Royal University of Bhutan
College of Natural Resources
LOBESA
|
|
Natural
Resources Economics (NRM 303)
Group Assignment on
Sustainable
crockery (Mortars and Pestle) Production.
Submitted
by:
Prem
K.Bhattarai
Dawa
Tenzin
Sangay
Chhope
Sonam
Norbu
Pema
Jamtsho
Dorji
Bum
Contents
The
mortars and pestles have a history that has originated from the time
immemorial. From the time of Renaissance until today the use of mortars and
pestles has kept on evolving. Ranging from diverse uses in the health center
and practices to the kitchen, the mortars and pestles have come long way
through history. The business has a great scope in students of CNR as well as
few outsiders. The potential of the wooden crockery, as it is a sustainable
business, has high potential in Bhutanese market. The result showed that there
is a good net income from the mortar after deducting all the expenses. The
customers included students and non students within and outside campus. The
female demanded more of the products.
This project takes readers from the definition of mortars
and pestles, its history and uses to worldwide to the Bhutanese context. Within
Bhutan this project finds potential customers inside the college campus. It
also has made attempts to look into the market and the potential in the college
campus. It was found that among the genders, female has more demand for mortars
and pestles. The customers included not only students but also non students. A
good profit could be made from the sale of the product.
The English word mortar
derives from classical Latin
mortarium, meaning, among several other usages, "receptacle for
pounding" and "product of grinding or pounding". The classical
Latin pistillum, meaning "pounder", led to English pestle.
The Roman poet Juvenal applied
both mortarium and pistillum to articles used in the preparation
of drugs, reflecting the early use of the mortar and pestle as a pharmacist's
or apothecary's symbol. (Brody, 1999).The antiquity of
these tools is well documented in early writing, such as the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus)
the oldest preserved piece of medical literature dated back to 1550 BC.
Mortars and pestles were traditionally used
in pharmacies to crush various ingredients prior to preparing an extemporaneous
prescription.
The mortar and pestle, with the Rod of Asclepius,
the Orange Cross, and others, is one of the
most pervasive symbols of pharmacology, along with the show globe.For
pharmaceutical use, the mortar and the head of the pestle are usually made of porcelain,
while the handle of the pestle is made of wood. This is known as a Wedgwood
mortar and pestle and originated in 1779. Today the act of mixing ingredients
or reducing the particle size is known as trituration.
In Japan, very large mortars are used with wooden mallets to prepare mochi. A
regular sized Japanese
mortar and pestle are called a suribachi and surikogi,
respectively. (Bowman, 2014) Granite
mortars and pestles are used in Southeast Asia,
as well as Pakistan
and India.
In India,
it is used extensively to make spice mixtures for various delicacies as well as
day to day dishes. With the advent of motorized grinders, use of the mortar and
pestle has decreased. It is traditional in various Hindu ceremonies (such as weddings, and upanayanam)
to crush turmeric in
these mortars, (Tamang, 2010).
In Malay,
it is known as lesung. Large stone
mortars, with long (2–3 feet) wood pestles were used in West Asia to
grind meat for a type of meatloaf,
or kibbeh, as
well as the hummus
variety known as masabcha.
In Indonesia
and the Netherlands mortar is known as Cobek or Tjobek and pestle
is known as Ulekan or Oelekan. It is often used to make fresh sambal, a spicy chili condiment,
hence the sambal ulek/oelek denote its process using pestle. It is also
used to ground peanut and other ingredients to make peanut sauce for gado-gado.Large
mortars and pestles are commonly used in third-world countries to husk and
dehull grain. These are usually made of wood, and operated by one or more
people.
In Bhutan it is known as Toktsey and the use
of and mortar and pestle is an essential element of crockery. According to (Tamang, 2010) it is known that the
use of the mortar and pestle is more prominent in the kitchen apart from other
religious and medical purposes. According to Tashi Norbu, the student of B.Sc.,
in an interview, the mortar and pestle in his village is used for pounding
spices for different cuisine. In some part, its usage is more than just in the
kitchen, for preparing local medicines in local healing. The use of mortar also
comes in use for pounding ingredients for religious purpose. In southern part
the religious use of the mortar and pestle forms interesting fact (Nirola, 2014)
In the college of Natural resources, the use
of mortar and pestle is very rampant. Students from various departments use
them it for mostly pounding the spices like ginger, garlic, masala, chilli, and
peeper and so on and so forth. Since, by nature Bhutanese like hot things,
therefore it is by this culture, people in the campus own one.
This mini project
aims to identify the demand pattern of wooden mortars and pestles in the
College of Natural resources.
·
To earn while
learning.
The
world has become a place unsafe to live due to various activities of human
being.Unstainable practices like jeopardizing flora and fauna have cost the
world its livelihood.
Due to the sole
focus in material development, the use of petroleum has been one of the main
areas of interest. According to Eco gecko products inc,(2013) not only
are these disposable petroleum-based utensils, plates, and bowls not
biodegradable or compostable, but they often end up in landfills, polluting
oceans, or even killing animals when they mistake these for food. Not only these,
but also the use of melamine
Bhutan has designated 23 percent of its national
territory as protected areas, distributed over different eco zones. These are
strictly controlled for the conservation of flora, fauna and biodiversity. All
remaining forests are designated production forests. Their management is also
guided by conservation principles (Penjore & Rabten, 2003). In this regard
Bhutan has a potential to commercialize in manufacturing more wooden items
sustainably.
In Bhutan the use of wooden
products is unknown but in the17th century the fourth Druk Desi Gyalse Tenzin Rabgye (1680-1694)
introduced thirteen crafts of Bhutan. One of those thirteen crafts is the wooden work, (BhutTraPort, 2008).Since then it is vibrant activity.
Scope of the investigation:
As the world has seen the
impact of stuff that degraded the earth, it is a very wise step to come with
sustainable actions to replace the use of those unsustainable stuffs. Biodegradable
and compostable wooden cutlery and palm leaf tableware by Eco-gecko were
designed to provide an eco-friendly
alternative to the non-biodegrading disposable plastic cutlery and
Styrofoam plates used so commonly in the food industry. So not only does using
this natural by-product from stop the burning and subsequent polluting of the
air, but it also serves as a
biodegradable and compostable alternative to plastic and Styrofoam
materials When composted, it also contributes
to producing nutrient-rich topsoil.
Our
country given the abundance of trees has a potential to carry this kind of
activities which are eco-friendly and income giving to the people. The
decentralization of Government Reserved forest to the community and the
community based management is a promising future for more wooden crockeries.In
here the community can plant, cut and use the timber themselves both conserving
the coverage and economizing in the production. Since 1994, the community
forest has been playing a vital role in alleviating poverty and conserving
natural resources. This has not only helped the environment but also put in
account the social and economic dimensions of sustainability ( Ugyen Wangchuk
Institute for Conservation and Environmnet, 2011).
However,
due to the lack of god technology in place, the commercialization is quite an
infeasible concept. Our group, due to the limitation of time, could not make
more than 10 mortars and pestles.
Methods and materials
Procedure
The entire mortars manufacturing work took place in
series of steps. From the simple block of wood to the beautiful shaped mortars
underwent series of following steps.
·
Sawing of rectangular wooden block
into about 12 cm height and 6 cm breadth.
·
Marking circularly with a pencil
on the block for drilling hole
·
Chiseling the cut block about 4 cm in
depth.
·
Sawing the edge of the smaller
block for the handle
·
Finishing touch by smoothening with sand
paper.
Materials
The tools like chisel, knife (Patang), saw, file,
wooden hammer, sand paper, sharpening stone, sand paper and pencils.
The entire work on manufacturing the mortars is the
upper hostel block 2, on the corridor of room 18.The pestles were collected
from Puntsangchhu by the group members.
Date
|
Day
|
Activities
|
Remarks
|
20.09.2014
|
Saturday
|
Collecting
wooden blocks by group
|
It
was collected from the Sawmill located in Lobesa
|
21.09.2014
|
Sunday
|
Seeking
for tools
|
Few
of the members were involved in sawing it.
|
27.09.2014
|
Saturday
|
Seeking
for tools continued.
|
Collected
funds for buying tools
|
28.09/2014
|
Sunday
|
Sawing
of the block
|
|
04.10.2014
|
Saturday
|
Marking and Chiseling of the cut wooden
block
|
A
circular mark had to be made on the block for chiseling.
|
05.10.2014
|
Sunday
|
Chiseling
continues
|
Chiseling
takes lots of time
|
12.10.2014
|
Saturday
|
Chiseling
continues
|
|
13.10.2014
|
Sunday
|
Shaping
the block in the finished form
|
It
takes more time but this was done before also.
|
22.10.2014
|
Wednesday
|
Smoothening
with sand papers.
|
Sand
paper had to be borrowed from in service students.
|
Item
|
Cost(Nu)
|
Quantity
|
Wooden
block
|
300
|
1(3
meters)
|
Chisel
|
280
|
3
|
File
|
90
|
1
|
Sand
paper
|
90
|
2
sheets
|
Time
|
825
|
40
hours
|
|
Total=1585/-
|
47no.
|
Table 1.Showing cost of
production
Quantity sold
|
Cost(Nu)
|
Total(Nu)
|
10
|
200
|
2000/-
|
10
|
50
|
500/-
|
Table 2.showing the quantity against cost,
|
|
Male 4
Table 3.showing the sale
and the gender.
SD
1st batch 2
SD
2nd Batch 3
Staff 3
Table 4. Showing the
customers and quantity.
It is found that the
uniqueness of such products attract many people to buy. Our group had made 10
mortars and all were on demand. All the products were sold. Demand was rather
high but due to the lack of time and fund, their supply could not be made.
However, through the rapid
sale of the products. It is known that such kind of crockery is on high demand
by the people. The self catering students have high demand on this. About 80%
of students who do self catering want it. When raised the questions over who
all wanted it, almost everyone affirmed. There were only few who said they
don’t need. Looking at the demand pattern, it was found that girls made higher
demand than the boys
By looking at the table 1,
the cost of production of a unit mortar was calculated at Nu.158.5.The ten
numbers of mortars cost Nu.1585 including all the time and expenses. The pestle
was brought free of cost from the Punatsangchhu.However while selling it was
sold at Nu.50 per unit given the difficulties and time consumed in this
activity.
When calculated the net
profit of the activity, it was found out that there was Nu. 915/- at the end of
the sale. This income is calculated after subtracting all the expenses incurred
in raw materials collection, time consumed and the others necessary
requirements.
The table 3 indicates that
among the two genders, the most purchase occurs with the female gender.60% of
our products were purchased by girls while only 40% were bought by boys.
However, there were many demands made from the students, especially self
catering students. Apart from the students, there was a demand from staff
members of the CNR and outside the campus.
Table 4 illustrates the
potential customers who demanded the entire products. Customers from different
walk of life bought them. 50% of the customers were students and 50 were non students.
This helps us extrapolate the information for future. The future for these
products is bright.
BhutTraPort. (2008). Bhutan
Festivals Tour and Trekking.
Bowman, B. (2014). The
Japnese Mortars and Pestles. Retrieved 11 2, 2014, from
GourmetSleuth.com: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/articles/detail/suribachi
Brody, M. (1999). Grinding
Stone to Art Object;The Mortar and Pestle from the Reneissance to the
Present.
Nirola, D. (2014, 10 20).
The facts of crockery. (P. Bhattarai, Interviewer)
Penjore, D., & Rabten,
P. (2003). Trends of Forestry Policy Concerning Local Participation in
Bhutan. Bhutan: Central for Bhutan Studies.
Tamang, P. (2010). Himalayan
Fermented Food. Newyork: Taylor and Francois Group.
Ugyen Wangchuk Institute
for Conservation and Environmnet. (2011). Community Forest in
Bhutan:Putting people at the heart of poverty reduction. Thimphu:
Ministry of Agriculture and Forest.
