About

Appropriate Technology - The quarterly magazine for practical changes in the developing world

The content of Appropriate Technology is directed towards communicating new practical technologies, policies and ideas addressed to the elimination of poverty and hunger.

Wherever you are in the world, you will find plenty to interest you in Appropriate Technology. By concentrating on real-life experiences and problems, this publication deals with practical development in a clear, straightforward way. Lessons learnt in one part of the world may be also applied in another part of the globe…

Appropriate Technology has been introducing new and innovative business ideas and technology advances to communities across the developing world since its publication.

Focusing, first and foremost, on the skills, engineering input and project assistance that smallholder farmers and their families need for survival and progress, we also seek to address the ever-changing concerns and issues faced by the communities we serve. This means reporting on everything from building projects to new equipment, pests and diseases to water shortages, and deforestation to climate change; always with an eye on how a new product, process or research programme may help change the future for people around the world.

Our four issues a year are designed to inform, assist and encourage the developing world’s business funders and advisers, aid sector workers and community support staff. The aim is to help them achieve ‘quality of life’ improvements for those they work with, and to do so, time and time again. Over 10,000 fieldworkers, researchers, extension officers, project managers, and non-government officers read it worldwide.

An experienced business, renewable energy and farming journalist, Colin Ley has written for most of the specialist trade publications within his sector in the UK, alongside contributing to a wide range of international newspapers, magazines and online outlets.

Born and raised on a small farm in South West England, he retains a keen appreciation of rural life at its most basic. This often involves  family members working hard to earn their living from the land with a few cows, a pig maybe, and whatever crops they can grow successfully, depending on  the local climate and soil conditions.

Having interviewed research engineers and inventors from around the world, he also values the developing world's constant search for new solutions and technology advances aimed at  allowing everyone, even those facing the most challenging conditions, to have a better life moving forward than was possible in the past.

His goal as editor of Appropriate Technology is to help anyone who discovers a new solution or technology advance to share  their ideas or inventions in a way that individuals, support agencies and business leaders can take and apply to their own communities and companies wherever they're based and whatever their resources.