An Overview Of Our Solution
At Kruistementvlei Farm (KSV Farm) the entire operation is geared toward farming soils to life, using various forms of composting and conserving water either above or inside the soils. We continue looking for complete systems that work as solutions. Here it is about closing the loop in terms of nutrients and water and keeping everything cycling and recycling in the system. It is always a work in progress, finding technologies and ideas that support one another to make the farm more sustainable and resilient. At the same time we interact with communities around us to make them agents for change in their world.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Africa
General Information
Organization type
Other
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Freshwater
Population impacted
ex. 3600 people per annum
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
ex. 22ha
Production quantity
ex. 100 kilos
People employed
ex. 6 people
Solution
Describe your solution
We are continuously learning, adapting and adjusting our systems to fulfill the needs of the moment. The one big attitude change in action is the dry toilet system that works in a complete closed loop system. Anything other than flush toilets are seen as a “backward” move for society and is often used as a political tool in South Africa.
We use 20l paint buckets or similar for receptacles, fetch the waste from woodworking factories, and use the sawdust for the toilet systems. The used toilet content gets removed daily when in use, and then composted correctly over a period of 4 – 12 months after which it is used on the poorest fields where we are planting and developing a mixed forest, selecting species to impove soil quality, provide timbre and produce food. The end product that smells like forest floor is used as a soil amendment on the growing mixed forest, thus we are ensuring that people get to appreciate their “waste” as a resource.
Further to our toilets, we also accept “waste” material from surrounding farms and industry for use in our systems: saw mill waste, old wood that used to be burnt by neighbouring farms, cardboard & paper, off cuts from a toilet roll factory, discarded fruit from a jam and canning factory. These “wastes” had to be removed from their point of origin which would have meant a cost to the companies involved. We offer them a “recycling option”. Some waste wood is burnt for energy and the ash "minerals" are recycled in the compost.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
11 of the 15 toilets on the farm are operated as dry toilets Our composting area is part of the systems tour we generally expose our guests to so that they can experience first hand that the end product, properly composted, has no negative characteristics, including odour, flies and appearance. We offer free tours to anyone interested in our systems and generally encourage visitors to do the walkabout of all our working systems and contribute to our farm by using the toilets.
We have information pamphlets in every toilet to explaining how the system works and why it is a good system. When we change receptacles we use this opportunity to engage in conversation and help people overcome their fear and uncertainty about the use of these systems.
Visitors to the Farmers Market, guests to the cottages, youth groups and any visitor to the farm, are encouraged to use the toilets. .
By working with the youth we feel we are changing perceptions which in turn will facilitate change in behaviour. Visitors initially weary of the systems are coming back time and again to our cottages, feeling that they are contributing to a better eco lifestyle.
We have found that when there are more than two people per 20l paint bucket, that it fills up too quickly and are in the process of changing these cottages to using a bigger container. This has a cost factor, which the paint bucket does not have, but it cuts on labour intensity. Our larger number facilities like our campsite and Farmers market toilets make use of black rubbish bins which have more capacity and can be emptied less often.
The composting facility needs to be well organised to ensure efficient cleaning and clearing of bins. When necessary a cover over the heap also prevents rain leaching nutrients.
External connections
The National Development Plan of South Africa wants to ensure that all South Africans have access to clean water in their homes by 2030. Alongside this there is a global need to conserve water so that people will be assured of clean, fresh drinking water to fulfill their daily needs. Yet we defecate into drinking water, which we flush “away”, mostly not knowing or caring where it goes. This gets done numerous times a day. In a home with older toilets an average flush uses about 13.6 litres, and the daily use is 71.2 litres per person. In a home with ultra low flow toilets with an average flush volume of 6 litres, the daily use is 34.4 litres per person per day. South Africa has large informal settlements where flush toilets is seen as a necessity, but if we can change the attitude of the young towards dry toilet systems as workable solutions and advancing the quality of life we can conserve much more water for our survival purposes.
The woodworking factories in the area are happy for us to collect their “waste” wood and sawdust. A local canning company brings their “waste” fruit to our worm bins for composting.
Fostering Local Wellbeing (FLOW), a multi-faceted youth development programme, came to our farm to engage in making videos regarding our systems and to distribute this to their peers and interested groups.
One of the local farm workers is installing a saw dust toilet in his home – by choice - as it offers a cheaper version than a flush toilet. Eureka!
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Every day we eat food, drink water, use energy and produce waste. How society goes about these common practices impacts on our environment. At KSV Farm we are personally adopting and experimenting with manners in dealing with these practices in ways that at best improve our enviroment or at worst, have least impact on our environment. Being a guest farm as well as a striving for sustainability farm, we put our emphasis on awareness creation and attitude change watching people embrace the change and thereby their own behaviour by their own choice.
We are aiming at creating a positive effect on the communities around us through exposure to our working closed-loop, self suficient systems and methods. Our main challenge is to develop the soil to a point that nature is in balance, by optimizing the use of resources generally termed “waste material” by most people. We are happy to share the experience and the knowledge gained by exposing the community and visitors to the systems.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Kruistementvlei is a small 22 hectare farm on top of Piketberg mountain in the countryside of the Western Cape, South Africa. It is situated in an export fruit growing area where farming methods are generally labour intensive, water inefficient and very dependent on chemicals. We strive to inform and expose our community to alternatives to a lifestyle seen as the norm. Children of farm labourers are generally ill informed about alternative methods or an enriching life style. For the last 14 years we have been running a commmunity library where farm children from the surrounding community come to read and get exposure to alternatives. A group of teenagers have been coming to a youth group for the last 2 years where they enjoy exposure to alternatives. A Farmers market, for the last 8 years, has exposed our systems and methods to numerous “unintended” converters. Our guest cottages and training courses have initiated visitors to our systems. Volunteer workers from all over the globe join in to share and gain knowledge.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
We have been invited to do exhibitions and talks at responsible tourism conferences so that people can become aware of what we are doing. During these events we endeavour to change peoples awareness of life and the way people have come to perceive and accept the status quo as the norm.
We are happy to notice that some of our neighbouring farms have followed suit and are now chipping their prunings from their orchards and leaving it in the orchard whereas previously it got moved away and burnt. Most farmers (and these are big commercial farmers) used to rent our chipping machine and have now bought their own and making mulch for their soils. Visitors to the Farmers Market are bringing people along to show them the systems.
Fostering Local Wellbeing (FLOW) sent some of their ambassadors to engage in conversations and video making. These youths go back into their communities and take what they have learned to the people. We have a growing mixed forest with a continuously improving soil structure.
Language(s)
English and Afrikaans
Water
The drought in South Africa has highlighted the benefit of these toilets and households are more receptive to using this kind of toilet. The use of these systems mean that every household can save on drinking water usage. The fact that the groundwater is not contaminated and that streams and dams are kept free of raw sewerage containing human bourn pathogens is an added bonus. By using the finished composted product on the plants the water holding capacity of the soil is improved and more water
Food Security/Nutrition
We use the end product (Composted) on our woodlot where we grow trees to use for wood and for chipping to make food compost again. Indirectly this helps to make wood chips that we use as a mulch over our vegetable gardens. This improves the soil and keeps the moisure in the ground and enhances the environment for healthy micro herds in the soil.
Economic/Sustainable Development
We are continually improving our soils and food quality, turning wastes into resources. The entry barrier for anyone wanting to implement this system for the toilets is very low. You need a waterproof rescepticle, a wooden seat and some form of cover material. This can be saw dust, mulch, scrap paper, rice hulls, nut shells, leaves – basically any material that would decompose in a compost heap. The only thing that requires effort is the composting process to ensure that the natural temperatures
Climate
With improved fibre, nutrients and micro-organisims in the soils, kept cool by mulches we are “climate change” proofing our agricultural systems, conserving water and producing a healthier end product.
Sustainability
We operate completely independently and have not received funding. We operate on the lowest possible budget and generally use “waste” to build our systems: old paint buckets or black waste bins are used for the toilet recepticle. We generate income through sales of our home grown produce and our guests visiting the farm and staying in the guest accommodation. Funding would enable us to “modularise” our bin emptying, cleaning and composting area to ensure most effective use and conversion of resources and efficiency to cope with varying loads, put a roof on and close it in. At present we are using a broken reservior as the holding area. This is exposed to the elements and causes extra work to prevent leaching during the wet winter months.
Return on investment
Our campsite is in a watercourse and when we started the layout we did not want to contaminate the water and researched alternatives to flush toilets. Our own experience of the efficiency and costing of this system convinced us to convert all other toilets in our other facilities to the same system. This not only saves water, but also gives us a valuable end product. We have very little maintenance compared to flush toilet systems. People are eager to experience the systems and this furhter enhances our occupancy.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The system is easily replicated. Components are available everywhere and with a little attention the compostable wastes become an asset. The Chinese are the only farmers to keep their soils fertile for forty centuries, by using night soil - raw sewerage - over the years their bodies adapted to the process. This system uses a similar process of recycling human "wastes" and adds other "wastes" and after rendering them harmless provides us with a valuable soil amendment. The number of buckets, cover material and composting area can be scaled to suit the population or done in modular units designed to process so many buckets per week, at given intervals in a densely populated area.