. Solar co-location experiments are also being done with other animals. A test project at the University of Massachusetts Crop Research Station, for instance, placed panels 7 feet off the ground so cattle could graze underneath. Although it worked well, the cost of steel to mount panels at this height has largely kept developers from following suit. Trials with goats, meanwhile, have shown that installations might also have to be modified, because the goats sometimes jump on panels or chew wires. 

Experiments are also being done with row crops so they’re partially shaded by panels and thus use less water. University of Arizona researchers have been testing whether foods such as tomatoes, peppers, chard, kale, and herbs could grow better under photovoltaic panels in dryland areas. Last year, their study found that chiltepin pepper plants yielded three times as much fruit, and tomatoes twice as much, in the agrivoltaic setup. 

Where sheep are involved, yet another food can be made on the same land: honey. Setting aside more pollinator habitat has been imperative since a combination of pesticides and mites contributed to mass honeybee die-offs over the past decade. Companies such as Minnesota-based Bare Honey are now marketing products made with “solar honey” as value-added. The American Solar Grazing Association has helped develop a seed mix of plants with Ernst Conservation Seeds for the Northeast region that are good for sheep and also provide pollinator habitat. Hain, always good-humored, had it named Fuzz & Buzz. 

Solar grazing benefits shepherds as well as solar farmers

For shepherds, the remaining challenge is that the number of sheep, and the people who tend them, will grow. Ely Valdez has already expanded his flock, and Kim Tateo hopes to. The network of processors and customers will necessarily need to grow up around them, too. In the same way that solar grazing can meet human needs for food, warmth, energy, and economic activity, it can also feed the Earth. “I love the idea of [aspects like] pollinator patches and making them into something that is feeding a whole ecosystem,” Tateo says.

As Cornell Cooperative Extension staffer Aaron Gabriel closes down the grazing conference, he tells Hain, “We’re going to have to do a lot more processing and marketing [of lamb]—we’re going to have a lot more sheep people here.” 

“I am deeply aware of the need for that,” Hain answers. “There’s going to be a whole community that builds up.”

Lynn Freehill-Maye writes about sustainability and related topics from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, CityLab, Civil Eats, and Sierra, among other publications.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY FEATURED ON YES! MAGAZINE

Why We’re Involved in a Project in Africa to Promote Edible Insects

There is a wealth of indigenous knowledge about capturing and eating insects in sub-Saharan Africa. But the development of edible insects as a food industry has been very slow, despite its many potential benefits.

Sustainability is one. Insects have a small carbon and water footprint. Studies show that insect farming emits less carbon and methane gas than large livestock like cattle and pigs. Much less water is needed to produce the same amount of protein. Insects use feed more efficiently than other sources of animal protein. Farming them could be a new source of jobs and income.

There should be more awareness and promotion of insects as food for humans and as feed for animals, especially at the policy, legislative and business level. In most African nations, edible insects are still viewed as an insignificant source of food and even, in some instances, as food for the poor. There are very few success stories of large-scale insect farming and industrial use in Africa.

We have been involved in a project to promote the integrated use of insects as food in urban areas in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our project works on the edible insect value chain and discovered that the seasonal supply of insects and poor hygiene standards made the market unstable and unattractive to consumers. Traders sold insects in an informal setting and had little interaction with farmers.

We carried out training among farmers, traders, municipalities and others with an interest in this emerging industry. The training included how to handle and process insects after they were harvested, food safety along the value chain and farming crickets (Acheta domesticus and Gryllus bumaculatus).

The trainees have learnt how to rear and sell insects better and have become more aware of what a sustainable value chain should look like. For example, market facilities have to be clean and there must be a steady supply of insects. The training also created awareness of the need to farm insects rather than catching them in the wild. Catching insects can reduce insect populations dramatically when consumption increases. And there are no food safety standards for wild insects.

Together with the urban council in the town of Chinhoyi in Zimbabwe we built a model market structure where traders are selling their insects. Traders are selling some of the most popular edible insects; wild harvested mopane worms (Gonimbrasia belina), termites (Macrotermes natalensis) and wild harvested crickets. Farmers are still building stocks of farmed crickets, but the plan is to sell farmed crickets in the near future. It is still too early to see the impact but one notable improvement is hygiene. The market has also helped women traders, who are the main group selling insects there. They have become more organised about their business.

We hope this will lead to an increase in consumer willingness to buy edible insects, and demonstrate best practice to other regions of Zimbabwe and beyond. Through our project, we have also helped insect traders and farmers to form industry associations.

Why insects are valuable

Insects are highly nutritious and contain protein, fat and energy in proportions similar to grains, vegetables and seeds. They are rich in macro minerals like calcium, sodium and magnesium and micro minerals like zinc, manganese, iron and copper, all of which should be part of a healthy diet. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, these minerals come from fruits and vegetables, most of which are farmed seasonally. Edible insects could supply these minerals during seasons where there is less fruit and vegetable production.

They contain essential amino acids such as threonine, cysteine, valine, methionine and isoleucine. The recommended daily minimum intake of amino acids can be consumed by eating just 100 grams of the edible stink bug (Encosternum delegorguei), for example.

Earlier this year, parts of eastern and southern Africa were ravaged by Cyclone Idai. The cyclone destroyed crops and livestock, causing severe food shortages. We believe that in disaster-struck areas, edible insects can build resilience by being a food resource in recovery programmes and an alternative to traditional smallholder farming. There is an excellent example of that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where orphanages have started insect farms to grow their own protein. The farms have helped decrease hunger and improve health among the orphans.

Read more: Economic chaos is causing a food security and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe

What needs to happen?

We were involved in setting up an international conference in Zimbabwe to discuss ways to foster the edible insects industry.

Research is required so that policy makers and those involved in the sector – farmers, processes, marketers and consumers – can make evidence-based decisions. This must happen across disciplines. Researchers should work with farmers and people in business to foster skills, innovation and enterprise. For example, they could develop business cases and scenarios.

Policy makers must understand that the sector is unique. Edible insects have not been categorised under any agricultural sub-sector such as crop or animal farming. On the African continent, they have not previously been farmed and treated as a commodity. That is why it would be helpful to establish and coordinate platforms such as meetings, workshops, exhibitions, magazines and websites.

Policy should also allow innovation and investment to happen at national, regional and international levels. Industry participants will need access to markets and credit.

Farmers, food and feed processors, traders and marketers must seize opportunities to invest and enter niche markets. They can also contribute to policy development and share knowledge about traditional ways of producing and eating insects.

There is momentum generated by several research and business initiatives that have been ignited in sub-Saharan Africa. And there is growing enthusiasm for using edible insects as alternative sources of protein and to build resilience against climatic shocks. It’s an essential step towards improving food security in the region.

Robert Musundire is a Associate Professor of Entomology in the Department of Crop Science and Post-Harvest Technology, Chinhoyi University of Technology

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

Ghana’s Cocoa Farmers are Trapped by the Chocolate Industry

The chocolate industry is worth more than $80 billion a year. But some cocoa farmers in parts of West Africa are poorer now than they were in the 1970s or 1980s. In other areas, artificial support for cocoa farming is creating a debt problem. Farmers are also still under pressure to supply markets in wealthy countries instead of securing their own future.

In research published last year I explored sustainability programmes designed to support cocoa farming in West Africa. My aim was to identify winners and losers.

I looked at initiatives such as CocoaAction, a $500 million “sustainability scheme” launched in 2014, and concluded that they were done in the interests of large multinationals. They did not necessarily relieve poverty or develop the region’s economies. In fact they created new problems.

To sustain their livelihoods, the cocoa farmers of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana need to diversify away from cocoa production. But multinational chocolate companies need farmers to keep producing cocoa.

Diversification

Farmers choose to diversify their crops for a host of reasons. These include a reduction in the resources they need to produce a crop (such as suitable land), and a reduction in the price they can get for the crop.

Cocoa farming requires tropical forestland. This is limited; it is not possible to keep expanding to new land to keep producing cocoa. So when the land is exhausted, farmers would benefit from diversifying to products like rubber and palm oil. They do not need to grow cocoa for its own sake.

A great deal of diversification occurred during the cocoa crisis of the 1970s in Ghana. Cereal output increased from 388,000 tonnes in 1964/1965 to over 1 million tonnes in 1983/83, and decreased when cocoa was “revitalised”. The same was the case with coconut, palm oil and groundnut.

But such diversification is more recently being prevented by multinationals and other stakeholders who want cocoa cultivation to continue. Multinationals that depend on cocoa as a raw material openly (and rightly) regard diversification as a risk to their business. So they keep spending on cocoa farming inputs.

Why there’s a limit to cocoa

In West Africa, cocoa has historically been cultivated using slash and burn farming. Forest was cut down and burned before planting, and then, when the plot became infertile, the farmer moved to fresh forestland and did the same again.

The new land offered fertile soil, a favourable microclimate and fewer pests and diseases. Growing the cocoa took less labour and yielded more.

This explains the link between cocoa farming and deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. A recent investigation showed that since 2000, Ivorian cocoa has been dependent on protected areas. Almost half of Mont Peko National Park, for example, which is home to endangered species, as well as Marahoue National Park has been lost to cocoa planting since 2000.

In Côte d’Ivoire, the area covered by forest decreased from 16 million hectares – roughly half of the country – in 1960 to less than 2 million hectares in 2005.

Forestland is finite. Slash and burn is no longer an option, because so much of the forest is gone. In West Africa, planters are now staying on the same piece of land and reworking it.

This has created its own set of problems.

Rising costs and threats

In both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, several estimates of the cost of maintaining a cocoa farm show that the investment costs required for replanting have approximately doubled. One estimate of labour investment put the replanting effort at 260 days per hectare, compared with 74 days per hectare for planting using slash and burn.

The extra labour needed for sedentary cultivation is leading to child trafficking and child labour in cocoa cultivation. Child trafficking generally occurs when planters are searching for cheaper sources of labour for replanting.

Planters who have successfully diversified into other crops have stopped using child labour. In the cocoa industry, however, the use of child labour is increasing. For example, the number of child labourers in the Ivorian cocoa industry increased by almost 400,000 between 2008 and 2013.

There has also been a massive increase in the use of fertilisers and pesticides to aid cocoa production without slash and burn.

The increased input (labour, fertilisers and pesticides) for replanting land amounts to a higher production cost. It cannot be adjusted by price setting. Cocoa producers have no control over price; they are price takers. So the higher production cost reduces the profit made by cocoa farmers.

This explains why cocoa producers in Côte d’Ivoire are poorer now  than they were decades ago.

In Ghana, the government, through the cocoa marketing board, COCOBOD, has managed the transition from slash and burn to sedentary farming. The government created a mass spraying programme to control diseases and pests. It also subsidised fertiliser and created a pricing policy that has sometimes amounted to a government subsidy this links need users to subscribe. Due to the extra free input provided by the government, sometimes supported by NGOs and multinational corporations, farmers have not become poorer in Ghana. But the approach has led to huge debt for COCOBOD. For example, COCOBOD incurred GHc2 billion (US$367 million) debt for subsidising the price of cocoa for the year 2017.

Although cocoa planters are faring well in Ghana, it is not clear that Ghana’s cocoa sector is really a success story. The shift to debt financing has artificially produced the success.

The way forward

Cocoa “sustainability” activities are not the way forward. Cocoa sustainability is a new form of colonisation in Africa, because its real goal is to prevent African planters from diversifying away from cocoa into other crops. These programmes keep the cocoa industry going under deteriorating conditions.

The way forward is to switch from cocoa to crops that do not require forestland (new or exhausted), extra fertilisers or more labour.

Research has shown that cocoa planters in Côte d’Ivoire who have diversified into other crops, such as rubber, have succeeded in escaping poverty.

But that is seen as a major threat to the supply of raw material to Western multinationals. One representative of a large chocolate multinational explained “my enemy is not my competitor in the purchase of cocoa, but the rubber industry.”

In conclusion, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have to think about what is best for them instead of what is best for the chocolate industry and consumers in the developed world.

MICHAEL E ODIJIE is a Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Cambridge.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION

Growing Coffee In the Shadow of a Volcano

Timoteo Minas grows coffee in the shadow of an active volcano in Guatemala. Volcán de Fuego has been erupting more frequently in recent years, but Timoteo is not stressed at all. In fact, there’s no place he’d rather be. Both the high altitude—his farm sits 6,300 feet above sea level—and the nutrient-rich volcanic soil are good for his plants and give his coffee a special taste. 

The Future of Farming Is Underwater

Beneath the glistening blue waves of the Bay of Noli in the Italian Riviera are biospheres bursting with basil, tomatoes, herbs and other plants. It's all a part of a science experiment known as Nemo's Garden. While growing plants underwater might seem strange, it turns out there are a lot of advantages—protection from pests and extreme weather, a regulated temperature and access to fresh water as seawater evaporates and re-condenses. Co-creator of the project Luca Gamberini hopes that one day Nemo's Garden will revolutionize the future of farming and inspire others to grow crops in places they never thought possible.