From an interesting article by Dave Harcourt in Ecoworldly:
The castor [oil], equivalent to 12,000 tons of oil, would actually be grown by 25,000 families [small African farmers] contracted by GEE and would have a value of around US$ 10 million [$400 per year or $1.10 per day per family].
...
Ashenafi Chote was one of the farmers contracted by GEE. He as well as the other farmers have not been paid for their production because ... GEE has been unable to raise the loan it was expecting to use to buy the castor. Ashenafi Chote is now in a very dangerous situation as he planted all his land with castor. He now has neither the food he normally grew for his family, nor the small income he generated by selling his excess production
...
A final interesting point is that planting a non food crop like castor or Jatropha (both contain toxins and are inedible) benefits the biodiesel refiner as it means that there is no market competition for the farmer's production. For the farmer it limits their options, but more importantly, the crops can't be eaten if the refiner doesn't deliver as is the case in the above story.
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Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 3:30 pm
26 Nov 2008
Meanwhile on NBC nightly news, of all unlikely places, there was an excellent piece on how the government of an African nation decided, against World Bank and other development agency recomendations, to distribute seed and fertilizer for free to starving farmers plagued by drought.
That was 2 years ago. They now have record crops and the local economy is starting to flourish.
Experts told them the plan would destroy their ag economy, whoops.
I guess local agriculture maybe a better idea than "free" traders think? Maybe it would even work here in the over developed world?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 4:18 pm
26 Nov 2008
The government began a subsidy program for small-scale farmers, providing them with fertilizers and high-tech seeds at roughly 15 percent of the market cost - the fertilizers and seeds were required for a more productive and resilient crop. The scheme cost the Malawian government $60 million, a huge amount for one of the poorest countries in the world where the average annual income is only $250.
Malawi's major donors, including the World Bank, European Union and the United States balked and warned Malawi to reconsider. They claimed that such large-scale subsidies would cripple the economy. But the government went ahead.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Whiskerfish Posted 5:03 pm
26 Nov 2008
Jatropha is not only poisonous, it's also got huge invasive potential. And now Air New Zealand is making itself a hero for flying a test-flight on the stuff...
Sheesh.
BTW the Malawian experiment w subsidised fertilizer is interesting. It is, of course, old-fashioned synthetic, fossil fuel-based fertilizer. And it seems to have been a raging success. What do the organic farmers among us have to say about that?
Whiskerfish the African
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amazingdrx Posted 5:20 pm
26 Nov 2008
By subsidizing these other developments, the original 60 million would stay in the local economy. Buy seed from the seed farmers at full price, vend it to farmers at a fraction of the cost. The same with the organic fertilizer, pay the going price for chemical fertilizer for the organic fertilizer, sell it to the farmers for a fraction of the cost.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Whiskerfish Posted 6:53 pm
26 Nov 2008
there are in fact some NGOs working in various areas to get biomass digesters going, mostly using cow dung to produce both methane for cooking fuel and high-quality fertilizer (a factoid that I recently stumbled on: Cow dung that rots in the open loses a lot of its nitrogen to the air. If it rots in a digester, much of the nitrogen stays bound in to the 'stuff' and is then available to whichever lucky plant it lands next to... but I digress...)
However, companies like Monsanto and BP etc. etc. have 'preferential access' to politicians all over Africa, and I've seen very little publicity given to biogas-and-fertiliser-producing digesters (depressing? Yes.)
I think part of the problem is that fossil fuel-based farming is perceived as 'modern' and so politicians and poverty-stricken Africans aspire to it. 'Green' do-gooders don't realise that they should make their solar panels etc. look like things that movie-stars have; they rush around Africa sticking green stuff all over poor people's houses, with the noble intention of lifting them out of poverty, but with the side-effect that 'green' stuff is now viewed in many places as the 'poor man's option'.
Poor people don't want to stay poor -- the few that become 'middle class' ditch the green stuff as fast as possible (it's no accident that of the 2 factories making Hummers in the world, 1 is in Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
Cheers
Whiskerfish
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Pangolin Posted 9:04 pm
26 Nov 2008
Bakary Jatta in Gambia is a hero in my book for simply trying out biochar production to see if it works. It's very hard to find out what projects are working or have failed in Africa because there doesn't seem to be a clearinghouse that I can access. This Africann Agriculture blog makes it clear that much of what passes for agricultural information and research in Africa is about providing products for people outside of Africa.
It seems that what is really killing people in Africa is lack of access to information.
Put the Carbon Back
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Billhook Posted 10:27 pm
26 Nov 2008
as an organic farmer (of native breeds sheep, ponies & Cattle, at between 800ft & 2,000ft in Wales, 52 degrees N)
the fertilizer problems are far easier here than in the drylands of Africa.
We can produce fodder for cattle wintered in, whose dung is then matured before spreading.
It could, with some heavy capital input, be processed via a fermenter into a really high quality fertilizer.
The use of those slurry fermenters (aka "methane digesters") has been tried for decades in developing countries, with no very notable successes on extensive farms. In India the gov.t funded over 60,000 village scale brick units, before realizing that they were not being used because the villagers didn't find plodding round the fields daily to collect the dung worthwhile.
It appears this tech is useful where many animals can be housed either daily (for milking) or seasonally (to avoid poaching the land) or on an agribusiness feedlot system.
With regard to the use of inorganic fertilizer, there is of course much that can be done (over a number of years) to avoid dependence on it.
Meanwhile, people need to eat.
Thus if the West's free market economy is going to avoid causing unprecedented genocide by famine as climate destabilization intensifies, among other things chemical fertilizers must where necessary be made available for poor nations to distribute.
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Pangolin Posted 11:35 pm
26 Nov 2008
The dependence upon off-site inputs to get a crop in seems to be quite a risk factor affecting farm security. To encourage African farmers without protection from governments to gamble this way is morally dubious.
There are a wide variety of ways to secure nitrogen through interplanting, green manures, composts and crop rotations that might be a better option for small farmers.
Put the Carbon Back
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amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
27 Nov 2008
Green manure nitrogen fixing cover crops between the rows, that's another great plan too Pang.
Oh yeah manure is hard to collect with grazed animals. Pavolovian training might just get that manure into a smaller area where the farmers can collect it more esaily.
The pressure from international "free" trading has to be taken on by the government, as Malawi has done. Individual small farmers can't cope with global corporate market manipulation. Especially state owned corporate manipulation, like that exerted by China in Africa.
Local markets can be fair and free even in the face of global market manipulation if government intervenes wisely. As this example in Malawi shows.
Now try to imagine local ag coops gere trading directly with local ag coops in Costa Rica, for example, to get coffee.
There was an article here a year or so back written by Ana Unruh Cohen about traveling to Costa Rica and helping a local farmer install a methane digestor to replace expensive propane cooking gas with methane from pig manure.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Billhook Posted 6:13 am
27 Nov 2008
Indeed, the Biochar option is what we're going for here, as a test of its efficacy under northerly soil metabolism. A S/h 90" TPI-type charcoal kiln has now been delivered and we aim for a first load through once the tupping is over.
Of the useful soil fertility options you list, inter-planting has some decades of history to it, while the others have of course all been around for a century or more. I mention this to express how it takes time for good ideas to permeate rural cultures.
To be adopted they must not only arrive with a very credible messenger (lives depend on success) but also with the skills, materials, equipment and leeway of spare ground for trials.
They then need the luck of fair weather and no mishaps for impressive success for several years.
Which is all part of why these ideas aren't yet more widely adopted.
In the circs, I'd have done as the Malawi Govt did, and scrapped the free market in seed & fertilizer in favour of ensuring food supplies that year. Work on sustainable production takes time, and IMHO is hindered less by temporary expedients' use than it would be by food shortages and further impoverishment.
All the best,
Billhook
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Whiskerfish Posted 2:19 am
28 Nov 2008
Cattle in Africa are often kept overnight in an enclosure (known in S Africa as a 'kraal') even if they range widely in the day. You could do the poop-scoop number there quite easily, even if you lose much of the dung-crop out in the field.
Yes there are permaculturists in many parts of Africa. Governments, overwhelmed with 'support' from foreign companies and equally parasitic do-gooder NGOs, tend to ignore them, so their operations stay small. But they are growing.
IMHO, many of these problems are not technical. Many great methods for doing all sorts of sustainable things have been worked out in Africa. If we got rid of the corrupt govts and backwards societal norms along with 90% or foreign 'aid' we might get somewhere. Building functional democracies in Africa is a lot more important than many people think. If there were govts that were kept in line by empowered citizens who actually understood the benefits of modern democracy and plural politics the 'aid' organisations would go out of business because people would actually develop trust across countries and be able to develop the sophisticated institutions that are needed for any kind of 'development', sustainable or not.
Cheers
Whiskerfish
PS Amazing -- I sent you an email -- did you get it?
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amazingdrx Posted 3:28 am
28 Nov 2008
How far can this trend go? We'll see.
ps. Resend, maybe it got lost somewhere. Thanks.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Damien Posted 12:38 am
02 Dec 2008
They work with farmers to provide seed and fertilizer through a loan. By working with women's groups and within communities, loan payback, income growth rates, and decline in child mortality rates have been wonderful.
Founder Andrew Youn and I have talked about the fertilizer question and I confess that I am fundamentally uncomfortable with providing (and thus presenting) chemical fertilizers as a saviour. The fact is that within their customer base, OAF has few people that can afford one goat, much less a stable full that would produce enough poop for compost. The fertilizers are a place to start when families are otherwise losing children to starvation at a horrific rate.
As for the cash crop vs food debate, OAF has focused on cash crops in response to listening to what their farmers want, and they want (and need) cash. Assuming they have a market (which OAF helps to provide and access), the farmers feel that their best path forward is paved with cash they grow themselves.
http://www.oneacrefund.org
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:03 am
02 Dec 2008
But what is that farmer to do when it's time to divide the farm among her seven children?
Subsistence farming just does not seem like a sustainable answer. But like I said, I don't have the answers.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
02 Dec 2008
Ideally small farming evolves into small business bio-d. The Malawi story showed the increase in economic activity throughout the community.
If the "natural" evolution of capitalism, from small farms, to specialization, to small business is not squashed by corporate/government monopoly games it should produce representative governance and a culture that values hunman rights and freedom?
I know, it's a tenuous historical/economic theory, but I blame economists, hehey. You can't go wrong piling on economists.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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caniscandida Posted 6:48 am
02 Dec 2008
Some of us at least, from outside Africa, with no real knowledge of African realities, despite the countless superficial impressions we may have of African lands, people, societies, etc., would appreciate having more detailed information about how Africans have traditionally gone about feeding themselves, and how traditions are changing, or being abandoned.
For me, an important recent "source," if that is the right word, on southern African matters, is the delightful comic series, "The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," by Alexander McCall Smith, which for the most part takes place in Botswana, especially the capital city, Gaborone. Smith is ethnically British, but was born in Zimbabwe, back when it was Rhodesia (and Malawi was Nyasaland), and was for many years a professor of law at the University of Botswana in Gaborone.
His descriptions of the place are fairly detailed, though it remains difficult for me quite to envision what he is talking about. E.g., so far as food and agriculture go:
Southern/eastern Botswana is obviously an arid country, dependent on a rainy season which, if it comes, turns the land green and colorful. The Limpopo River is a bit to the east, but apparently too distant to affect agriculture much. On the other hand, the Kalahari Desert to the west is a much more pressing reality.
In the midst of those conditions, cattle are raised, and seem to be a foundation of traditional culture. But how are they raised? What do they eat? How often are they slaughtered and eaten? Also, so far from being kept in kraals at night, many wander about, and get onto the roads, and become traffic hazards.
Something called "pumpkin" is widely cultivated and enjoyed. Presumably that is a member of the plant family Cucurbitaceae, the "gourds," but also not the same as what we North Americans call "pumpkin," a variety of Cucurbita pepo."
It would not surprise me if many Africans feel that Smith, whose major characters are black Africans and who sincerely (?) loves Africa, especially Botswana, is a bit romantic, and even patronizing, at best, and neo-colonialistically exploitative, at worst.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jonas Posted 5:34 am
09 Dec 2008
In America, it's impossible to have a non-food-growing job and still eat food every day. It's an unbearable thought.
Common biodiversivist, you're writing pure propaganda.
Why do you insist that farmers in Africa stick to their old poverty-generating model of growing only what they can eat? This is not how the world works, unless you are a racist (which, apparently you are), or an imperialist (telling Africans they should not join the global economy), or both.
The point is that there is a huge amount of land available for agriculture. Poor farmers can make more money if they grow biofuel crops on this land.
You just want them to live in poverty and deny them any chance of growing into prosperity.
This is such a Western attitude, so full of exoticism and latent racism its sickening.
I have told you many times before: you should book a flight, and go visit a rural village in Africa, someday. Perhaps then you could talk sense, one day.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:28 pm
09 Dec 2008
I didn't write anything. That's a quote from an article found in Ecoworldly written by Dave Harcourt. If you think it's propaganda, take it up with him.
I for one am not particularly concerned that you have called me a liar, a fascist, and now a racist. I am curious why Gristmill continues to let you get away with ad hominem slurs of posters you disagree with, or in this case, a poster who posted another's article that you disagree with. It reflects poorly on the blog.
You live comfortably in a First World country. You don't grow your own food.
Your American bashing may also need to take a rest. Bush isn't in charge anymore. Obama is and was put there by a significant majority of Americans.
If 25,000 families actually do go hungry because they took your advice and planted biofuel crops instead of food, what would that make you? Pick a word for me.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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