Hello everyone!

 

My name is Hervé, I am 32 years old and I would like to tell you about a project that is particularly close to my heart.

Dynamic and focused on action and the achievement of concrete things, I love nature and all that constitutes it. Above all, I like to have a positive impact on the people around me. This is why two years ago, guided by my passion for Nature and others, I embarked on the unknown by deciding to create, with the help of specialists in the conventional agricultural environment, a farm which now covers 15 hectares, in my country of origin, Gabon.

However, for almost a year and a half, we had extremely low fruit and vegetable yields. It was therefore necessary to react! Not yet being able to self-finance, the existence of the structure was threatened and, with it, the jobs of the workers who support it. So, I embarked on in-depth research to find better cultivation techniques, which would allow us to improve production while having reduced operating costs.

Our ambition and our commitment were to produce healthy fruits and vegetables and sell them at reduced prices to benefit the entire Gabonese population, in particular the less well-off. All this without resorting to plowing, fertilizers, weeding, or pesticides.

My research all led me to a practice called Permaculture. It is natural agriculture based on the concept of "doing nothing". By "non-action", we must understand human activities carried out in full conformity with the laws of Nature. I also had the chance to meet "permaculturalists" near my home, in Béarn (South of France). I was able to observe on their farm the application of the fundamental principles of Permaculture and to realize that their fruits and vegetables were particularly tasty and of very good quality. So, I had found what I was looking for since Permaculture met all the conditions I had set for myself!

Since one of the major axes of Permaculture is cultivation on mounds (perennial mound of earth intended to receive crops), we started with my team to build self-fertile mounds in July 2020. To date, despite the climatic and financial constraints, we made more than 80 mounds (20 meters long on average) spread over 3 plantations. Many of these mounds have already started producing and we are already seeing record yields on several of them!

  
 

However, we are facing with 3 main difficulties:

 

• High conversion/transformation fees. The labor, the construction of greenhouses, the agricultural equipment, and all the elements necessary for the construction of the mounds are still quite expensive, especially in Gabon. We must imperatively continue to build a maximum of mounds (at least 300) to be able to guarantee the self-financing of the structure.

• Difficulty of access to land. Currently, Gabon is going through its great rainy season and strong floods are observed around the plantations, which sometimes makes them inaccessible for several days.  

Mound trampled by an elephant and a broken bridge due to a flood (january 2021)

• The difficult practice of Permaculture in an equatorial environment. Gabon is a small country in Central Africa crossed by the forest of the Congo Basin, the second tropical forest in the world after the Amazon. The flora and fauna there are particularly rich and diverse, which in a sense is a huge challenge for us. The pests are many and varied. The heat and high humidity (up to 98%) constantly favor the development of fungal diseases. There are also pests that we do not think of such as elephants, which sometimes visit our grounds at night and destroy the work done. So, we have to fight perpetually and arm ourselves with imagination and observation to practice Permaculture there. All of this takes time, motivation, energy, and significant resources. Only the latter are missing and maybe it is also thanks to your help that we will get there.

  

 

What will the collection be used for?

 

 

Thanks to your generosity, the funds collected will be used to :

• Finance the construction of 300 additional self-fertile mounds: this will involve purchasing the agricultural equipment needed for the construction of the mounds and two large production greenhouses.

• Finance work to raise access roads to plantations (give an estimate).

• Finance the construction of a store which will be located at the entrance to one of the plantations to sell directly to the end consumer.

 

Our fundraising goal, step by step:

Step #1 : 7.500€

• This amount will allow us to finance the construction of 100 additional self-fertile mounds.

 

Step #2 : 10.000€. 

• This amount will allow us to:

• finance the civil engineering works for the raising of access roads to the plantations

• finance the construction of two large bamboo greenhouses. Each of the greenhouses will have a floor area of ​​approximately 680 square meters

 

Step #3 : 15.000€. 

• This amount will allow us to finance the construction of 200 additional self-fertile mounds.

• This amount will allow us to finance the construction of a store / local to sell fruit and vegetables (from the farm) directly.

 

A big thank you for the attention you paid to our project and for your generosity!

Whatever amount is given, it will allow us to move forward with this project, which has meaning and ambition!

 

You are welcome to participate by check or cash (do not forget to include your email address and your contact details; you will have the same rewards as the people who participated via the MiiMOSA platform)!

Hervé NZÉ, 15 Rue Lully, 64121, Serres-Castet, France

 

A BIG THANK-YOU !