Integrated Design and Technical development project on banana fiber products from the crop waste.
Kora focus mainly on Rural India to make the local individuals realize the good potential to explore local manpower, hand skills, available resources and local techniques. Designs’, Workshops’ and Training programmers are based on the primary philosophy of sustainability and human comfort. The effort is to resolve conflict between conservation and development, especially in issues of environment and hand skills.
Problem Statement:
1). In Andhra Pradesh, there are thousands and thousands of acres involved in banana plantation and production across East and West Godavari Coastal belt. The fruit brunches and leaves are the main source of income, besides leaves are used as Bio-plates for serving food at homes, and functions. Other portions of Banana plant are dumped as waste as farmers often face the problem of disposal of Pseudo stems and the huge stocks are getting accumulated in banana growing areas.
The fruitful utilization of these stems is therefore an important issue related to Banana Cultivation.
2) More than 60% of people across the coastal belt of River Godavari are dependent on agriculture. As the work is seasonal the wage workers are idle rest of the year and few are moving to big cities like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam etc in search of unskilled jobs.
3). Handloom weaving Production being second largest employer after agriculture is in a decline. Many weavers are quitting this age old profession.
4). There are more than 2 lakhs women who has ready skills of spinning and knitted lace in the districts. Most of them work at home and it gets difficult to find commissioned work or sometimes- basic wage earning for the work they do.
5). Though being a green belt, people do not know what best they have in terms of natural resources, minerals etc. to be converted into useful products that has a value using appropriate Technology, effective Management, low Waste emissions and long term resource planning.
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Once the fruits of the banana fruits are cut the plant stem is thrown as waste. In a place where we have more than hundreds acres of such plantation, decomposing of the cut stem in numbers is an big problem. So it was very important to look for a solution, that not only addresses the issue but also look to integrate the out come with other skills available around to make a high value added product . This will allow a local farmer, women and youth to come together to to production locally to improve domestic economy addressing many environmental issues.
Addressing all these issues- Project “Banana” is a practical application of the principals of ecology, which sees people as crucial to any successful environmental projects. The project focus mainly on understanding available natural resources, developing local skills and setting up of decentralized, least “capital-energy” requiring system that would create sustainable livelihood to hundreds of people across the coastal belt of River Godavari. The project also emphasizes on the deep ecological, cultural and historical links between people and their local ecosystems.
