Port of Mombasa.

The dock workers looked at the truckloads of goods on the ship in amazement, tried to breathe as little as possible, and even covered their noses and said, "This year is really strange!" Can cow dung be exported? What is such a big ship used to pull cow dung? ”

"Cow dung is a good thing, but I have never seen so much cow dung and it is pulled by boat, and Mombasa has never transported cow dung out of the country in previous years."

"I've heard that these ships belong to the Northern Province and Juba Province, isn't it a desert over there? Pull so much cow dung past as fuel? ”

"It's really possible, the desert lacks everything, just like any tree, no grass, so what do they use to light the fire and cook?"

"Don't talk nonsense, I asked the old brother on the boat, and they said that these cow dung are fermented fertilizer, which is pulled to the north and applied to the ground, and their agricultural experts there said that they use this cow dung to cultivate melons and fruits."

The workers at the port of Mombasa talked a lot, not because they were fond of cow dung, but because the smell was really big, and the contrast with the goods they usually transported was too strong.

As for fuel, the northern provinces and Juba provinces are really scarce, but they do not import cow dung from other parts of the country to use it as fuel, and local camel dung and timber harvested from the west are the main sources of fuel in the two provinces.

The ancient Arabs used camel dung to make fires for cooking, a tradition that was still preserved in many Arab regions in the 19th century, and naturally in the two provinces of Somalia under East African rule.

In addition to the 15 percent of the forests in the traditional area, the Somali region of East Africa also includes large forests in the southeastern mountains of the Ethiopian highlands, and there are also some wheat fields in the basins of the two rivers (Juba and Shabelle), and the wheat straw after the harvest is also a good fuel.

Not only the workers in the port of Mombasa feel novel, but also the northern pastoral areas are also interested in this year's cow dung market, because in previous years, cow dung was a sought-after thing, and many southern provinces introduced it from the northern pastoral areas, but this year, the addition of Juba Province and Northern Province has made the cow dung production capacity in the northern pastoral areas in short supply even more tight.

……

Merti Ranch, Orientale Province.

Li Ersen, an agricultural technician, said to the workers of the ranch: "Raw cow dung is easy to breed bacteria, so pastures that do not carefully handle cow dung often have cow dung affecting the breeding group."

At the same time, cow manure can generate heat, so it will consume the oxygen content of the soil, resulting in root burning and seedling burning, which is also a negative impact on the growth of pasture grass in the pasture.

In addition, manure can also transmit parasites and pathogenic microorganisms, so farms that are not treated with cow manure will be harmed by parasites and even cause diseases in pasture farming groups. ”

"Therefore, the cow dung from the pastures in the north of East Africa is a big ecological problem, if it is not solved in place, it will not only damage the environment, but also affect the development of animal husbandry in East Africa."

It is not an exaggeration to say that the livestock volume of the northern pastures of East Africa has a significant impact on the northern rangeland region every year.

Especially ten years ago, a large ranch may be measured in 10,000 tons of manure per year, and this kind of large pasture existed in the northern pastures of East Africa at that time, and the smell and damage to the pasture were visible to the naked eye, but now it is much better, and the East African government has effectively used and managed cow manure.

"Last year, we produced a total of 30,000 tonnes of cow dung at our Merti Farm alone, of which 80 percent was destined for plantations and grain-producing areas in the south to improve the soil.

Cow dung helps to improve soil structure and improve soil water retention, in East Africa many land compaction is serious, fermented cow dung can not only improve soil fertility, the most important thing is to make the field soil more fluffy, which is also an important advantage of cow dung as fertilizer. ”

"As far as we know, the Somali region has recently planned to introduce large quantities of cow dung from the pastoral areas of the Eastern Province to increase the production of fruits, vegetables and flowers."

"So an important task of our is to thoroughly dispose of cow dung, cow dung as fertilizer must be fermented, until it is fully fermented and decomposed before use, if the use of fresh cow dung into the field after the heat released during fermentation may harm the plant, and at the same time may introduce germs into the soil, so the fermentation must be sufficient, so as to kill the eggs and microorganisms in the cow dung."

At present, large pastures in East Africa have allocated special land for the accumulation of cow dung for fermentation, and most of these lands are of the type that has no grass in the first place, so they are not afraid of causing damage to the pastures.

Some small farms do not have this condition, so the local government will set up areas for small farms to send this manure for disposal.

Behind the shortage of cow dung, a large ranch such as Merti Ranch also reserves a part, mainly for fuel.

At present, in many parts of Europe, the fuel has developed in the direction of coal, especially in the United Kingdom.

In the 18th century, Britain produced five times as much coal as the rest of the world combined, but even so, the British felt that coal mining was too slow.

In this context, the British invented the original "steam engine", which was soon applied to coal mining.

Before coal, the main fuel of the British was firewood, so large-scale deforestation was required, and wood, in addition to being used for cooking and heating, was also very critical to other manufacturing fields, houses, household utensils, agricultural tools, containers, and vital vessels. The British Navy reacted very strongly, fearing that the forest crisis would seriously affect the development of the naval fleet, so the British completely imposed the decree that coal would replace firewood.

Many parts of East Africa are also facing fuel problems, and the demand for timber for warships and ships also objectively exists.

The northern pastoral areas are significantly more prominent than the southern regions of East Africa, where grasslands are predominant, forests are scarce, and there are no large tracts of farmland.

In other rural areas of East Africa, wheat straw, straw stalks, corn stalks are used together with firewood, and even in Somalia there is cereal agriculture, so the fuel problem is relatively easy to solve.

The northern pastures are mainly based on animal husbandry, and the grasslands are also relatively short of fuel, after all, the grassland vegetation is not as easy to harvest as forests and use as fuel.

The benefits of cow dung as a fuel are evident, and of course, the cow dung in the northern pasture area is certainly not dried and burned as the Indians do.

Instead, after crushing into powder, add coal ash to make cow dung honeycomb coal, cow dung honeycomb coal burns a little better than ordinary honeycomb coal, mainly in less smoke.

Because the coal of the northern pasture mainly depends on the coal mines of the northern industry, and the quality of the coal mines in the northern industrial belt is very poor, it will cause a lot of loss when burning, and after adding cow dung powder, it can be more fully burned, and moreover, this cow dung honeycomb coal is also suitable for industrial production, so it has become an important industry of the northern pasture, and it is also supplied to surrounding cities, such as Nairobi and Mombasa.

In addition to these, cow dung can also be used to produce other animal feed, which is used to raise pigs, chickens, fish, etc.

Therefore, the cow dung economy has become an important part of the East African economy, which has an important impact on the environment, energy, production and life of East Africa, and the overall benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

(End of chapter)