The Ocoa South Project: a rural development model for the post-petroleum era

As rural communities leave their traditional isolation and enter into an increasingly globalized world they face unprecedented risks and opportunities. New communication technologies, decentralized renewable energy sources, and improved access to markets and capital are opening a new window into the cultural and economic mainstream. But failure to effectively integrate into this new world too often brings a falling quality of life, depopulation, and social collapse. There has been much discussion of the ecologically sustainable global village, but successful models are in short supply. Now peak petroleum is adding a new sense of urgency to the need for change. .The Ocoa South Project is responding by creating a test bed and teaching center where rural residents and their international supporters are working to implement this vision in a real-world rural development context.

A grant for $ 300,000 was approved by the European Union, but the larger project that included these funds collapsed amid organizational power struggles beyond our control. The progress to date has been pieced together from various small grants, and includes the commercial kitchen in El Limon, earthworm-fed aquaculture in Los Martinez, and a functioning broadband and telephone network in three of the communities.

More About the Ocoa South Project Vision

Proposed: Oil-seed based biofuels with residues used for aquaculture