The United Nations (UN) established February 20th as the World Day of Social Justice. This year’s theme is centered on job creation, better quality jobs and better access to jobs to achieve peace and development.
One of the key points to achieve social justice is to eliminate the barriers that people face, everyone must have access to food, clothes, and shelter. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) farmers in agriculture deal with many risks every day and this is how Sistema.bio helps to reduce these problems:
1. Production risks. There’s no rule on how crops and livestock grow, there are a lot of factors that can compromise farmer’s production like diseases produced from poor farm waste management, soil quality and changes in crop cycles. With our biodigesters, farmers reduce the sanitary risks of managing animal manure as everything goes into the digester; and with the biofertilizer, farmers can increase the productivity in harvest and soil remediation.
A producer from India putting manure into the biodigester
2. Financial risks. Farmers have to deal with many expenses to make their farms work and grow. Most of the times they need to borrow money and this generates a big debt. In most of the countries where we are located in, our biodigesters are sold with no interest loans and we always study the payment capacity of the farmers to adequate the payment according to their needs.
On the other hand, we have always worked towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, one of them is “No poverty”, our users save money in fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers purchases, this leads to new income activity generation and increased crop production. Producers can save from 1,200 USD to more than 2,500 USD per year. This gives the opportunity to reinvest this money in the purchase of additional animals or farm improvements.
He’s Nelson from Colombia, he uses biofertilizer for his coffee plantations
3. Human or personal risks. Agriculture is a high-risk activity that can compromise farmers’ health. Most of the farmers use chemical fertilizers and this constant exposure to respiratory toxins can lead to many health problems. According to the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) farmers have a high chance to have chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, arthritis and skin cancer. Our fertilizer is an organic and all natural alternative to chemicals, farmers can produce it just by mixing manure with water, it is a stable product rich in humus and with a low load of pathogens and it’s an excellent complement for unproductive or worn soils.
The UN states that right now 3 billion people around the world don’t have access to clean cooking solutions and they’re exposed to respiratory health issues. This is a common practice in rural areas as LP gas is expensive and hard to get, so must of the people need to cook with firewood. With Sistema.bio more than 34,000 people are already cooking with biogas, a clean and renewable energy produced in the biodigester.
Sistema.bio users from Kenya, they’re no longer cooking with firewood
Like the International Labour Organization says “If you desire peace, cultivate justice”, and we’re committed and dedicated to work every day for the wellbeing of small and medium-sized farmers and the harmony of rural communities of our planet. We want to incorporate technology to achieve sustainable agriculture, where everyone does their work in conditions of equity and security.
Sistema.bio wants to build a movement around the small and medium farmers to help them be independent, our strategy is to combine technology, training, and financing to improve our user’s lives.
