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Promoting clean multiple-fuel cooking project, Mexico
[top] [end]Project summaryThe project will set up an innovative, field-tested, participatory, and replicable multiple-fuel cooking model centered in rural women to facilitate the transition of poor households and micro enterprises from the Central Mexican Highlands to a cleaner and more sustainable pattern of energy use. Central to the project is the dissemination of clean and efficient Patsari woodburning cookstoves through self-replicating mechanisms. [top] [end]Project statistics[top] [end]Project locationPurepecha Region, Mexico [top] [end]Project partners
[top] [end]Project goals (summary)The project will work simultaneously with end-users, small-entrepreneurs, tortilla-making micro-enterprises, local NGO's, research institutions, and local authorities to: a) facilitate the dissemination and adoption of clean and efficient biomass "Patsari" cookstoves, through self-replicating mechanisms; b) strengthening local tortilla-making micro-enterprises, with direct implications for local poor women; c) reducing the environmental impacts of present fuelwood consumption and harvesting; and; d) educating local women on the associated health problems of indoor air pollution. [top] [end]Duration and start dateThree years, January 31 2003 [top] [end]Contact detailsOmar Masera Professor Centro De Investigaciones En Ecosistemas, Unam omasera@... www.oikos.unam.mx/laboratorios/bioenergia tel. 52-55-56232709 Fax. 52-55-56232719 Mail address: Laboratorio de Bioenergia Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, UNAM AP 27-3 Xangari 58089, Morelia, Michoacan Mexico [top] [end]Project backgroundCurrently, about 25 million people cook with fuelwood in rural Mexico. Most of them are located in the highlands of Central and Southern Mexico -such as the Purepecha Region in Michoacan State. This region shows an intensive pattern of fuelwood use, which dominates the energy use pattern both in households as well as in thousands of micro-enterprises devoted to hand-made tortilla making. Large quantities of fuelwood are used in traditional open fires, with negative consequences for local inhabitants. Particular concerns come from the practice of tortilla making, which accounts for about half of total fuelwood consumption, and requires women to spend 2-4 hr/day inhaling the smoke from the fires, and up to 8 hrs/day for those women devoted to tortilla-making for selling. Local forests are highly bio-diverse but increasingly degraded with negative local and global environmental impacts. During the past two decades, there has been an increasing penetration of LPG, particularly on the larger urban centers and the higher income levels. However, rather than switching completely to LPG, economic and cultural reasons favor a long-standing pattern of multiple fuel use, with very few savings in fuelwood and health benefits. GIRA, the Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, UNAM (CIECO-UNAM), and the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California, Berkekely (ERG) started 10 years ago a long-term partnership to promote a cleaner and more sustainable pattern of energy use in rural households, based in the concept of multiple fuel cooking. As a result of the partnership, detailed studies on the patterns of household energy use, and their social, cultural, economic, and environmental implications have been undertaken. The proposed project will build on past experiences from the team, and will serve to catalyze, integrate and significantly upscale the previous efforts conducted in the areas of technology and small-enterprise development, mitigation of health and environmental effects, and participatory end-user training. [top] [end]Project approach and activitiesThe project team, lead by GIRA, has developed an integrated biomass cookstove dissemination strategy that includes a participatory tailor-made training package on indoor air pollution (IAP) and stove O&M issues, reliable, field-tested and smokeless biomass cookstoves adapted to local conditions, a financial incentive program, management support for cookstoves builders and micro-enterprises, and an intensive promotional campaign with relevant stake holders. The project team will use the funds from the Shell Foundation to apply the strategy to 30 villages of the Purepecha Region, and to get the model ready for replication in other regions. A financial incentive is used to establish a market of efficient cookstoves of critical size that will allow local entrepreneurial stove builders to continue the dissemination process in the long-run. To reach the goals the project has five main components that are highly integrated: a) Technology innovation; b) Cookstove dissemination; c) Development of Local Small Enterprises; c) Monitoring and Evaluation; d) Program Outreach. [top] [end]Deliverables and benefitsThe project will deliver a fully integrated model for improving the living conditions and sustainability of energy use in rural households and micro-enterprises. It will allow disseminating 1,500 clean and efficient "Patsari" cookstoves for household use and 70 cookstoves for tortilla-selling micro-enterprises. It will help establish 25 small entrepreneurs devoted to stove construction and will train of local women in IAP problems and basic mitigation measures. Finally, the project will provide new primary data on GHG emission factors and IAP in the conditions of Latin-American households. The project will also document and promote the process in forms accessible to other project promoters, local and international institutions and governments. It will deliver a mechanism by which the model can be replicated throughout Mexico, and possibly to other countries of Latin America. The project will directly benefit 1,500 households and 70 micro-enterprises devoted to tortilla making within the region, helping them: a) reducing significantly indoor air pollution levels; b) increasing their profitability or the costs associated to energy use; and c) reducing the local and global environmental impacts of the present pattern of fuelwood use. The project will also provide employment and training to local people. If successful, the model can be replicated among large numbers of similar rural regions in both Mexico and other Latin American countries. [top] [end]Photos  Production of stove parts  Technology innovation and monitoring: Stove performance tests  Promotional Campaign at the National Forestry Exhibition | |
Page created:
04 December 2003; Last edited:
14 October 2004; Version: 2 | |
Pagename: MultifuelCookingProjectMexico @HEDON: EKAA | |
