Transition Area
Fair Energetics
- Alternative energy supply
- Changing patterns of use and consumption
- Integration of different energy uses
- Self-management of health
ALMA is a rural nature reserve whose objective is the construction and consolidation of an integral family life project that is in harmony with the environment, allowing the dignity of rural life and allowing each of its members to develop personally in the territory.
The people of the reserve are based on sustainable agricultural production, which guarantees the family’s food security and sovereignty.
The reserve designs and articulates the different activities (beekeeping, sustainable coffee production, nature conservation) based on a proposal for energy autonomy.
It began with a strengthening of topics related to the functionality of the reserves and how the relationship with the land is fundamental to the peasant identity, this led to the strengthening of agroecology and awareness of the importance of caring for nature.
Subsequently, an agroforestry system was installed (designed under the simulation of a mountain), with characteristics such as: highly dense, diverse and with species of different heights. In the middle of the area, the main crop is coffee, which is combined with other crops, as well as fruit, timber, forage and native trees of importance for birds and bees.
Finally, the bees arrived and were able to complement the farm’s energy cycle. The changes were evident, since coffee increased and in the same lot grew products such as: plantain, cassava, arracacha, beans, corn, sago, yacon, fodder for the smaller species and a diversity of flowers.
The tusas and corn cane were used to make deep bedding for the pigs, and the mixture of manure and vegetable material was used to fertilize the crops and cane, promoting a recirculation and recycling of resources between animal, vegetable and human waste.
Type of technology
Deep bed in pig farming, successional and multipurpose agroforestry system (productive, human food, animal feed, soil), wood and honey forest, efficient stove, coffee pulping pit (in implementation), energy circulation (use of non-standard products and by-products in animal feed), solar dehydrator (canopy type) for coffee drying and others, greenhouse, bio-construction.
Technical characteristics of the proposal
The proposal is configured as a reflection on the «free» energy models that accompany the daily work of farming families, which is often not even recognized by them. Recirculating energy as much as possible from waste, mobilizing it through the different systems, understanding it from other relationships to dispose of it, is to approach energy sovereignty.
In this sense, the most relevant technical components in the experience are: (i)Distribution of spaces in agroforestry systems (ii) strategic location of the constructions and the complements of relation of each process, in order to take advantage of the energy, reduce times and efforts within what is known as energy connections, between the components (environmental, agricultural and/or livestock) of the productive unit.
Productive, community, environmental, or economic processes or activities that were positively impacted by the implementation of the community experience of TEJ.
Agricultural production process that generates economy for the family, provides food security and sovereignty where some food is processed for sale.
Beneficiaries of the experience
4 families composed of 4 women, 9 men, 3 youths (13 to 18 years old) and 3 boys and girls (0 to 12 years old)
Achievements and problems encountered during implementation
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- Food security and sovereignty (human and animal).
- Conserve by producing and/or produce by conserving, as a reference and potential for replication.
- Popular education.
PROBLEMS:
- Identify the intensity of sunlight to determine the density of agroforestry systems to be productive.
- To achieve the fertility of soils that had been impacted by harmful production methods, it was necessary to invest in equipment to make the work and connections between one system and another more efficient.
Women’s participation in the TEJ community experience
The women of the family lead the process and are supported by the youth and men of the family.