1. Farmers in Selo have a habit of disposing of cow poo into the sanitary drains in front of their houses.  It smells very bad and no one likes it, but also no one can avoid it.  Sometime this cow poo accumulates in one place and causes blockages.  Even the flies that are not invited will come and flies are carriers for many diseases.  The existence of Poo Bank will change these bad habits.  Farmers will be encouraged to collect the cow poo and transport to a place that is covered so it’s easy to make deposits to Poo Bank.
   
2. The second habit of our farmers is to use raw cow poo as fertilizer. This increases the risk of increased weeds, pests, pathogens and diseases.  It also causes decreasing productivity.   Poo Bank will supply the farmers with very high quality fertilizer which is processed through fermentation.  The fermentation process will kill the weed seeds and also pests, pathogens and deseases. 
   
  3. Remember that 80% of the cow poo is currently wasted, Poo Bank will help farmers to optimalize the wasted cow poo, and the farmers will also earn some money from it as additional income.

Objectives:
1. Promoting good practices in sustainable animal waste management.
2. Establishing a Poo Bank to centralize the processing the cow poo.
3. Producing high quality fertilizer from cow poo which is otherwise wasted.
4. Increasing awareness about sustainable agriculture practices

So, we ask you to help us to help farmers to improve their lives through the establishment of Poo Bank.  We already have ‘in
kind’ contributions from farmers such as land and labour. We also already have in kind contributions from the Indonesia landcare organization Sahabat Lahan Indonesia (SLI).  We just need your help to purchase start up fertilizer processing equipment and to build a simple Poo Bank storage facility (all built with voluntary labour).

Poo bank is similar to any other bank around the world. The only one difference is in the deposit. In an ordinary bank we use money as our deposit, but because Poo Bank is an extraordinary bank we will use cow poo as the deposit.

The farmers will collect and deliver their cow poo to the Poo Bank house. If they have difficulty, Poo Bank will help them and pick up it. All transactions will recorded in an account book for all Poo Bank customers. Next, Poo Bank will process the cow poo into high quality fertilizer through fermentation and processing, using some important ingredients such as calcium carbonate and phosphate. The fermentation process requires between 2-3 weeks. Then the fertilizer produced will packed into a nice bag so it’s easy to carry.

After it is packed, Poo Bank customers are allocated Poo Bank credit notes based the quantity of processed product that they have in their account. They can withdraw their deposit or just keep it in the bank. Poo Bank customers can withdraw their processed poo at anytime or it can be taken as cash.

Like all banks, the Poo Bank also needs income to cover daily operational costs. So Poo Bank customers will pay ‘in kind’ with 20% of their fertilizer produced retained by the Poo Bank. Poo Bank will then sell all fertilizer retained to other farmers who need it, so the Poo Bank can also get some profit.

How will the profit be spent? The profit will be used to increase the Poo Bank's capital by scaling up the processing capacity and also to support other Landcare activities in Indonesia.
   
   

Renewable energy: The Biogas development program is having the most significant impact to our community and environment. 
While biogas is relatively new to Selo, there is growing interest in the energy savings that domestic biogas can generate.

Biogas, composed largely of methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulphide, is produced by fermenting animal waste in an anaerobic process (digester) to produce a viable gas for energy particularly cooking. Solids, remaining after the fermentation is complete (the slurry), can also be used as organic fertilizer.

Biogas is being developed through a locally managed micro credit scheme. At the end of 2011 with a seeding grant from the Boyolali Local Government of AUD3000, 15 biogas plants were constructed. Today the community has built an additional 39 units which is expanding every month with a further 134 planned in the next phase of the project . All the biogas units are constructed with voluntary labour.

Biogas utillization can reduce domestic energy costs by up to $24/month and every unit biogas built can prevent 1 tree from being cut down per month per household, which saves 12 trees per year on average per household. Biogas is a very powerful environmental program.

Local biogas installations provide many benefits: saving fossil fuels; saving time collecting firewood and in turn protecting the forest reserve; saving money; saving cooking time; improving hygienic conditions especially for women; producing high-quality fertilizer; enabling local electricity production; improving rural standards of living and livelihoods; and reducing air and water pollution.

The 'slurry waste' generated from biogas digesters will also be recycled again into the Poo Bank project.