Why Ruzizi Will Be 100% Green

If you have had a chance to look at the website for the Ruzizi Project you will notice that the entire town is being engineered to approach 100% recycling and an absolute minimum carbon footprint. Why is WVI’s Ruzizi project in being built totally "green"? When we are trying to help some of the poorest people in the world, why is such emphasis placed on minimizing carbon footprint and 100% recycling? Experience in the West seems to indicate that recycling costs a lot of money. Clean energy costs more than dirty energy. Clean energy is "not yet economically feasible." Green living is seen as a luxury. Due to notions like these, many people wonder why WVI does not shed the "green ideology" and build as cheaply as possible.

But the decision to go Green is not impractically driven by a desire to be fashionable. The Ruzizi Project’s great contribution to the world will be to clearly demonstrate that environmentally conscious design is also most practical from an economic perspective. It will cost less to build and operate our village, and yet will provide a far greater return for the amount of labor and materials invested. In one sense, there is no better place to demonstrate this than the Ruzizi Valley. The devastation of 10 years of civil war in Congo has caused the local economy to practically grind to a halt, and development funds are not easy to come by. There is actually little choice – the town must be built as economically as possible, Therefore the Ruzizi Project will be a powerful demonstration to the whole world that being green not only leads to a better quality of life – it makes economic sense.

Let’s compare two approaches for a moment. On the industrialized side is a deluxe tractor that can do the work of many farmers. One farmer on a state-of-the-art tractor can actually plow up to a hundred acres of land in a day. But that tractor costs thousands of dollars to buy, thousands to maintain, and an increasingly shocking amount to keep in fuel.

On the other side is our Green Team "front line," a team of oxen. A farmer with an ox team can plow one to five acres per day. Keep in mind that the average African farmer now cultivates his or her fields by hand. The ox team may be five times more productive than hand cultivation. Yet the minimal spare parts that are needed can be easily provided by the local blacksmith or carpenter. Best of all, there is no need of gasoline which has recently climbed to $8-$10 per gallon.

That’s essential in a country where the average person is earning $100 – per year! Instead the oxen can simply eat grasses and legumes which grow free. Or if desired, the farmer can boost their muscle power, by supplementing with open-pollinated corn, which the oxen can grow along with what they grow for the humans in the village. And instead of a string of massive, polluting factories the cow herd (including bulls and oxen) at the Ruzizi Project will generate its own replacements, generation after generation. Whether it’s plowing a field or carting produce back to the village market, the oxen are slow, but inexpensive, healthy and dependable. In seasons when they are not farming, the farmer can supplement his income by hiring them out to neighbors to do hauling and construction. This is ideal for a small farm owned by an independent farmer.

But wait – there’s more! At no extra charge, while the oxen are plowing and hauling, the cows will be in the dairy producing milk, butter and cheese. And the animal waste will be collected and put into biogas digesters. The biogas digesters will produce clean-burning biogas, which can be used for cooking and lighting, benefiting the environment by replacing charcoal and firewood. But what about fertilizer? Is that lost? In fact, in the process of anaerobic digestion, the biogas digester produces both biogas, and a byproduct of sanitized sludge, which can be applied to fertilize and condition the soil, helping to prevent erosion and provide nutrients and moisture for crops.

Thus, between the two approaches to agriculture, a super tractor and a team of oxen, we can see that while the oxen are slower than a tractor, they are substantially more efficient than the hand cultivation currently practiced. All this, at a far lower cost and impact on the environment than a tractor. And this is only one of many examples why we are convinced that Green development in Ruzizi is not a luxury, but a great bargain that will not only benefit the environment and create good living conditions for the people; but also it will also be the most economical policy in the long run.

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