A biodiesel FAQ

Pages from the FAQ

Awareness about the potential that pongamia biodiesel holds for fishermen, was planned to be raised through five means:
1- An easy to read FAQ in Tamil
2- Contact meetings at the villages
3- A street play
4- Demo of a fishing engine running on pogamia oil
5- Bringing the Biodiesel Champion, Prof. Udipi Shrinivasa over for the villagers to meet and ask their questions

By May25, the FAQ was ready. It was a collaborative effort. I wrote the text in English, Kuha translated it into Tamil, Supraja came up with some nice drawings, Bhakta, a fishermen who owns a press, produced 600 copies and gniF funded it.

Copies were distributed among three villages, where ECCO [East Coast Citizen's Organisation] had distributed new fibreglass boats. These three villages -Karikkattu Kuppam, Reddi Kuppam and Nainar Kuppam- has varying levels of response to the biodiesel idea.

The first had been traumatised by the tsunami, deserted its 200 year old habitat and fishermen were camping in make-shift huts; they were in no state of mind to do anything -yet- about planting pongamia trees. The second village, is close to a bustling market town with far too many commercial distractions.

Nainar Kuppam, the last village, somehow had the mind, time and space to respond favourably to gniF's overtures. It is tucked away from the highway, was little affected by the tsunami and has a vast beach.

On May 26, at a contact meeting by the pretty temple, the advantages of pongamia were explained: how it needs little water, is not browsed by cattle, yields from its fifth year up to the 80th.,is an ever-green, shady tree, protects the coast against erosion and so on. They were also explained the depletion of petroleum reserves and how a five year head start now, will ensure energy security for the village, and open up profitable businesses in nurseries, soap making, oil cake sales.


The meeting broke up enthusiastically with the villagers swearing to care for the plants.