Jock Brandis, Founder and R&D Director of Full Belly Project, will share ideas, successes, and inspirations from his non-profit that designs and distributes income-generating agricultural devices to improve life in rural communities.

The Full Belly Project Ltd is a non-profit organization based out of Wilmington, North Carolina, which designs labor-saving devices to improve the lives of people in developing communities. Their main devices are the Universal Nut Sheller (UNS) and the Rocker Water Pump. The first device they designed, the UNS, was a peanut sheller but farmers started using it for other crops. The UNS is now used for coffee, jatropha, neem, and shea in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Since 2009, their research has been focused on designing a water pump.

This technology is particularly empowering for women in that it relieves them of the burden of hand-shelling jatropha curcas, shea, coffee and peanuts. Women provide the majority of agricultural labor, and with the time saved by this machine, would have the opportunity to dedicate themselves to other obligations. Collection of firewood, a chore often left to children, can be greatly reduced by the simple processing of shelled peanut hulls into fuel briquette.

Presently the organization is collaborating with like-minded development organizations in an effort to target areas most in need of this sustainable technology. Since finishing the final design of the Universal Nut Sheller, The Full Belly Project has distributed machines in The Bahamas, Uganda, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Gambia, Zambia, the Philippines, Haiti, Guyana, India, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Guatemala, Tajikistan, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

See their solar-powered water pump in action on March 20th at 10:00am when Jock Brandis provides an on-site demonstration at F.A.R.M. Cafe's Garden Spot in Valle Crucis.  More details found here.