Support 200 Nepalese farmers to become food secure

In our last update in July we had completed testing of the prototypes, and commenced fabrication of the remaining 29 units incorporating improvements identified in the tests.

We are happy to report the initial batch of 30 units have now been fabricated and dispatched to Shree Krishna at Sanskrirti Farms and Research Centre and the first of a series of demonstrations and workshops with local farmers took place in September. This is a very important milestone for the project!

Apart from skills training for the farmers an important aspect of these workshops is to gather feedback from the farmers and learn about their traditional farming methods and processes. Photos from the first workshop can be seen below.

Shree Krishna was very impressed by the enthusiasm shown by all participants. Based on feedback further improvements have been identified at this early stage such as adding handles to the inner drum for ease of assemble and a small door on the kiln would be useful for easier access. Shree shared that the farmers make hot ash (using mustard cakes) and all have buffaloes to access manure. They also all have access to woodland to obtain biomass for burning. We have also been able to identify particular shrubs including Ainselu, a wild raspberry, which the farmers clear and burn before planting crops as they have no use. There is a potential to use these as fuel for the kiln which we will investigate further.

After a project review with Shree Krishna last week the next phase is a schedule of workshops to take place at key milestones during the planting, growing and harvesting seasons to collect data and feedback which will be invaluable in progressing the project.  

We also discussed research opportunities between Irish and Nepalese Universities to analyse jointly the kiln emissions and efficiency. It was decided a hand held thermometer is useful for temperature measurement to test the efficiency of the burn as 700 degrees Celsius and over is the ideal temperature. This is something we will try to source and send out to the team in Nepal.

We are looking forward to moving to this important next phase of our pilot project and learning from the experiences of the local farming community! We look forward to sharing our next project update with you. Until then, our thanks for helping us get to this stage!

Our team has certainly been very busy since our last report in March, in particular with testing and developing our kiln prototype. As always we’re excited to share our latest project update with you! :)

Following internal discussions in March, we decided to hold a first testing phase; producing one initial kiln prototype which Shree Krishna would test at Sanskriti Farms. This initial prototype was fabricated by late March and Shree Krishna tested it on site. The outcome of the test proved poorer than expected as most of the biomass didn’t burn as the first photos below show. 

We identified that the primary reason the biomass did not burn was due to the gap between the inner cylinder and the outer cylinder. The diameter of the inner cylinder was 320 mm with the outer cylinder measuring 380mm and as such had a clearance of 60mm (2.4 inches). 

EWB reached out to the original designers of the kiln, Farm Social, and set up a call between the Nepal Team and Eoin Bracken of Farm Social in late April. Eoin recommended decreasing the diameter of the inner cylinder to 260 mm so that the clearance between the cylinder would be 120 mm (4.7 inches). Following the call, Eoin shared videos with the team of him doing a burn with a kiln of these measurements and showing a successful outcome. 

A second prototype was produced by our welders in Nepal in early May, with the reduction of the diameter of the inner cylinder and drilling of new holes in the kiln. Shree Krishna and his team completed a second phase of testing in late May, which produced a positive outcome as you can see in the photos below. 

We held a follow up group call in early June to debrief on the second test. Given the positive outcome, it was decided to make the inner cylinder smaller for the final design. Shree Krishna also shared feedback that there would be an improved burn if we increased the height of the tripod legs of the outer cylinder (thus allowing for better air circulation inside the burning chamber). We followed this advice and the height of the tripod legs was increased from 50 mm (2 inches) to 152 mm (6 inches). Finally, the diameter of the lid was also decreased to facilitate the farmers to more easily place their firewood into the unit. 

With our final design decided, we shared the requested changes with our welders in Nepal who started working on the fabrication of the remaining 29 kiln units. 

As of July, the rolling of the metal sheets has now been completed and the workmen have started assembling the remaining parts of the units. This work will be completed by early August, at which point all the units will be ready for dispatch to Shree Krishna. The current state of our kilns can be seen in the last batch of photos below!

Given the testing phases and revisions to our kiln, our demonstrations and workshops with local farmers have of course had to go on hold. However we plan to now hold these workshops before the end of September and start gathering feedback from the farmers. The graphics for the workshops have been agreed between EWB’s graphic artist and Shree Krishna and his team. 

We are looking forward to moving to the next phase of our pilot project and engaging with the local farming community!

We look forward to sharing our next project update with you in November. Until then, take care and our thanks as always!

Links:

• http://www.ewb-ireland.org
• https://www.facebook.com/sanskriti.farms2075
• https://www.farmsocial.org/