First Meeting with EARD-CI

During our first visit with EARD-CI, we met the staff and were reintroduced to their program with VICOBAs, Village Community Banks. We were also introduced to PETS, Public Expenditure Tracking System, a project looking at the success of government expenditures in the agricultural sector. The briquetting project goals for this summer aim to work with a VICOBA to create a pilot project. One VICOBA, Lulu, has shown a lot of interest in briquetting and could possibly build a press for around 40,000 TSH (about $20 US). This is great news for briquetting, because we aim to make briquetting cheap and accessible to as many people possible. EARD-CI mentioned that some VICOBAs may have enough money to buy more expensive technologies like a mechanical briquette press, so our group may choose to research this further for the summer.

Another group project goal for the summer includes developing an ideal biomass mixture for regions around Arusha, Tanzania. We tested the briquette mixture the Spring 2012 group created for demonstrations and found that the briquettes burned but produced a lot of ash without a flame. We determined that briquettes constructed out of paper, sawdust, and rice husk mixture were not ideal for cooking. Thus, our goal is to spend the next few weeks creating a mixture that produces a flame with low smoke emissions. Edith, one staff member at EARD-CI, mentioned a man, John, in Lushoto (a few hours away from Arusha) has been working with carbonated and non-carbonated biomass materials for a briquetting in his community. We plan on traveling out to the area and talking to John to learn more about successful briquetting projects and get his insight on our own project.

We also began a compost pile soon after arriving, since composting will take a few weeks. Once composting is complete, we will be able to begin testing optimal biomass mixtures. So far, we have begun composting rice husks, paper, saw dust, and dried corn leaves.  Our plan for the next few days is to travel to the VICOBAs and determine levels of interest and biomass materials present so we may choose the best VICOBA for a pilot project. We plan on visiting King’ore on Thursday, and Lulu and Bonderi on Monday.