The Ithaca Rotary Club recently awarded two $5,000 to nonprofit groups in Kenya and Costa Rica for their projects tackling climate change, according to a Friday statement from the club.
Science Centre Kenya used the grant to plant 1,250 fruit trees at 10 school and teach nearly 2,500 children about agriculture and climate change, helping to alleviate increasing food insecurity in the western part of the country.
In Costa Rica, the Mastate Charitable Foundation is developing a family-run fruit tree and vegetable farm that demonstrates a new model for food production in the region, set apart by a reduced reliance on agricultural chemicals and an aim to draw carbon from the atmosphere.
Kenya project
Charlie Trautmann, former director of the Sciencenter in Ithaca, , helped develop the application for the project in Kenya with Kenneth Monjero, director of the Science Centre Kenya, whom he met at a conference in South Africa a decade ago.
Monjero said he leveraged the grant awarded by the rotary to mobilize parents of children at Kenyan schools to donate an additional 1,250 trees, bringing the total number planted to 2,500.
“This wouldn’t have happened without the Rotary funding,” he said in a statement. “It ignited the interest and now the students understand what climate change is all about.”
The carbon dioxide that will be captured by the trees is the equivalent of the greenhouse gases emitted by 25 cars a year, the statement said.
“It’s not thousands of cars, but it’s something,” Trautmann said. “The more important aspect is that children will be learning about the environment and taking care of the environment.”
The trees will take three to six years to harvest and will provide up to 25 years of fruit production. The tree species planted include guava, avocado, mango and passion fruit trees.
Costa Rica project
In Costa Rica, the farm project was proposed by a 1991 graduate of Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Tim O’Hara. O’Hara and his wife moved to Costa Rica 22 years ago and started Rancho Mastatal, which offers workshops on permaculture design, conservation, sustainable food production and natural building.
O’Hara said Costa Rica is losing its food security and degrading its farmland by using more agricultural chemicals per capital than any other country on earth. While large-scale agricultural production is causing deforestation, he said, small farms can keep soil healthy and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The project to develop a family-run fruit tree and vegetable farm rural Costa Rica will demonstrate a model for farmers who want to transition to crops that require less agricultural chemicals and that pull carbon from the air. When it is completed by the end of this year, the farm will increase the amount of organic produce grown locally, including avocados, plantains, mangos, jackfruit and citrus.
For additional information about the Ithaca Rotary Club, visit www.ithacarotary.com.
This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: Ithaca Rotary gives to Kenya, Costa Rica climate change projects