HOW WE DISCOVERED SAIN:Right after our arrival at Jo Rasta in Porto Novo we met Yolan, alias “Yovo Rasta”, a young Belgian woofer, student in agrology, doing a specialised master in north/south cooperation. He originally came to Benin to work at Songhai’s and eventually discovered SAIN where he decided to settle to volunteer and write his thesis. He has been at SAIN for 3 months now and seems more than enthusiastic, claiming around all the merits of the place. As a teaser for this article, consider that as lucky as we are, Yolan offered to privately introduce us to this amazing site, where he took us for a tour, and we even had the unbelievable good fortune to get to know Pascal the founder of the site, with whom we shared a pineapple juice of him coupled to some tough thoughts about his initiative. The first day we met, Yolan immediately transmitted us the desire to discover SAIN, essentially because he explained that he found SAIN more ecological oriented than Songhai. We visited Songhai and SAIN the same day, the first in the morning and the second right in the following afternoon. First of all I must admit that I have been very much impressed by Songhai’s technological advancement, their organisational complexity and refinement, their huge scale both in terms of number of workers as well as of variety of activities without on top forgetting their obvious optimised and sophisticated operational structure. I did not found such sophistication at SAIN but SAIN is 20 years old while Songhai is about 40 years old, so as I learnt working with data analysts, we must remember to compare apples with apples, and this is a valuable lesson for every aspects of life and any discipline. Therefore to be fair I shall now tell you what impressed me at SAIN at first sight, which is their simple while extremely efficient way of designing the area, and benefit from their position and resources, which is most probably closer to what we would call a permaculture design and working approach. While there is no obvious geographical design at Songhai there is a very beautiful and efficient one at SAIN. In a nutshell, Songhai is located in the middle of the capital city of Porto Novo and SAIN is situated in the middle of the luxurious Oueme Valley surrounded by wild forest. I think it says everything, right? No need to extrapolate for those who have some notions of permaculture design you will acknowledge that SAIN’s situation has a big location advantage for ideal design possibilities. But SAIN’s marvels do not stop here. I will take you now to our magical farm tour. ABOUT SAIN, STORY OF A VISIT: SAIN is 15 hectares big and 1 hectare in the Valley is supposed to currently be worth around 400.000 FCFA (we don’t know about the price 20 years ago though). The space is gigantic and we will soon uncover it, walking through the whole paradise of SAIN. When we arrive at SAIN there is only tropical forest around, we are at the hearth of the Oueme Valley. The entrance has a simple big panel where the name of the center is written. Some buildings stand at the entrance for raising the hens, chickens and rabbits. Other buildings are volunteers and students dorms furnished with raised beds covered with mosquito nets. Some students kindly join the tour to help Yolan answer all our questions. Plantations around are multiple among which lots of pineapples, which we learned need 1 year and a half to grow from plantation to harvest. We are also told that after flourishing the pineapple can be grown again with the slip technique. By using the flower it takes 2 years while by using the rejected part of the fruit it takes 18 months thus a gain of 6 months for the next harvest. On top of that we can use acetylene (calcium carbid + water #catacombs) to inject as a fertilizer in the plant so that it continues grow fruits for multiple harvesting slots. There are also not far from the entrance a snails’ culture in a concrete box, on a bed made of banana leaves for humidity, oranges and papaya for food, all covered by palm branches to keep it safe from the sun hit. Snails of a year of age measure roughly 15 cm and can be sold for 500 FCFA each. As mentioned they also grow many henses at SAIN but also quails and they give henses the quails’ eggs to cover, which they do by maternal instinct. After some time the eggs are stored in a building warm at 37/38 degrees inside the drawer of a wooden shelve. Some very small baby chickens are in this same room for 2 weeks of age after what they integrate the “poussiniere”, a small house made of bamboo, until later, when they are grown up enough to join their parents in the raised cages outdoor. This nursery room also serves to store the “Provende” which feeds them and the other animals of the farm. Rabbits inhabits similar raised cages ad are composed of “noirs d’Alaska”, “Fauves de Bourgogne” and Albinos. The visit then goes further by a tiny road, where we can walk thanks to tires arranged on queue all the way through the dense forest. The atmosphere is humid, warm, the sounds remind somehow the jungle, the smell is rich and evolves at each step taken along the ponds and various plantations around us. Ponds have been human made by removing earth up to the groundwater, which mostly serve at raising fish: tilapias, silures, carps. Plantations are multiple among which many shallots and manioc. The water is also used to fertilize the soil, even though in a less systematic and sophisticated way as in Songhai, the technical part let aside, they both use their resources in the same logic. There is a small green pool for fish eggs hatching. Fish reproduction is made with manual insemination, one at a time. After 24 hours in the hatching pool they are brought to the bigger ponds. 20 kg of fish are produced monthly. We walk further toward the black rice field, hidden in the middle of the forest. The field has been cut and dig up to the natural groundwater manually for months into boxes. The rice must have first been grown in nursery for 2 weeks and replant into the field. With 4 kg of seeds split up into 4 boxes of 500 square meters each they make 5 tonnes of rice in 3 to 6 months of time. The rice field is surrounded by sugar cane, shalotes and amaranth grown in boards (culture en planking, classical form of permacole growing). These associations are supposed to protect from the ematote (local parasite). The boards are oriented to receive and retain the maximum amount of water. This is not the only permacole practice, as the production is cycling from one harvest to the other in order to protect and enrich the soil. Moreover, the boards are covered, which is also a aquaculture classic. On top of that Yolan introduced a composting box filled with animal feces, sugar, roots and starch that produces a liquid natural fertilizer within about 2 weeks. They split 1 liters of fertilizer with 20 liters of water to spray on the plantations. The students and volunteers here are free to experiment new plantation. We discover a kind of mandala on a sloppy terrain made to appropriately catch the sun and retain the water. Here the goal is to prove the terrain fertile while introducing occidental seeds of beans, cabbages, carrots, peppers… There is also a bread tree behind and a small fruit yard populated with 2 species of papaya: solo and royal. Beside we also find boards of sweet potatoes and “Petites Morelles”. Anyhow, all that to say there is a wide variety of species grown at SAIN and the diversity will most probably raise as enthusiastic students and volunteers continue to come fall in love with the place. The technically impressing part of the visit just come as we arrive at the energy house. The farm counts a few of them at various points, they are arranged with solar panels which generate enough energy to cover 100% of the farm’s consumption. We were right at this point when the sun gently went down as we got to know that this beautiful and respectful farm is actually 100% autonomous in energy and water. Amazing and worth underlying. Briefly, the center does not use chemical but some antibiotics for the animals, they also buy some animal food and complementary food for the students, apart from which they are fully autonomous and sustain on their own reserves and resources. Autonomy and sustainability seem to be both covered here: we applause the initiative and the realization. Slowly arriving toward the end of the visit we reach the Eco-lodge part where tourists are invited to enjoy a green, fresh journey at the farm. A night in these minimalist yet fancy houses costs minimum 6000 FCFA. This tourism revenue helps financing the students’ scholarship at the farm as they are received at gradual rates down to free depending on their possibilities by the director to encourage youth entrepreneurship and employment in agriculture. Of course they also sell the extra production from the farm, in form of juices, animals, fruits and vegetables. INTERVIEW WITH PASCAL, FOUNDING DIRECTOR: It's on our way back to the car that the magic happens and that we meet Pascal the founder of the farm who providentially came back by chance at this time to his house at the farm. He warmly welcomed us and offered to share a pineapple juice together. We were all blurred by his presence, as he is a tall strong man in his forties with a fascinating force in the eyes. His look is penetrating as when he speaks to you you acknowledge he is most probably about to read you. He is a very funny, knowledgeable and agreeable person to talk with. Therefore we happily spent about 1 hour together which was the occasion to talk about his personal path which brought him to build the farm, the objectives of the farm, his view on humans and the planet.
Pascal dreamed about a project he could build up with people through collaboration, looking for solutions to change the world. To some questions of us about his own individual path he said “I don't believe in the concept of personal development neither on the concept of private life”. Pascal much more believes in collaborative work toward common goals and interests. With great humility, Pascal explains his youth and how in the 90’ he refused to enter the university, which had lead him to be chased from home by his parents. At this time, he said he didn't consider himself a homeless as he says homeless means without a home but more than that he was chased for his ideas, values and ideals. Indeed, Pascal could not figure out neither accept that so much poverty exist in a such fertile country, as well as that so much unemployment threaten the youth, even from the educated and skilled talents. Pascal believes in urban exodus! And he made it happen for himself, but it took time. He first gathered experience in various jobs for 10 years until he actually enrolled for university in geography studies specialized in agriculture. This was a real challenge for him, as he wanted to prove the world he could study if and only if he wanted, and he eventually succeeded. Success was there, Pascal even had to redo a test because his professors could not believe he was so talented. That was enough theoretical proof and Pascal could eventually settle at Kakanitchoe to build SAIN. Oh I forgot to mention… Arriving at the farm the visitor can read these words “Some want to walk on the moon, we stopped at Kakahitchoe”...
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