Bridges, January 10, 2020

GROS MORNE HEN FEED ARTICLE FOLLOW-UP

Last week we reported on the corn mill and mixer now being used at the Campeche (Gros Morne) hen house to produce feed for our 1,000 hens.

While the main reason to produce our own feed is to reduce costs, another plus is helping the local farming economy by buying corn from neighboring farmers and introducing the cultivation of soy beans.

HOWEVER THERE IS ALSO AN ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT WHICH WE WANT TO HIGHLIGHT: The marvelous and unique aspect of this corn mill and mixer is that they run on energy from solar panels on the hen house roof. This eliminates the use of diesel or gasoline and further cuts costs.

The initial investment was high – it’s thanks to Sr. Pat Reid, OSF that the RJMs received a generous grant from the Allegheny Franciscans for the solar panels, inverter, mill and mixer.

The Back Story is that when we were researching corn mills and mixers, my brother Philip (RIP) suggested solar energy while we were Skyping. He said I was looking at him “like he had two heads” which I was. As far as I knew no one in Haiti was running a mill and mixer on solar! Phil did his research and found a solar powered corn mill manufactured in Spain which had been purchased by a US parish for their sister parish in the Central Plateau and shipped on the Twinning Program sea container. In the end we in Gros Morne decided to buy the corn mill and solar panels in Port-au-Prince and we bought the mixer (really a cement mixer) from a neighboring parish.

A thousand thanks to the Allegheny Franciscans and our many other collaborators. May the sun continue to shine!

– Sr. Pat Dillon, RJM

REGISTER FOR WEBINAR

On Friday January 17th from 8:30am – 10am, LCWR will be presenting a webinar entitled, “Sustainability in the Spirit of the Integral Ecology of Laudato Si.” To register for the webinar which will be simultaneously translated into English, Spanish, and French, go to: bit.ly/Webinar17012020.

Similar Posts