Construction of a small-scale digester has begun that will be used to power a cold storage facility to benefit small farmers at Braco, Trelawny. Photo courtesy of Carol Lue.
AgriShare is an organic waste recycling initiative located less than 10 mins from Braco, Trelawny. Its focus is to help promote sustainable and climate-smart agriculture in Jamaica by delivering both composting and biogas solutions to its tourism and farming sectors. The digesters will convert nuisance sargassum into organic fertilizer as well as into biogas to power a cold storage unit to benefit small farmers at Braco.
AgriShare is a woman-owned organic waste recycling startup in Jamaica, founded by Carol Lue. Evolving from the success of her first start-up, CaribShare, Carol brings in-depth and practical on-the-ground expertise in developing and managing biogas projects as well as creating collaborative business models with farming groups. For three years, CaribShare developed and operated a large-scale digester that recycled food waste from eight hotels into biogas and organic fertilizer. Through its “Waste to Fertilizer’‘ program, the organic fertilizer was donated to small farmers at Braco to help promote sustainable and climate-smart agriculture.
Braco is a small coastal farming community in the parish of Trelawny. Situated inside the coastal zone, the area, however, has been highly contested for tourism resort development. As large-scale tourism development and overfishing have been major sources of pressure on its coastal zone ecosystem, Braco is seeking to strengthen its climate change adaptation and sustain agriculture as a resilient source of livelihood for its community. Currently, the area is being cultivated by 15-20 active farmers (40% are women), engaged in production both for the local and hotel markets. The average farm size is 5 acres.
Sargassum, an unrelenting and pervasive brown algae, remains a significant hazard to coastal tourism and livelihoods, as it washes up and decays along beaches, releasing toxins and creating serious respiratory issues. Last year saw the most sargassum ever recorded in the Caribbean. And this January was the second month in a row where sargassum doubled. Due to climate change, this proliferation of sargassum is expected to grow across the region. Through working with Thriving Earth Exchange, Carol hopes to deliver a solution to the sargassum problem by utilizing it as both as a renewable energy and organic fertilizer source to benefit this community.
AgriShare would like to connect with a biogas operator having specific practical hands-on experience operating a digester using sargassum to serve as operation advisor as it develops and operates its pilot sargassum digester. AgriShare already has experience operating a digester processing a food waste and cow manure feedstock mix.
AgriShare is also seeking a research partner / scientist to prepare a research paper(s) on operational efficiency of sargassum digesters in the Jamaican (Caribbean) context to help support the development of other sargassum community digesters in the region.
Project activities would include (to be done by AgriShare):
Developing and operating a small-scale digester to process sargassum and livestock manure.
Outputs of the project would include:
Essentially, the project would serve as a demonstration and cooperative model to other small farming communities on how to harness sargassum and other organic waste to better strengthen their livelihoods and adapt to climate change.
Carol Lue – Community Lead – Founder of AgriShare
Carol Lue is a social entrepreneur and sustainability planning specialist focused on implementing entrepreneurial approaches to addressing food waste and climate change related issues locally and globally.
Carol pioneered the use of biogas technology to create the first organic waste recycling program for the local hotel sector in Jamaica. Her initiative, CaribShare, cultivated a recycling culture that allowed eight hotels in Montego Bay to divert food waste from landfills to create clean energy and organic fertilizer. Carol is a committed champion for organic waste recycling as well as for development of a circular economy between the local tourism and farming sectors. CaribShare hosted Jamaica’s 1st Food Waste Conference for local hoteliers in January 2021 to help mainstream the reduction, recycling, and management of food waste holistically,
Dr. Amanda Hoffman Hall is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Eckerd College in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida, where she teaches courses in Environmental Studies, Environmental Health, Remote Sensing, and GIS. Dr. Hoffman-Hall earned her Ph.D. in Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland College Park in 2020. Her research focuses on environmental health and justice, spatial epidemiology and prediction of infectious disease risk, and algorithm development for satellite mapping of land cover and land-use change. She believes that the best outcomes of health and environmental research arise when projects prioritize community knowledge and expertise, and scientists, activists, community members, and policymakers work together towards just solutions.
She has authored publications in the journals GeoHealth, Remote Sensing of Environment, Remote Sensing, and Environmental Research Letters, but is most proud of her two littlest “co-authors,” her 7 and 4-year-old children.
We are hoping to work with a scientist who first and foremost understands the social and environmental goals of this project (i.e strengthening farming livelihoods and promoting climate change adaptation through renewable energy). We need someone with industry connections and specific practical hand-on experience operating a sargassum digester. The primary responsibility of the scientist is to serve as an operation advisor and to create a practical operational guide or presentation on best practices and the nuances of the treatment of the sargassum for operating a digester efficiently and effectively.
We are hoping to work with a scientist who first and foremost understands the social and environmental goals of this project (i.e strengthening farming livelihoods and promoting climate change adaptation through renewable energy). We are seeking a research partner / scientist(s) to prepare a research paper(s) on operational efficiency of sargassum digesters in the Jamaican (Caribbean) context to help support the development of other sargassum community digesters in the region. The scientist would co-author a research paper(s) with AgriShare on the primary responsibility of the scientist on the nuances of the treatment of the sargassum for operating a digester efficiently and effectively through the AgriShare digester case.
Thriving Earth Exchange asks all scientific partners to work with the community to help define a project with concrete local impact to which they can contribute as pro-bono volunteers and collaborators. This work can also position the scientists and communities to seek additional funding together for the next stage.
