Improving palm oil production for food security in Sierra Leone
Still to go
Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world. The country went through a brutal civil-war (1991- 2002), which destroyed most of the infrastructure and economy. Even though Sierra Leone has valuable natural resources, like diamonds, most of the people live in poverty. Access to basic services such as healthcare, education, and clean water is poor. Many people earn low incomes and depend on farming just to survive.
The project
The project will especially focus on improving palm kernel oil production. The goal is to help the local community, especially the female farmers, earn more money with our support. They can use this money to improve their food-security and it will also help boost the local economy. We will do this in the village of Makonkari, which is located about 4 hours northeast of Freetown (the village can be seen in the video).The main objective of the proposed project is to facilitate the local farmers in maximising their production of palm kernel oil through a machine prepared by a compamy called FINIC Industries. In the current state, they don’t have the machinery to use the palm kernels for oil extraction, which means the kernels are being wasted. This means that there is a chance to turn waste into profit. One of the machines can convert the oil into biodiesel.
Meet the team
We are Derek (mechanical engineering), Daan (mechanical engineering) and Wik (systems engineering, policy analysis and management). And we are a team of the International Entrepreneurship & Development minor at the TU Delft. We will be working with the local company SEP (strategic entrepreneurship programme), this is a company who operates in three different sectors. The agriculture sector, the fashion sector and clean drink water, we will focus on the agriculture sector.
Where does the money go?
To make the project a success, funding is needed. To begin with, all the money we raise will go directly to the project. The money will be used for two purposes. At first, the funds are required to help SEP with financing the machines. Finic Industries produces machines to crack the nuts, process the kernel into oil, and convert the oil into biodiesel. The total cost for the three machines will be approximately 7,000 euros. The second is exploring upcycling techniques to sell the oil, such as making soap or food products. Our goal is to make a significant contribution towards the purchase of the machines and have some money for the reasearch of the upcycling techniques, so we aim to raise 3,000 euros through this crowdfunding campaign.
