Page 12 RAIN February/March 1981 Integral Rural Village: by Christopher Szecsey Christopher is Director of International Programs at the Farallones Institute Rural Center in Occidental, California. His background as a Peace Corps volunteer and as a trainer of international development personnel preparing to go abroad accounts for his special interest in decentralized Chinese development strategies which can serve, wholly or partially, as models for projects in the Third World. The remarkable "Integral Rural Village" which he describes below is perhaps the best example of such a potential model that we witnessed in our China travels. -JF One of the most exciting things we saw during our travels through southern China was a village in Shinde County, Guangdong Province, where energy, food and fertilizer are being produced through interconnecting biological and renewable energy systems. The project, which is the joint effort of local residents and the Guangzhou (Canton) Institute of Energy Conversion, was begun in 1973 and utilizes communal and family-size biogas digesters as well as solar water heating equipment. Now serving 82 families, the project produces substantial quantities of electricity, a large portion of each family's cooking fuel, and a high-nutrient digester sludge to replace costly chemical fertilizer. Before the introduction of the biogas digesters, meeting local energy needs was difficult. Villagers travelled long distances to find wood to supplement the rice straw which provided their cooking fuel for only 4-6 months each year. The men cut the wood, and later in the day, their families hauled it home. It became apparent to the villagers that they had a serious problem, and some, who had heard about biogas, visited projects in other parts of the county. The villagers also told the county government of their situation, and government officials supported biogas as an appropriate response. The role of the villagers was to take responsibility for their own involvement in the process of development. In return, the county government allowed them to select one of themselves (it was stipulated that it be a person with a high school degree) to be trained by the county biogas office in the construction and majntenance of digesters. Mr. Mai, the person selected by the villagers, was given lectures and reading materials, then required to build at least one digester in order to be considered a qualified village technician.~Mai .proved to be particularly capable in biogas applications and through his contact with other technicians, county officials and the staff of the Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, he became receptive to ideas for further development of integrated food/waste/ energy systems. Eventually, because of his growing interest and because of his village's willingness to serve as a demonstration site, the Energy Institute proposed the construction of a communal digester f<:>r electrical generation and solar components for water heating. Interesting here is the development process which seems to be a realization of ideas and plans originating at both government and village levels. From the peasants comes the identification of a problem and an assessment of needs, and from the county and the EnIn a Chinese village we saw that the appropriateness of any technology is dependent on its having evolved from within the community ... ergy Institute comes the training, advice and support necessary to incorporate these ideas into a feasible development strategy. The components of the village project are the following: Digesters are supplied to families who apply for them and constructed under the guidance of the village technicians. Families load their digesters with pig manure, human excreta, and agricultural wastes. The gas produced supplies cooking fuel for a two-burner brick stove in the family living quarters. Sludge from the digester is carried to the fields, where it now replaces 20-30% of the chemical fertilizer formerly used. Solar water heaters are being installed to heat domestic water, and thereby substantially reduce the quantity of gas needed for cooking. A communal digester, consisting of five 30~38 cubic meter digestion chambers, is used to power a twelve-kilowatt generator. This generator provides for the evening lighting needs of Silkworm cocoons dried with waste heat from biogas electrical plant.
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