Saturday, December 15, 2007

Surja Mukhi


They never face the I direction I want.




Yet, they are boldly beautiful...




...And useful! Surja Mukhi (sun flower) oil and the shells of the sunflower seeds are high in demand.




The shells of the seeds are so valuable that the local vendors send their own truck from town to the village to collect the seeds and return the oil to the village, all free of cost!





The challenge is how to compete with such vendors. Now that the village is electrified, how can the community re-pay a loan on an oil extracter if they don't charge the villagers for extracting? If they do charge, they can't compete with the vendors in town!

One way is to directly sell the shells of the seeds to the wholesale buyer and not charge for the extracting, just as the local vendor does. ...Though that buyers is several hours away and he only buys high quantities. Open to your ideas!