(Visit
www.farming-gods-way.org
to find out more),
It
was definitely an international group today with people from Kenya,
Uganda, South Africa and England attending. It was a very busy day.
The ideal time frame for doing the full training, including the bible
studies that go with it, is two or three days. As this was impossible
for this group we raced through the material. The group was very keen, working hard at the practical activities and asking a number of good questions.
One
of the enjoyable parts of this kind of training is showing visitors
to our site the 'support' resources for farming that we have
developed over the years. As regular readers of the blog will know we
have a number of large capacity water storage tanks so that we can
save a lot of the rain that falls from our gutters, (our 'roof
harvest'). We've also invested in a special kind of latrine called an
Ecosan latrine that enable us to use human wee and poo as fertilisers
on our farm. A number of visitors to our project have expressed an
interest in this kind of latrine because it is more effective than
the traditional 'long drop', (does what it says on the label!), pit
latrines that are widely used in our area.
In
order to use the poo as a fertiliser it has to be stored for about
twelve months. During normal use the Ecosan latrine separates wee and
poo and stores them in different places. (This is why there is not an
unpleasant smell in the latrines). After defecating ash is put down
the hole in the latrine and this helps to dry it out and break it
down. The final product is a non smelly compost. We successfully used
this on our crops last season. We have been using the Ecosan latrine
for a while now so we have got quite a good collection of 'cured'
poo. In fact we have so much that there are two heaps of it on one of
our fields, ready to be used as fertiliser this planting season.
I
took our trainees down to these compost heaps to demonstrate how good
it is as a fertiliser. Scooping up a big handful I held it up, smelt
it and said,
“You
see, good rich compost and no smell”
The
looks on everybody’s faces was priceless. It was as if I had just
scooped up a handful of fresh poo.
“Scoop
some up for yourselves and see”, I said.
Nobody
rushed to try it. I did eventually manage to get a couple of brave
souls to at least smell a handful of it but I think it will be a
while before the idea takes off on a large scale. The same thing
happened in Uganda when Ecosan latrines were built in Kampala. The
'yuck' factor is a real challenge, despite good scientific evidence
of the value of 'humanure'. (follow this link if you are interested
in this approach to human waste disposal
– it's
a really interesting book).
As
we said our goodbyes at the end of the training one of the guys made
a nice comment.
“We
have seen how you waste nothing and that it is all used on the farm.
The only thing you don't seem to have a use for is sweat”.
We're
working on it!
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