SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENERGY PRODUCTION PROJECT
THE PROJECT WAS ALSO EXTENDED TO THE IVORY COAST TERRITORY (RURAL VILLAGES) IN THE VERSION OF PS 76 ASSOCIATION MACHINERY DESIGNED TO EXTRACT OIL FROM THE PALM PLANT AS A LOCAL ECONOMIC RESOURCE AND FUEL TO DRIVE THE GENERATOR.
(DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT ALREADY PUT TO TRIAL BY AURORA ASSOCIATION IN THE SENEGALESE TERRITORY)
Associazione Aurora, together with the Programma Sviluppo 76, (PS76) Association operating in the field of international cooperation in developing countries, Genoa University (Dicca) and Codeart NGO (Belgium), after a detailed survey of the Senegalese territory, conducted by Aurora Association by means of its partner operators in the Association’s Senegalese centre and after a detailed study on the effective proven feasibility of the project, in view of: the socio-economic and political situation, lack of infrastructures also linked with the need for energy, lack of working techniques and methods, lack of know-how in the agricultural sector, being the principal engine to drive the country’s economy and considering the precarious living conditions in the numerous, highly populated villages in the region and growing wave of young people’s migration,
it was established:
with the participation and proven enthusiasm of numerous local authorities who had pressed for our assistance the proven experience and suggestions furnished by our agronomist Dr. Matteo Zucchi, a professional agronomist resident in Senegal and participation of several Senegalese agrarian institutes willing to cooperate, to realize a project for sustainable agriculture and to produce energy, affording the opportunity to initiate an effective, substantial change in the rural communities scattered throughout the territory.
General and specific goals:
The project was carefully drawn up in detail with the intent of achieving the following goals:
· Utilization by part of the population of land left uncultivated and abandoned, providing helpful advice on how to use the land correctly to grow crops.
· Improve the socio-economic conditions by developing marginal trading activities permitting families and young people to become self-sufficient, creating opportunities for work and discouraging the growing migratory phenomenon.
· Address the problem of malnutrition directly affecting health and subsequent problems, about which Associazione Aurora is actively aware, accomplishing auxiliary health services in the communities.
· Produce power and bio-fertilizer by growing a marginal quantity of Jatropha Curcas, essential for an effective agricultural and community development, produce useful by-products from the waste from pressing, such as soap, replace wood with Jatropha oil as fuel to cook food, avoiding the search for firewood, a major, compelling reason for deforestation and the hard work born by women and children;
use the oil for lighting up the homes in the evening.
· Encourage a cultivation practice that uses as little water as possible to conserve the underground water resources, use the crop rotation technique enabling the population to grow crops at sustainable costs and eliminate intensive use of expensive and noxious chemical fertilizers (nitrates, pesticides, sulphates).
· Provide comprehensible know-how and techniques to grow crops and to develop the rural environment with the aim of producing an economic development of proven feasibility; describing all this in a special brochure with attached explanatory video-cd, for gratuitous distribution to the population.
· Fight the phenomenon of desertification and multinationals seizing land exclusively to their personal advantage.