MORE WATER, MORE FOOD

AN ANCIENT, VERY NEW, SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR WATER LIFTING AND GRAINS MILLING :

THE DRAFT ANIMAL POWER

Photovoltaic, internal combustion engines, manual labor and animal traction are the energy sources actually available in the remote villages of the countries where the rural economy is prevailing.

Low costs and local technologies

It has been calculated the cost of the electric current, produced by a draft animal walking along a circular path, by hauling a rounds multiplier applied to an electric current generator. This cost is between 0.5 and 0.9 US$ per kWh, sometime less.

In the same villages the cost of the kWh generated by internal combustion engines has been calculated as around 2 US$.

In several situations, the cost of the kWh produced by a photovoltaic system of the same power is greater than the cost of the kWh produced with the animal traction.

However, in the case of the photovoltaics and of the internal combustion engines, all costs must be borne outside the village and with foreign currency. This is not the case of the animal traction.

The economic calculations can be downloaded from the site An economic assessment

A very wide area of application

The calculation of the above costs is valid for those wide areas where the average farmer's salary is 70 US$ per month and where the costs of fuel is of around 1.4 US$.

In the world today at least 200,000,000 working animals are engaged in agriculture.

The demand for equipment for the production of electricity through the use of the draft animal power is demonstrated by:

- numerou research in progress at various scientific institutions, including public ones, operating mainly in India
- from dozens of patents issued over the decades in various countries around the world.

WEDAP

References on the work carried out can be consulted in References of the project

WEDAP has the necessary skills to make the project immediately operational both in Italy, with a demonstration center for training and dissemination of the best practices, and abroad, in remote villages in countries with a predominantly rural economy.

WEDAP is ready to install, in the villages. power stations for water lifting, fruit sorting, sieving, milking, threshing and winnowing.

WEDAPis a social responsibility initiative promoted, since 1986, by a rural farm Masseria Coppola, located in the countryside of Crispiano TA.