Converting rice fields into green fertilizer factories 5381 dm2008

Abstract

The Project “Converting Rice Field into Green Fertilizer Factories” was one of the most important challenges and opportunities of the ESPOL of recent times, as it has forged new paradigms in agriculture, health, environment, economy and culture. We have fulfilled with amplitude the expectations of the World Bank which financed the project with a value of U.S. $ 196,752 over a period of 24 months, from July 7, 2009 and July 7, 2011. The CTT (Technology Transfer Center), as handler resources unit, allocated faithfully the funds according to the schedule approved by the World Bank. The CQA (Institute of Chemical and Environmental Sciences), Project seat unit, through various actions and under the direction of Dr. Mariano Montaño Armijos, executed the project snugly according to plan and budget. With this Project we have had a very rich interaction with rice guilds, with media, with academics, with the government and with a wide variety of audiences. Dissemination Project through field days, seminars, press, radio, television and internet has awakened a public recognition of Azolla as natural, sustainable and economical fertilizing alternative. While the main objective of the Project was to study and to test applications of the Azolla to rice and agriculture, this work has forcibly addressed to unsuspected fields of thought and action. The development of Azolla attached to the nitrogen cycle, in the geographical area of the Guayas Ecosystem, links the rice fields, agriculture, health, environment and economy, to the new task of "tropical knowledge".