Pine Needles: From Threat Economic Opportunity

TEAM IRMA

Madan Sunandan Pursuing PGDRM from IRMA sunandan89@gmail.com

Swapnil Agarwal Pursuing PGDRM from IRMA swapnilchesa@gmail.com

Introduction

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Idea Generation (Generating fuel from pine needles): • Two team members had undergone a two month long internship with CHIRAG, a NGO • Location: Villages of Nainital district, Uttarakhand • Specified objective: to gather experiential learning and to develop empathy for the

problem(s) of rural India. Our idea of was borne out of the conditions experienced there.

Rural Setting •High Altitude and Hilly Terrain: Villages of Kumaon region, Uttarakhand

•Between 1000 m to 3000 m above sea level.

• Traditional Hindu Society with a distinct ‘pahari’ culture

•Hilly terrain makes transport (public & commercial) difficult

•Households are scattered on the hills: away from the main road, only way to reach them is by foot

•Majority of the people is dependent on Agriculture (mainly horticulture) as a source of livelihood

• Lot of pine trees are there in this area which mostly falls under village Van Panchayat and Reserved forest land.

•Villagers are allowed only to collect dry wood (which is limited and getting difficult to get day by day) from these forests.

Van Panchayat Model – A success story

• Perfect Example of government and citizens coming together (Collective Responsibility) for the management of natural resources

•Autonomous Local Institutions – One of the largest and most diverse experiments in devolved common property management

• Aim: Involve local villagers for protection and management of forests/natural resources

•As of now, 6000 Van Panchayat managing 405,000 hectares of forests in the states

– Hybrid of state ownership and community responsibility

– These forests known as “Panchyati” forests are not open forests

– Guided by rules elaborately designed and implemented by the communities

– Forest products are distributed among the right holders in an equitable manner

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• There is a strong bond shared between the forest and humans • Local users consider them as their collective property

Social Capital is Quite High!

• Active role played by NGO’s in this area: Some NGO’s like CHIRAG, AAROHI are very

active in this region

• Promoting SHGs, forming cooperatives and have also contributed to other areas such

as education, health, livelihoods etc.

Current Scenario – On site study

Fuel : Wood

Collection : On daily basis by women

Source: Deep Forests – As there are restrictions involved

They need to climb trees

Carry on head, 20-25kg per visit

Families: Joint but with different kitchens : 4-5 people are served per kitchen

• 20-25 kg is sufficient for 2-3 days (3 meals per day)

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Issues:

• Wood as a fuel is getting difficult to get day by day and women have to go deeper into the forest to get the wood

• Results in more time spent and more cases of chronic diseases like back pain, joint pain etc

• Increased incidences of fracture due to climbing on trees by women

• Women are overburdened with work: They milk and feed the livestock in the morning, go to forest to collect wood and fodder in the after-noon, travel daily to fetch water from the river and do all household work.

Our Proposal

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Kumaon region is dotted with a lot of pine forests which shed their leaves (pine needles) in the month of autumn and pose a much larger threat to the population.

Threats (Forest Fires): • These pine needles carpet the entire forest

area and are a major reason to the forests fire in the summer months of April, May & June.

• Thousands sq-km forest area is set ablaze

which destroys the forest and the ecosystem.

• Forest fires also diminish people’s access

to ecological services including water, herbs & timber.

• Also the dense cover of these needles

prevent water seepage & inhibits any other vegetation in the vicinity.

Opportunity: • People here mostly depend on forest

wood as a primary source of cooking fuel and often risk their lives by climbing trees. Moreover, cutting wood creates a loss to the biodiversity.

• These pine needles can be easily

converted into a much high calorific value fuel by a simple physical process.

• Fuel made from pine needles will not only provide them with a better quality fuel but will also generate a livelihood opportunity for them.

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The Process

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Harnessing the destructive energy of pine needles to create clean & affordable energy while restoring biodiversity and creating livelihood opportunities to be promoted by community ownership models.

Grinded Pine Needles

Needle + Cow dung paste

Briquetting (using low cost

hand held deviceb)

Finished cooking fuel blocks

Pine needles

Grinding Mixing Cow-dung (Binding agenta) and little water

Sun

Dry

ing

a – Cow dung also adds to the calorific fuel b - Device developed by MIT D-labs

The Process

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Quality assurance

Manpower

Sales & distribution Pine Needle fuel processing unit

Villagers Team + CHIRAG

SHGs/ Federations

Pine needles

Cow dung

Raw materials

Awareness

Training

Machinery

Cooking fuel (Sun dried briquettes)

Local Institutional sales (sweets shop, resorts etc. )

Local Industries

Sales

Production

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Business Model

Advantages

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Convenience

Time Factor

Calorific Value

Usage Pattern/ Cooking Behavior

Pollution

Health Benefits

Pine Needles are available easily and readily – collection and transportation will be easy

Collection time is less as there is no need of going into deep forests

Calorific value is observed to be significantly high

This change in fuel doesn’t call for any changes in cooking behavior for the families

Smoke emitted was observed to be less. There is scope of further improvement in this

Less chronic disease due to lesser physical efforts

A Win-Win Situation !!!

Operational Plan

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Team KAG: Spread Awareness, train the locals and would want them to completely own the model

Implementation:

2 SHG in Village Chaukutha, Kasiyalekh with 10-12 members each (Total 20 members)

Each member tries and collaborates with neighborhood households

2-3 households then jointly get the briquetting machine made (cost of locally available machine is Rs 70-80)

The idea gets on field with 40-50 households initially

Demand Estimation for the briquettes left over after using in-house: 1.Primary Research: The small restaurants and small sweet shops are acceptable to this idea of using briquettes • They are shifting to coal due to increasing LPG prices • Coal will be sourced from Haldwani 2. NGO Chirag is looking for markets at the same time as well

Cost Estimation

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Calorific Value No extra effort 20 Kg Collection on daily

basis

Cost of making the domestic device Rs 70-80

Number of Brqiuettes produced per hour 80

Per day fuel requied, Wood (kg) 10

Calorific Value 3800 Kcal/kg

Amount of Energy Required, Kcal/day 38000

Calorific Value of Briquettes 4500 Kcal/kg

Amount of Briquettes required, kg/day 8.44

Hence savings of briquettes, kg/day 1.56 11.56

Selling Price, Rs/kg 5

Profit per day, Rs 8 57.78

Profit per month, Rs 233 1733

Just by adding a little extra effort, the profit per month would

increase by a whopping 650%

TimeLine

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Early

2013 2015

Sept-Nov 2012: • Understanding the

current process, the culture and behavior of the villages

• Feasibility study of the proposed solution

Dec’2012– April 2013: • Results visible to villagers and

Chirag • Spreading in the whole village

and other 150 villages by Chirag, simultaneously

April 2013 – March 2014: • Scaling up the process • Forming cooperatives in

Villages by educating them • Shift to more scientific

machines • Cost Rs 10,000 – 18,000 (motor

and non-motor driven) • Finance help by SHG member

Late

2012

Late

2013

Early

2014

Late

2014

March – Dec 2014: From co-operatives to Producer Company

2015 Industrialization

• Marketing & Demand Generation throughout

• Can replace coal

Future Action Plan

• Standard Briquetting Machine Costs:- Rs 10,000 – Rs 15,000

• Cost of Grinding Machine: Rs 5000 - Rs 10,000

• Generates 350 – 400 briquettes per hour of same size and shape

– Saves time and helps in scaling up

• 2-3 households will combine and buy one machine

• Credit through the SHG Member at 1% p.m.

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Industrial Application: Replacement for Coal

• Calorific Value is very similar

• Cheaper and easily available (Getting coal on hills adds to the cost)

• No modification in furnaces, boilers required

Modification of Briquetting Process: • Burning the pine needles for short span in limited supply of oxygen

• Increases the calorific value • Smoke-free briquettes

• Not eyeing for revenue opportunity: We would spread awareness, train the locals and would want them to completely own this model.

• Implementation: by SHGs (already formed by CHIRAG) in each village

• Sales will take place in a supply cooperative fashion • Profits will be distributed equally among the members

• Capital costs:

• Machinery (Grinding machine), physical infrastructure will be owned, arranged and maintained by the SHGs itself

• However we will provide all the knowledge advisory • Initial capital cost: We will help them in getting subsidy/grant from various govt. schemes like

NABARD’s and District Rural Development Authority(DRDA’s) Rural Innovation Fund • In the past they have provided subsidy from 40% to 100% for such similar projects (eg: low

cost sanitary napkin). • Hub & Spoke approach: This is easily scalable in different villages and may prove to be a constant

source of income for the locals.

• Approach: We would be implementing this model in one village, however would like to provide consultancy services and build more on this project after successful implementation of the same.

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Summary

• Time: This village level cooking fuel solution will reduce fuel gathering time by 70%

• Money: Families can buy this cheap fuel in cash or buy collecting pine needles from the forest.

• Health & Environment: This will not only save time but quality and health of women – the prime collector of wood, will also improve cooking in a smoke free environment and see a reduction in the respiratory related health problems.

• Social Awareness: Community owned model would enable participatory approach for the unit and thus increased awareness & use of the same.

• Other applications: Apart from briquetting, pine needles can also be used in a gasifier system to generate electricity. (Bio-mass gasifier generation system)

Team Member: Swapnil Agarwal with his host family members

Team Member : Madan Sunandan with a pine tree 25-Jul-13 16 IITB_Techfest_Ideate_Earth

Conclusion

Village Chaukhuta, Nainital District

Village Simayal, Nainital District

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THANK YOU

Chirag – Central Himalayan Rural Action Group

8 Decentralized teams – “Area Team”

Each Area Team headed by a Coordinator

Total Villages – 150

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