A Refined Concept
After lots of careful thought, I’ve focused on what is a most ideal concept for improving our community food security and permaculture. Here is what I’m working on which will hopefully be outlined in a business plan to begin Rascal Recycling as a non profit organisation.
From my research there are two food waste composting operations in the state of Georgia where i’ve recently relocated. For folks living in eastern GA, you’d have to travel over three hours to get to the closest operation if you wanted to drop off large quantities of food discards. So Savannah area is a very ideal place to start a organics composting operation for the population here currently sending their scraps to the landfill to become methane pollution.
Its obvious that our schools and community’s are in need of organic food as our current system provides mostly over processed, shipped from out of state, low nutrient and genetically modified foods for our kids. We cant settle for this if we are looking toward a bright future.
Municipal collection of food and yard waste is a big investment but not at all a new concept. It has been in use in other cities such as Oakland and Berkeley California where each home has a green super can for their biodegradable materials. From what I understand, EMUD the water and gas utility there, utilises the bio waste by producing methane in a digester which then is burned producing electricity. The left over residue is then composted and made available for farms as soil amendment. This is great but I can think we have a great need for that energy beyond electrical needs.
Black soldier Fly Larvae and red worms are being utilised in manure processing on large poultry farms and other commercial farms that produce large amounts of manure. The BSFL insect is a phenomenal bioconverter, one of mother natures most voracious composting creatures. They generate a residue that the red wiggler worms consume, there by producing extremely nutrient rich compost for soil amendment. This meets a great need for our nutrient depleted farm lands.
If our homes and business had bins and collection where the super can was designed with two compartments, one side could be for food scraps and the other side yard debris. Then we can send the food scraps to the composting insects(BSFL & worms) and the yard debris will be send to a field on the outskirts of town for windrow composting.This is the current method for most municipal composting.
Ag curriculum for schools: Community Food Security Project
Next question, how does the Insect and worm composting work? There is a lot more to the equation actually. We determine which schools and colleges in the community will institute the composting project which will fuel the Community Food Security Project. A series of greenhouses are constructed at each host campus. Within each greenhouse, we have four components. These components will educate, feed, and provide a surplus of food made available to the community at the school farmers market.
Greenhouse Design:
2/3rds of the interior of the greenhouse is occupied by two rows of fish tanks with a insect and worm composter in between them. Food scraps are added to the composter. As the insects and worms proliferate they are feed to the fish. They also feed the chickens who occupy the other 1/3 of the green house space. Above the fish and compost section, we have sections of planter boxes that are flooded with the fish tank water containing effluent rich in nitrogen. The water passes a porous rock medium surrounding the roots of the vegetables absorbing the nutrients creating clean water to return to the fish. Some finished compost is incorporated to provide more nutrients for the plants. Over the roosting boxes on the chicken side of the greenhouse, we will have platforms that hold planters for fruit tree starts. Once the trees are mature enough, they will be transplanted to the school grounds and made available to community members at the schools farmers market. The other features of the greenhouse include a space for a classroom and the storage of tools. The chickens will exit a door into a fully caged in pen that runs the whole perimeter of the green house to provide plenty of grazing space for them to live a healthy happy life producing delicious eggs.
Summery of products created:
We expect a surplus of insect and worms as they proliferate while consuming the food scraps. About 1/3rd of them are feed directly to fish and chickens. Another third pupate and become adult flies perpetuating the cycle of growth, while the last third are sold locally as live animal feed. These live grubs (larvae) are as valuable a feed as the most nutrient rich animal feeds made from processed fish. This income will contribute to the overhead of maintaining this operation.
Energy efficient and off the grid.
These multi propose greenhouses are working year round (24-7) and should maintain a temperature in the sixties for optimal conditions for the animals and plants. This is achieved with passive heating by pumping the fish tank water through a series of black pipes on the roof which fill a series of black drums also absorbing the suns heat. The volume of warm water’s heat is released into the interior space during the night regulating the temperature even in the winter months.The electric water pump is powered by a couple solar panels which also run the LED low voltage lighting for night time use of the space. This is low tech and low cost as we don’t expect to need too many panels or batteries to generate these electrical requirements. This model will also teach the students and community members about how to built their own low cost off the grid structures that will function as long as we have sunlight. It very important to have our food production continue weather the power grind is on or not. This is real food security.
Education, Food processing, nutritious meals and community distribution:
Our goal is to generate more than enough food to furnish the school who hosts the project. Its our goal to produce enough for the students to sell the surplus at their farmers market and provide income for the school self-sufficiency, extracurricular credit, and organicly grown produce, eggs, and fish for the communities benefit.
Ag curriculum:
We create two, hour long classes, throughout the day for the student’s agriculture and food nutrition education. One class tends to all of the operations of the green house. Students learn all of the processes of maintaining, planting, and harvesting the products of the operation. This constitutes quite alot of duties and should be a very exciting place to be for the students discovering the result of their efforts thought the year. The next class will be food processing and meal preparation. We will need a user friendly commercial kitchen so that students can have the space to learn canning, preserving, and cooking fresh meals directly from their own garden. After this class its lunch time! After school when the parents arrive to pick up their child, the schools farmers market opens. This offers community and parents the opportunity to support the school by purchasing preserves, salad mixes, smoked fish, eggs, fresh organic produce and fruits, breads made in the kitchen, fruit tree starts and herbs. Students who really love the farming process will operate the farm stand as a after school activity. We expect many restaurants will also want to support the school offering their costumers the freshest local and organicly produced foods. A win win situation! Lets get started, please get in touch if you want to be involved in this improvement to our community. dickiehaskell@gmail.com
