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THE ROLE OF DRAUGHT ANIMAL POWER IN A LOCAL CONTEST
In the remote village, far from the electric grid and far from an economoic spply of fuel, the use of draught animal power for the generation of electric current and for the lifting of water appears feasible, economic and reliable
The draught animal power represents an intermediate technology from manual labor toward the introduction of the mechanization
The few hundreds of euros economized by the farmers, utilizing draft animal energy, shouldn’t be considered negligible because shall be compared with the per capita Gross National Product that in certain countries varies in a range of € 400 to € 1.200
Without polemic, sometime a support to photovoltaic, in those contest, seems to be a support to the foreign supplier of photovoltaic plants and not a support to the farmers
The use of draught animal power can perfectly substitute the work of women and children now very often engaged, in the villages, in the water lifting and seed crushing
An electricity economically generated can extend the light hours of the village for student education and other economic and social activities
The animal welfare is not compromised by this kind of work. Millennia of selection has conducted to very patient animals that do not suffer for a monotonous and tedious work. And this is the reason for which working animals are still, in rural areas, hundreds of millions.
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A STEP TOWARD THE MARKET
Several experiment for the generation of electric current through the utilization of animal traction have been conducted in several conutries in the last decades.
Test runs with different kind and size of animals and equipments reached different results.
This is the reason for which a deep comparative analysis of the different solution is in progress.
This means to collect information from different sites in the world where these equipments are operated and means to continue the test runs now performed by WEDAP in the site of the farm Masseria Coppola in Crispiano, TA, I.
A complete test run need the support of materials, equipments, welders, throwers, grooms and animals. The animals logically shall be trained before their utilization.
Although most of the technical problems can be considered solved, other preliminary works should be done. Among them:
- assessment of the viability of this technology in specific remote, rural villages from the anthropological, zootechnical, agronomical, sociological and geological point of view
- definition of the detailed design of this kind of equipments and of its parts, both in metrical standard and in imperial standard, meters or inches
- selection of the suppliers and of the production procedures for these kind of the equipments
- preparation of the maintenance manual and of the training manual for the utilization of the animals and equipments
- preparation of the design of the workshop and of the workshop manual
- surveys in different sites, with veterinaries, engineers and other professionals, for the tuning of the program
- technical assistance for the implementation of the workshops and for the production and the use of the equipments
- post installation survey and support
- definition of the so called best practices and their diffusion.
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