VCCL: A Tricycle Truck
Farmers can be recruited into a reforestation program with fuel, as an incentive, for their tricycle trucks.
KUMASI, ASHANTI REGION, GHANA, November 17, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — In the last decade, across rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a boom in possession of tricycle trucks by smallholder farmers. They use the trucks to convey tools, supplies and workers to and from farms, as well as to return their harvests, surpassing the dominance of motorbikes and bicycles.
These farmers, sometimes, for uncertainties in productivity, often procure (objective necessary) fuel, of the lowest possible minimum, per day or just enough for a work trip. They return to the filling station in the morning or evening, after exhausting what they got. This observation is an opportunity to have them play a direct role in carbon mitigation efforts, for themselves, for energy companies, for the continent and for the rest of the world.
Africa has around 650 million hectares of forests, but logging, mostly illegal, has been intense, due to privation of some in some areas. The pace and volume of reforestation have also been dismal. There are several, annual, plant a tree days in different countries, then little else till the next.
Village County Company Limited, VCCL, intends to structure consistency as well as wedge against forest degradation, desertification—especially how it affects the Sahel and the necessity to increase Africa’s forest density.
Farmers can be recruited into a reforestation program with fuel, as an incentive, for their trikes. The purpose is to make the perk conscript them into a consistent effort to plant trees on a large scale. There will be selections for 2-3 farmers initially, in each community, depending on size, expected to plant 5-10 trees per week—a modest but practicable start. There can also be those who would plant trees in a cross-section of adjacent communities.
The objective is additionality to the global total, for availability, to mitigate local and global emissions. Farmers will be given seedlings and expected to plant just before or during the wet season, to avoid intensive nurture requirements, within the first 2-3 years. The farmers will be told that they will get a certain volume of fuel per week, to be received twice.
This fuel is expected to be provided by retailers of some local energy outlets. A consortium of energy companies—as partners—may decide how much fuel (from extras) they will be willing to contribute to estimate scale. Other potential partners from mining companies to agribusiness firms and others may provide support as well, including for seeds, technical equipment, vouchers and so on.
Farmers already use tricycle trucks and burn fuel without this program. This, however, provides a chance to do something, from nothing. The farmers will be reached through their co-ops. Monitoring and evaluation will be done by local representatives who would be asked to direct the planting and report by (GPS-enabled) video and pictures of efforts, to keep the program regimented and in high-quality for functional outcomes to mitigation objectives.
There may be drone monitoring in a few places during and after planting. There will be areas where concentration of new trees will be prospected as more beneficial than others. These areas could be the initial focus. Farmers will be directed to explore models in agroforestry, direct seeding, silvopasture, riparian restoration, seed dispersal, enrichment planting, applied nucleation and others.
Generative AI will be deployed to predict effective models, place likelihoods for planted trees lasting for at least a half century, select certain farmers, analyze incoming data on fuel-planting efficiency as well as use satellite data to scour choice tropics and sub-tropical areas, whose accessibility for planting can be decided and allocated in conjunction with local authorities.
There is a campaign towards a trillion new trees by 2030, to add to the earth’s 3 trillion trees, even as the world, in 2022, emitted 417.06 ppm of carbon dioxide, with the need to take out about 10 gigatons from the atmosphere and oceans annually, while 15 billion trees are lost per year.
VCCL’s intent with this program is a plenitude of new trees, consistently, with a high percentage that is likely to last into the long term, by farmers, whose food cropping will benefit from the fuel incentive.
VCCL is seeking partners to pilot this model in Ghana, get initial data, before extending across sub-Saharan Africa, while adopting advances in biotechnology research for tree physiology with decay-resistant woods, faster growing trees, higher consumption of carbon dioxide, forest health and diversity.
Kwabena
Village County Company Limited
+233 24 965 5788
reforestation@vcclafrica.com
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