Gazan inventors produce wood vinegar to help farmers
Two Gazans have manufactured a device to extract wood vinegar from trees, a material that is promising for treating soil issues in the Gaza Strip.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — On a farm in the northern Gaza Strip's Beit Hanoun, chemist Amina al-Afifi and her young partner, Mohsen Ahmed, have developed a device to distill wood vinegar.
They say the product has proven to be a solution to soil fertility problems facing farmers in the Gaza Strip.
The idea first came to Ahmed, a graphic and multimedia designer who was already working on an agricultural project called “Start-Up 1” for the production of bioorganic fertilizers when he was troubled by last winter’s impacts on his potato crop. After intensive research, Ahmed and Afifi came up with wood vinegar as a solution to this problem.
Wood vinegar protects plants against the temperature fluctuations and offers other benefits. “Wood vinegar is a great product to control nematodes, mosquitos and flies as it acts as a repellent. It can also be added in the composting process and gets rid of offensive odors,” Ahmed explained.
