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Seed Trees of Hope
Here is the final draft of my article on Oil-seed trees and biodiesel. I have no idea what to do with it now, where to submit it?

Any comments appreciated

By Catt Avery, 3-2005 anti-copyright. Please share.

Women who are barely literate are at the center of a revolution.

In the remote region of Kammmegudah India women used to sit at home and roll incense or agarbattis . " That man used to pay us only Rs 6 for a thousand agarbattis." say Rani and Janaki, who are part of this SHG (Self Help Group) "Now we own our own business.".

The Thambiraparani river is the site of the project providing a basin abundant with Pungan trees (also known as Karanji or Hongee). The ripe seeds drop from the trees and they are collected by village women who carefully dry them to the right moisture content. The Self Help Group pays 3 Rs for one kg of seed as well as providing bus fare for the women participants. Four kg of seeds produce a litre of diesel and a three kg oil cake. The bio-diesel sells for Rs 22 per litre. The processing plant consists of a large shed with a seed breaking machine and an oil press. Both engines run on biodiesel. Currently they are building a new shed to convert the seed shells to electrical energy. The oil cake can also be used as a fuel or sold as a fertilizer for the abundant locally grown bananas for Rs 7 per kg.

Sold locally to the farmers of Alwarthorpu who buy the bio-diesel to run their water pumps the demand has made it so the fifteen woman collective have have been unable to fill The Southern Railways request to buy their full production. The Pongamia pinnata or Karanji tree promises much more than a new cash crop to produce biodiesel fuel in remote areas.
The oldest of the eight SHG's of the village this group has been in operation for five years. Tuticorin Collector Shri Rajaram.deputed the project officer of the District Rural Development Agency to model the village of Alwarthorpe project on the successful Karnataka village model originated by Dr Shrinivasa.

It began one evening in early 1999, Dr.Udipi Shrinivasa from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore was having tea with some locals in Kagganahalli village.."Oh there is nothing much here," a villager commented,"No river, no wells, no electricity; just hundreds of Honge trees and tonnes of seeds. Not much use now. Our grandparents used the uneatable oil for lamps!". Dr Shrinivasa realized that if the oil was clean enough to burn in lamps it could run a diesel engine. "It was a sobering moment," he says. "Here we were,- all scientists- looking at technical solutions like windmills, gasifiers, solar panels and methane generators for rural India, and we had not made the obvious connection with the potential of non-edible oils known from Vedic times as fuels." H e became part of a new visionary movement in India easing poverty, Dr Shrinivasa found the benefits kept revealing themselves; "Sir, the economics are compelling," he says. "We get green cover, environmental rewards, local incomes and nation level independence. I have not drilled through the finer details. We could easily put the oil cake through digesters that would yield a rich fertiliser slurry, methane and drop costs further. The green cover would induce happy micro-climates and increase water resources. It is all so do-able."

The trials of Honge oil were successfull. The startling good new was in; a ready autonomous rural village economy is possible.

After converting a local ferroalloy companys five 1 megawatt generators to run on Honge oil, the Honge project received a sanctioned fund of Rs. 278 lakhs to expand the project to seven villages around Kagganahalli. After simple filtration of the oil the mechanic for the project was able to simply pour in the oil and push a button. Assured of a steady inexpensive supply of water local farmers have begun to produced watermelons, mulberry bushes, sugar cane and grains that seasonal rainfall would not formerly support. Using check-dams a nearby stream has become perrenial while afforestation in the Huliyurdurga hill nearby has seen game return.

Dr Shrinivasa took the project further. Beyond buses and roads he walked to the site of his next project. In June of 2002 the noisy joy of children and adults celebrated the arrival of electric lights to a village which formerly went to bed at dark. Now the children of the village are learning to read and write after dark in the community center under one of the villages several dozen lightbulbs. The local women in the small Tamil Nadu village no longer have to walk and carry water several miles. Water flows from an overhead storage tank which is pumped by the village bio-diesel generator

``With lights, we can chase away snakes and animals that stray into our village in the night. We can catch the occasional thief also,'' said Lakshmi Bai, chosen by her community to manage the tiny power station.

Working with Shrinivasa, the District Rural Development Agency has helped the villagers grow Karanji trees and manage the project. Ten thousand trees planted by the Kolams last year will start yielding seeds soon.

In 2003 the Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi Express established services utilizing 5% bio-diesel. The government plans to start using 5-15% mixtures in buses and trains which would require no modifications.Indian Railways further plans to plant Jatropha along 25000 km of the railway tracks and on other wastelands .Part of new programs to create a means of economic empowerment, social upliftment and poverty alleviation within marginalized communities in India oil seed trees can help to increase rural incomes, self-sustainbility and alleviate poverty for women, elderly, children and men, triabal communities and small farmers .Like Honge (Karanja) Jatropha is not browsed on by cattle, is easily propagated by seed or cuttings, grows well in arid marginal conditions and works well in collective foodshed systems..

Foodshed systems thrive where plantings improve the soil while at the same time providing sustenance for the farmer. Several other trees can be combined with these trees which do not provide food. Tamarind and Mahua offer seeds and flowers which are edible, while Salvadora persica may be browsed by livestock while it is converting salty soil to use. Even more traditional trees can be considered depending on the climate, olive, almond, fig, pomegranite, bananas, coffee,citrus, and grapes can all be grown within enclosures created by plantings of Jatropha. The Neem tree can provide insect repellent oil and natural methods of food preservation...simply mixing the leaves into rice can control and eliminate wevils.

While many scientists are still searching for a technological solution to dwindling oil supplies and advancing world poverty, a few have discovered that villagers who are already suffering from a lack of resources are willing to invest their time and energy in creating foodshed systems. These systems have a basic independence derived from the production of their own biodiesel fuel for pumping water and food processing. Women speak of serving three meals a day instead of two, of being able to send children to school, and of being saved miles of walking carrying water for their families.





Sources:

Abul Khair,http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/M_0076.htm
3-02-2005
India Tohether,K V Prayukth ,August 2004,Assistant Project Coordinator (Environment and Media) in the State of Environment Cell at the Dept. of Ecology and Environment of the government of Karnataka
Ganesh Nadar,rediff.com news. august 17,2004
helene le roux,Creamer Medias Engineering News online, 20 February 2005
Tamil Nadu University, Jatropha
Good News India,
Society for Rural Initiatives for Promotion of Herbals (SRIPHL),A. Maharshi,© 2004- 2005 Centre for Jatropha Promotion
planetsave.com,S. SRINIVASAN, KAMMEGUDA, India (AP) ,10/8/03