Accomplishing a Great Deal of ‘Fishy Business’
 One of the things I’ve learned in the four times I’ve been to Nigeria is that the best laid plans are easily sidetracked there. If you’ve ever seen the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, (funny, and definitely worth Netflixing) then you can get an idea of what I mean. A spotty electrical supply makes communication with our loved ones back here in the states a little bit iffy. Everything costs so much more here than in the U.S.—often three to four times. Couple that with extreme heat changing quickly to a thunderstorm, unpaved roads and chickens loose in the yard, and you have what we like to call The Nigerian Experience.
Still, we have to make the best use of our time and talents, so we set up a list of tasks we wanted to accomplish while we’re here in Nigeria.
First and foremost, we built a 500- to 700-gallon cinderblock fish factory using bricks from the block-making business we’ve started in Kisayip. A group of dedicated volunteers back in Cincinnati headed by Brad Rogers of Urban Harvest built a prototype at Benken’s Florist and Garden Centers in Silverton over the past few months. They were confident we could replicate the factory here in order to produce up to 300 fish a month and 80 heads of lettuce every 40 days. And we made a great start, although it was tough work! Eventually, we want to add watercress, tomatoes, peppers and strawberries.
Might as well take a moment to list the aquaponics volunteers: Adam Wyman of Mason; Pete West of West Chester; Justin Hunter of Colerain; Brad Rogers of Norwood; and Jenny Gadsby of Hyde Park.
The prototype was funded by a $1,000 donation from West, a P&G engineer.
 The aquaponics tank creates a river ecosystem. Tilapia fingerlings, a native African fish, will be placed in the tank, and their waste products-- mostly nitrogen and ammonia—feed plants on the water’s surface. The plants, in turn, soak up the nitrogen and purify the water.
The project will create microbusiness opportunities for individual villagers, who can feed their families and market or sell extras to neighbors. SSE’s H20Nigeria has already done the legwork of digging a freshwater well to provide irrigation, but we need to establish a reliable electricity source to keep the water moving through a pump. That will be provided through solar, and when there’s no sun—car batteries. I’m curious to see how it will work.
Fish farms like these, or aquaponics projects, have been around for about 30 years, but have come into vogue in the U.S. just the last 10 years. Sweetwater Organics and Growing Power in Milwaukee, both urban farms, are the nation’s leaders in aquaponics. Rogers wants to imitate their models, obtain venture capital and install aquaponics projects in Cincinnati in a 20,000 foot warehouse. He also wants to help entrepreneurs set up fish farms on their farm land and local organic farms.
 Our next task is to complete business training with local villagers who are becoming entrepreneurs. Right now we have a couple of microenterprises that are already up and running. A group of women has a sewing company, and makes loans for other small businesses with their excess profits, and we have a group of young men who have been working hard making lots of bricks to sell on the market. We’ll hold classes with them, explain simple business concepts and ethics, and see if we can resolve any problems that may have arisen with the way they do business.
Lastly, but certainly not least, is that trip member Stacy Doose is filming us as we go through our daily Nigerian experiences. Doose, video editor at the Enquirer, has promised to make us a full-fledged video for SSE. I can’t wait to see the video. Look for it after the trip—I’m sure we’ll post it on YouTube!
That’s all for now today. I can’t wait to see the fingerlings in the fish factory. On our next trip, we’ll be able to order tilapia and take it fresh from the tank.
Maybe we’ll start a Friday Fish Fry… hmm.
A fish taco shop in the future for Kisayip?
--Chuck Proudfit, March 23
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