Soil activation
activities of the land damaged by the slash-and-burn agriculture
In order to recover the quality of land damaged by the slash-and-burn farming, SUPA carries out guidance of production technique as well as the popularization of the organic fertilizer which is made by utilizing the waste from the daily lives of the households.
What triggered the activity was that in the beginning of 2000, one Japanese specialist of SUPA paid attention to the dregs of palm fruits from which the oil was squeezed out disposed and piled up behind the farm houses.
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Palm trees growing wild in Guinea
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Woman carrying the "bunch" of palm fruits |
‘ Bokashi manure
The Bokashi is the traditional organic fertilizer of Japan made and used from the olden times along with the compost. To briefly explain, the Bokashi is the fermented manure-type fertilizer made by mixing the clay and mountain soil to the organic substances such as dregs of beans, chaffs and rice bran. It is notable that the fermentation technologies of Japan is one of the finest in the world with so many kinds of traditional fermented fertilizers being created from the old days.
Process of squeezing oil from palm fruits
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The main material of Bokashi in Guinea is the dregs of palm fruits after the oil was squeezed out. Palm trees grow wild in the area.
The palm tree planted in large scale in the Southeast Asia is originated in the coastal countries of the Guinean Bay.
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| 1. |
Collect ripen bunches of the palm fruits. Separate the numbers of egg-shaped fruits growing like grapes from bunches.
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| Bunches of palm fruits |
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| 2. |
Pound the separated fruits in the mortar. |
| 3. |
When smashed, the seeds are separated from the flesh. |
| 4. |
Stew the flesh and the seeds in a large pot. |
| 5. |
The oil is extracted from the stewed contents in the boiling pot, float on the surface. The farmers would scoop up this oil and utilize for cooking. It is the precious energy source. The fibers (dregs) left in the pot would be disposed. |
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The above mentioned normally disposed dreg (the brown-colored fiber) is the basic raw material for making Bokashi manure. The waste liquid formed in the boiling is used for accelerating fermentation of the compost fertilizer described later. So the considerable amount of oil remains in the waste liquid that it is transformed into nitrogen by fermentation.
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