Rachel’s Rice Hulling Project

The 766 families in the villages near my home village grow and harvest approximately 383 tons of rice each year. This rice is eaten three meals a day and each grain must be removed from its hull via hand-pounding, a physically exhausting and time consuming process. A machine to hull rice could serve multiple small-income generation, women’s empowerment, and environmental impact reduction goals.

If the machine were in use 20 days a month, the three-village community association would generate a minimum profit of $140 per month, which could be used to pay four workers at $25 per month, a valuable stable income in this part of rural Madagascar. Remaining profit would be kept and overseen by the community association treasurer to cover emergency machine repairs,
maintenance costs, and fuel.

The introduction of an efficient, mechanical means of hulling rice will reduce the physical strain women endure hand-pounding rice twice per day and allow play time for young girls. Adult women would hopefully use their time for reading, study, and developing income generating activities such as basket and mat weaving.

An estimated 90% of the island’s original forest cover has vanished due to population pressure. A rice-hulling machine can provide fuel for cookstoves, significantly reducing local firewood consumption. Every family with a rice hull-fed, fuel-efficient cookstove could reduce its firewood consumption by as much as 75%, sparing 167 acres of forest from wood extraction, annually.

The community association proposes to contribute 25% of the requested project funds. They understand that there will be no additional funding beyond the authorized amount of US $2,687 on the proposal as submitted.

AZALAHEY! and hello to all,

I’m out of the rainforest! Just spent time in Marojejy National Park in northern Madagascar, a place of stunning high elevation montane rainforest with incredible species endemism. So many fabulous orchids!

Marojejy is home to a kind of ghostly white lemur called Propithecus candidus (the silky sifaka) which is one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world. I worked with a small documentary filmmaker and a primatologist getting his PhD in candidus scent marking and vocal communication filming a documentary on silky sifakas and local conservation efforts in this part of Madagascar.

Our Malagasy field team was excellent and the silky sifaka study group we followed were too wonderful for words! My favorite was the “dominant” male, Pink Face. Pink Face has so much character with his curious round black eyes and oddly set broken finger. When we were filming his family group he’d come down low in the canopy to within a few feet of us to check us out, letting out a “humm” that sounded remarkably like a zebu’s “moo,” a little passive aggressive warning, gently letting us know that our presence was not unwelcome, but reminding us that we were guests in HIS forest. We had bamboo lemurs and white fronted brown lemurs and red mongooses visiting camp and even a resident poisonous black scorpion in our shower.

Hiked down from our camp and then made the long drive to Sambava from Andapa last night. Spending today in Sambava, savoring last internet access before flying home to Maroantsetra tomorrow. I learned so much and think I was able to really contribute a lot to the local interviewing process with Malagasy conservationists, NGO workers, and field team members. I’ll miss working with my American friends so much when I go back to the village. They’re my new favorite people. The next time I get to speak English with friends will probably be when my professor comes to visit in July!

I used time in Andapa to develop contacts with a wonderfully motivated community looking for a Peace Corps Volunteer to work on developing ecotourism potential, helping with local environmental education, and rainforest surveying in Marojejy. It looks like an ideal third year extension site if I make the decision to stay in Madagascar. Must talk to Peace Corps about it soon. No worries, it’s still a year off and I’d have a month of home leave if I were to extend.

Thanks so much to Mom for writing out a brief version of my Rice Hulling Project proposal (see next post). I’ll be in touch as soon as the project goes online and is open for contribution. It really has the potential to have a big impact on people’s lives in several villages near mine, as well as being good for the environment. Spreading the word at that time would be such a help to me!

Sorry no personalized emails! I want to be in touch with each and every one of you but computer access is so limited. Tomorrow I will be without again for the next few months…

Love to all,
Rachel