A vegetable production system in the district of Foundiougne

« Le projet proposé à la Fondation par Performances constitue une opportunité d'inscrire pour 5 ans, dans le programme de la Fondation Veolia Environnement, une action innovante d'aide au développement en relation directe avec les compétences transverses de Veolia Environnement. Ce projet multiservices, centré sur l'accès à l'énergie et à l'eau, allie le mécénat financier et le mécénat de compétences et permettra de générer des revenus et de professionnaliser les populations locales tout en suscitant une solidarité et un développement durable pour la région. »

Jean-Pascal Rigolleau

200 km south of Dakar, in the district of Foundiougne, where 76 % of the population live in a rural environment, the Technologies and Human Development (THD) department of Performances is launching a system to produce vegetable oil for conversion to biofuel.
To run this major project, it will rely on the Senegalese association Cap Développement Sénégal, whose vocation is to foster the emergence of an innovative rural development model based on local entrepreneurship.

The oil will be extracted from a plant, Jatropha, called Tabanani in the region. It will be cultivated by around a hundred villages assembled in a « Federation of Tabanani producers ». The peasants, progressively encouraged to supplant a small part of their « historic » but loss-producing crops (especially peanuts), can then look forward to the profits generated by this cultivation, and lay the ground for new investments of general interest (including access to drinking water and electricity).

A two-stage project

The project, scheduled to be launched in June 2008 and completed in May 2013, will involve two phases.
First, THD will set up the Federation of Tabanani producers and organize the overall system: it will have to secure seed procurement, supervise the installation of the facilities for processing the plant and producing derivatives.
It is planned to produce a raw vegetable oil to supply household ovens (replacing gas and wood) as well as multipurpose complexes offering the population access to basic services such as drinking water and electric power supply, and the drive power necessary to run the equipment (crushers, seed mills, shelling machines, etc.).
In the medium term, the surplus raw vegetable oil not consumed by the villages can then be purified and used as biofuel to power the vehicles of the region, and the cake (press waste after the oil is extracted) will be processed into pellets to substitute for firewood.

Thus, the income earned by this new energy system can be invested in a range of projects to develop and consolidate access to essential services, such as electrification and drinking water supply for the villages of the region, which is the main purpose of the support from Cap Développement Sénégal.
Thirty village development centers will thus be created, and this will significantly improve the lives of around 60 000 persons in just a few years.