February 04, 2004

By: Betty Jackson
Website: http://www.1st-in-kitchens.com

Mayon Turbo Stove: Next Generation Household Cooker Developed in the Philippines

Inspired by the Mayon volcano, the Mayon Turbo Stove has a near perfect cone design that allows clean and convenient combustion of rice hulls. Low income rural families who own the new cooker with its twin air injectors are calling it the poor mans gas stove. For (US) $7 per cooker, impoverished families in the Philippines are now converting crop residues produced by the worlds most important food crop into a high quality cooking flame. The mountains of surplus rice hulls found throughout Southeast Asia can now be used as a convenient and low cost, cooking alternative.

It is essential we mainstream this cooker as quickly as possible. As the poverty situation worsens, women are increasingly affected by the burden of how to cook their families daily meals said Roger Samson, Director of International Programs for Resource Efficient Agricultural Production-Canada. Where fuelwood is gathered in communities, the stove relieves women from walking 60-120 days per year to meet their annual household fuelwood needs and additionally prevents deforestation. A study on the island of Negros, found the Mayon Turbo Stove slashed cooking costs dollars per year from (US)$60-$97 for families compared to purchasing firewood, charcoal, and LPG. The savings for these Negros families adopting the Mayon Turbo Stove was 3-5% of their total annual income.

The Mayon Turbo Stove was developed by Canadian renewable energy specialists working with Resource Efficient Agricultural Production-Canada in cooperation with MASIPAG and Paghida et-sa kauswagan Development Group in the Western Visayas of the Philippines. The cooker is part of a three year Canadian International Development Agency funded project aimed at alleviating poverty and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Philippines through clean combustion of crop residues. REAP projects the stove could be adopted by more than 1 million households in the Philippines alone. Samson said, We now challenge rice producing nations like the Philippines to use this stove as part of their rural poverty reduction strategy.

About The Author:

Betty Jackson is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.1st-in-kitchens.com.  Everything for your kitchen to make it look great and make cooking a whole lot easier.