Kenaf – The Environmental Entrepreneurship Powerhouse

Kenaf, Hibiscus cannabinus L.is a heat year yearly closely associated to cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.).

Kenaf can be utilized as a domestic offer of cordage fiber in the manufacture of rope, twine, carpet backing and burlap. Study, in the early 1940s, centered on the advancement of significant-yielding anthracnose-resistant types, cultural techniques and harvesting machinery.

Throughout the 1950s, kenaf was discovered as a promising fiber resource for paper pulp. Kenaf fibers have been processed into significant good quality newsprint and bond paper.

Despite the fact that kenaf is commonly considered a fiber crop, investigate signifies that it has superior protein content and, therefore, is a prospective livestock feed. Crude protein in kenaf leaves ranged from 21 to 34 %, stalk crude protein ranged from 10 to 12 %, and entire-plant crude protein ranged from 16 to 23 p.c.

Kenaf can be ensilaged correctly, and it has satisfactory digestibility with a superior percentage of digestible protein. Digestibility of dry matter and crude proteins in kenaf feeds ranged from 53 to 58 p.c, and 59 to 71 %, respectively Kenaf food, utilised as a supplement in a rice ration for sheep, in comparison favorably with a ration that contains alfalfa meal.

In addition to the use of kenaf for cordage, paper pulp and livestock feed researchers have investigated its use as poultry litter and animal bedding, bulking agent for sewage sludge composting and as a potting soil modification. Further solutions include auto dashboards, carpet padding, corrugated medium, as a “substitute for fiberglass and other synthetic fibers,” constructing products (particle boards of different densities, thicknesses, and fire and insect resistances), absorbents, textiles and as fibers in extraction molded plastics.

Kenaf is in the Hibiscus relatives, is cousin to Cotton and Okra, and is now grown largely in China and India for its significant power fibers. No person has focused on kenaf for food stuff mainly because the leaves did not taste fantastic. However, a distinctive strand regarded as Whitten Kenaf was designed by the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and launched for typical use in 2005. These leaves taste rather very good, a kind of lemony, Cajun flavor. This assortment of kenaf has large cotton shaped leaves, can be utilised for food, has been developed for meals in Haiti for 3 several years wherever they enjoy the taste and have created their own recipes. The leaves, seeds, stalk and main are all separate harvests. The end result is multiple employs and benefits.

The kenaf plant is a person of the fastest expanding plants in the environment, a great deal more rapidly than community weeds, so it involves small soil preparing and is uncomplicated to plant and preserve. Since the soil does not have to be tilled, greatest microorganism density is preserved and chemical fertilizers are not necessary Kenaf is an exceptionally successful plant that uses minimum methods, with outstanding output. Kenaf crops improve up to 20 feet tall. One particular acre can make as considerably as 20 tons of biomass in 6 months.

Small Water Usage

The stalk and roots have the potential to store drinking water like a camel, so the plant performs very very well, even in arid/drought disorders where by most other plants fall short. When planted in advance of wet year, no abide by-up watering is necessary. This absolves the have to have for high priced irrigation and h2o rights difficulties.

Leaves Feed Human beings

Whitten Kenaf leaves are scrumptious and superior in protein, up to 34%. It is often eaten in Haiti in soups, salads, boiled like spinach or extra to rice. Kenaf can be eaten in 10 times of planting, when just 18 inches tall, and the leaves and stems can be continuously harvested from that issue ahead. Each planted seed has the probable of generating 80 servings of edible food. As a result, it can be employed as a higher protein starvation aversion crop. In simple fact, 2,000 folks in Mirebalais, Haiti applied kenaf to retain from starving in 2009.

In Haiti, many kenaf leaf recipes have been formulated. Seeds Feed Individuals can be ground into excellent gluten-free of charge flour for baking. In Mirebalais, Haiti they use kenaf flour for numerous recipes. 1/2 pound of kenaf flour can make 20 to 30 pan sized breakfast pancakes.

There is a extensive custom of working with kenaf for food items in India to create gongura. There are quite a few recipes and pics of foods dependent on gongura on the internet.

Funds Crop

Kenaf seeds are marketed by the pound, which is made up of about 20,000 seeds. 1 pound of kenaf seed at present charges $4.00 USD. In poor soil problems, 1 kenaf plant produces about 200 seeds. 10 acres of bad soil can expand 10,000 lbs of kenaf seed per developing time, symbolizing $40,000 USD of income. Florida investigation farmer Harry Lengthy, in cooperation Mr. Loftus, came up with an organic formula wherever they yielded 11,382 seeds for every plant!! It will take about 1 year from planting time prior to local farmers can harvest and offer the seeds as a money crop. They can promote the stalks as firewood at that time, way too.

Animal Feed:

Leaves can be dried and turned into diverse sized pellets as superior protein feed for rabbits, fish, chickens, and goats. Rabbit meat is definitely superb for you, currently being decrease in fats and cholesterol and larger in protein than beef. Industrial grade rabbit farming and fish farming (tilapia) can be sustained with kenaf pellets. (The US presently imports $750M of tilapia per year from China.)

A backyard farming technique is also being perfected for modest scale creation of rabbits, fish, chickens, and goats, on compact plots of land employing house developed kenaf pellets, almost getting rid of feed fees. This presents meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products and solutions for loved ones usage and for sale/export. This could be a self sustaining source of food items and earnings for the poorest of the poor. They can make $25 for every 7 days developing and choosing their personal kenaf for animal feed, beginning inside 2 months of planting the seed. This won’t even consider into thought the money they can get from advertising their livestock.

Cooking Gas:

Cooking Gasoline: The kenaf stalk has a heat price equivalent to burning pine. A very low price, protected, smokeless Kenaf Stove has been made for superior efficiency cooking and bio-char (a variety of charcoal) output. The Kenaf Stove burns kenaf or wood in an oxygen deprived ecosystem, ensuing in a a great deal cleaner, no smoke fireplace in which the gas lasts Substantially for a longer time. 4 households can have a year’s offer of gasoline from a soccer industry dimensions of planted kenaf. When the air source to the stove is shut off, bio-char is created. Earning bio-char from kenaf and putting it into the soil as a soil amendment replenishes the soil and features as a fertilizer and a soil stabilizer.

This recapturing of waste lands can halt deforestation and desertification as persons use kenaf alternatively of collecting wooden for cooking. Any bio-char not employed as fertilizer can be molded into charcoal briquettes. The Kenaf Stove can also use grass, squander paper, and many others. to make bio-char which is then produced into charcoal briquettes. Households can then market the charcoal for cash flow.

Carbon Sequestration

A person acre of kenaf can sequester 8 instances as much carbon as an acre of evergreen trees. 1 acre of kenaf absorbs around 10 to 20 tons of Carbon in the course of photosynthesis. When utilized as cooking gasoline on the Kenaf Stove, an supplemental 5 tons of bio-char is manufactured. When place into the earth, this bio-char forever outlets the carbon in a advantageous way, in the floor.

Kenaf is carbon adverse, when you set the bio-char into the soil. If we can change from coal to kenaf for making electricity, we can sequester sufficient CO2 for every year to completely remedy the anthropogenic influence on local climate modify, impacting world warming

Electrical energy Era

Inventor C. Morrison has developed a biomass power plant that can use kenaf biomass to create a hydrogen/carbon monoxide gasoline identified as syngas. These gasses are enough to run an electrical generator. 1 energy plant can provider an complete rural village. The biomass yield for an acre of kenaf is 3 to 4 moments better than for trees. 50 acres of kenaf can gasoline 1 energy plant, perpetually.

This process is self-contained and poses no air good quality, water top quality, soil degradation, odor, or sound concerns. There are no unique building or set up requirements. It is as simple to work as any family appliance and is tiny adequate to match on a trailer (see photograph) or be mounted in a tiny developing. The electrical power not utilized by the rural village can be sold to the electrical electricity grid as an additional source of cash flow. Imagine a frequent supply of energy currently being supplied to city centers by rural villages, this in nations plagued by normal brownouts and blackouts. The only by-item from gasification is a sellable bio-char ash that can be used as a soil amendment for growers.

Natural Fertilizer

An low-cost organic and natural fertilizer that can be created domestically, applying bio-char, is remaining developed. Bio-char acts as a residence for microbial activity. This can be employed to increase soil good quality even in the poorest of soils, with out utilizing dangerous and costly chemical fertilizers Bio-char as a fertilizer has been recognized to double plant growth. This will raise the yields and profitability for each sq. meter of the kenaf crops and other fruits and greens developed in subsequent many years. This will lead to a virtuous cycle of expanding financial prosperity from yr to 12 months, utilizing land sources currently considered as unproductive.

Kenaf bio-char can even be made use of in treating human bodily squander to convert the nitrogen into successful sorts, turning a waste product or service into a source. This would enhance sanitary situations and would have been helpful during the the latest Cholera outbreak in Haiti. 5 gallon buckets can be made use of as bogs and when mixed with biochar, inside 6 months the poo and urine can be properly employed as fertilizer. If 2 billion individuals have been to use these toilets, then 2 billion lbs of fertilizer would be produced each working day. Over time we could even recapture the deserts.

Textiles The bast (thin outer bark) of the kenaf plant is a significant toughness fiber applied to make burlap baggage, plastics, industrial and business materials, cordage, rope and twine.

Paper

Kenaf paper has remarkable fiber information as opposed to wooden-centered paper merchandise, and it takes much significantly less time to increase kenaf as opposed to trees.

Developing Resources

The fibrous outer core of plant stems can be used to make composites, polymers, binders, biodegradable plastic, injection molded panels, engineered wood panels, substitute for carbon, glass, other mineral fibers, fibrous reinforcement of plaster, cement, and wall boards. Building The Styrofoam-like inner main of the kenaf plant can be utilised for animal bedding, kitty litter, municipal wastewater therapy, and for oil spill cleanup on land or at sea. In conjunction with recycled wood and recycled concrete, the kenaf main can also be made use of to make a light fat but really robust cement block that has good insulation properties and is pretty much fireproof. These blocks can be utilized to make one loved ones homes and multi-story structures, devoid of employing electricity resources.

A self-sustaining environmental home has been developed utilizing kenaf and other technologies, at a cost among $5,000 and $10,000 (dependent on problems, sewage and electrical specifications and dimensions) for each house. These residences will deliver for cleanse drinking water, housing, electrical power, and sanitation. Intended as a developing country starter dwelling, development is so simple that little ones can assemble a dwelling in 1 day< and a family can easily add-on additional rooms and rent them out as a source of extra income. This makes it possible for single mothers to become financially independent without having to work outside the home. The societal implications of this are staggering

De-urbanization

This is a side effect from effectively leveraging kenaf as a way to provide food, shelter, and a living wage, in a rural setting. People living in the city slums can move back to their rural origins and actually provide for themselves, sustainably. The Whitten variety of Hibiscus cannabinus L.,is a good tasting kenaf that has the potential to serve as a food source in many countries.

Kenaf is a plant that has the potential to change the world. It is a very old plant used by mankind. Throughout the Bible you read about sackcloth. Sackcloth is made from kenaf. Only royalty was allowed to wear linen or cotton. The poor grew kenaf, spun it and made their clothes from kenaf. They made ropes and cordage from kenaf.

Many people want to help the environment. Many people are trying to find ways to lower the greenhouse gases that are heating up our world. We worry about the Arctic ice melting and the loss of the polar bear. We are all concerned with the more and more violent weather patterns, the floods, earthquakes and volcanoes erupting. We don’t want to see sea levels rise and inundate our coastal cities. But what can one person do?

Some people have gotten involved with tree planting projects. Tree planting projects are great. They sequester quite a lot of carbon. The problem is, the people who are involved are operating in what I call an incomplete transaction. The people who have tree planting projects get the resources they need and you get the satisfaction of knowing you are doing something good but there is no return for you donation.

What if there were a way to do something really good for the environment, something that sequesters more carbon than trees…and at the same time it offers you a payback? Yes, that’s what I mean. A return on your investment. Sequester carbon, help the environment and earn money at the same time? There is a plant called kenaf that sequesters more carbon than any other species on the Earth. One acre of kenaf sequesters as much carbon as 8 acres of fast growing pine trees.

Kenaf Could Change the World If We All Got Involved In Planting It And Using It. Here’s What Kenaf Can Do:

1. Sequester More Carbon Per Acre Than Any Other Plant

2. Be Food For Humans Anywhere In The World Where There Is Hunger

3. Make Excellent Feed For Livestock including Backyard Fish Ponds

4. The Stalks Can Be Used As Firewood

5. Make Biochar For Fertilizing The Earth Organically

6. Make Beautiful Cloth That Can Be Used For Clothing And Industrial Use

7. Make Biocomposites That Can Be Used For Car Interiors

8. Be Used To Generate Electricity

9. Make A Better Quality Paper Than Pine Trees And Be Ready For Use In 6 Months Instead Of Years

10. Have Seeds That Can Be Made Into Gluten Free Flour

11. Have Seeds That Can Be Made Into A Cosmetic Oil

12. Have Leaves That Make Excellent Potherbs

13. Can Be Cut Back Many Times And When It Regrows It Produces More Food Or Feed

14. Grows Faster Than Just About Any Plant

15. Does Not Use A Lot Of Water – It Grows In Somalia

16. BioChar Made From Kenaf Can Treat Human Wastes And Turn It Into Fertilizer

17. The Inner Core Is Excellent For Animal Bedding Without Dust

18. Many Kinds Of Building Materials Can Be Made From The Bast Fiber

19. The Inner Core Fiber Can Be Made Into A Filler For A Lightweight Cement Block

20. Extracted Kenaf seed oil can be used as a bio-fuel for Diesel engines

This plant could feed people in poor countries. This plant could sequester more carbon everywhere in the world. This plant could provide biological fertilizers. And the plant has so many uses.

We need to build an organization made up of people who want to see less hunger, more firewood, inexpensive homes for poor people in developing countries. The people we seek to connect with are probably doing something green in their lives. They would just like to find a way to make it profitable while being more Green. In other words, having a complete transaction.

There is a need to find people dedicated to planting kenaf and has already developed marketing vehicles for the kenaf fiber and other products. We are actively researching vegetable dyes, making kenaf fabric water repellent with environmentally sound materials. We have plans to make back packs, tote bags, and household items from kenaf. And we are already getting ready to develop our own kenaf handmade paper project in Belize.

We invite you to invest in your kenaf planting as a member of our community.

Kenaf is the environmental entrepreneurship powerhouse with multiple profit centers.

for you. It is not a graduate course in a university. It is a down to earth program.

The climate change is getting worse. But we now have a means to take control of our environmental problems and do something to ameliorate them.

We on this planet are in a battle for our survival as a species.From time to time on this very active planet we have extinction level events (ELE). Most of them are the results of acts of nature. But we are creating our own extinction level event (ELE). When the death rock fell from the sky and wiped out the dinosaurs, they had no warning. They didn’t know what hit them. But our extinction level is happening slowly enough that we can take action. We are sentient, we have our minds and our hands. We can take command of what is happening on our world. What can I do you say? We say, “Plant kenaf.”

We can plant kenaf or invest in someone else planting it. We can stop global warming.

We can create businesses to make money for you and other investors while you help remove carbon from the atmosphere.We can all actively participate in the real war.

THE WAR TO REGENERATE OUR WORLD.

It’s time to get our planet back to normal levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One acre of kenaf sequesters as much carbon dioxide as 8 acres of fast growing pine trees.

YOU CAN EVEN DO THIS: Planting a small kenaf plot in your garden can help take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and contribute to the battle against global warming. You could use the leaves for high protein greens, and chickens love it, too. Use the seeds for gluten-free flour, and the stalks for dust-free bedding for animals.

Planting one manzana of kenaf in a tropical country, as an investor or as a farmer, could net you thousands of dollars in monetary return, and sequester tons of carbon dioxide, providing you an environmental return.

Kenaf was used for rope and for making sackcloth 6,000 years ago. Its new uses include biocomposites being manufactured for Toyota which plans to make all its car interiors with kenaf.

Kenaf combined with recycled plastic makes an excellent building material as well as raw material for industrial use.

And, at the same time with it high protein content, it can feed the hungry of the world, people and animals.Kenaf can replace tree cutting as it makes tree free paper, can be used for people food as a potherb or gluten free flour, livestock feed, paper, biochar, carbon sequestration, fabric and biocomposites

This ecofriendly plant that has the potential to create a successful green business for you. Grow kenaf in your backyard or in a large plantation.