Slager Vision Video-West africa 2010

Slager Vision Video -West Africa 2010 from rick slager on Vimeo.

Agricultural Empowerment Initaive--LEAD INC.

Agricultural Empowerment Initiative

In response to requests from rural regions of Liberia, LEAD is launching an agricultural component to its training and loan programs. In spite of its fertile land, roughly 80% of Liberia’ s food supply is imported each year. This is largely due to the large number of farms which failed or were abandoned during the war. LEAD’s newest program, the Agriculture Empowerment Initiative (AEI) is dedicated to providing the business skills training and capital needed by Liberia’s farmers as they restart their farms. This program will help to lower food prices across Liberia, stem urban migration, and generate jobs in Liberia’s poorest rural region.

Rice vs Vegtables

DAKAR, 1 April 2010 (IRIN) - Rice may still be a symbol of food security across Africa, but the cereal does little to boost nutrition, unlike vegetables, according to the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Vegetables should have their place in the fields and at the table alongside cereals commonly grown in arid countries, vegetable breeding expert Sanjeet Kumar with ICRISAT and the Taiwan-based AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center (formerly known as the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center) told IRIN.

“While rice and other cereals can cut hunger, vegetables bolster nutritional security and take up less land to grow.”

“Rice is a poor source of essential vitamins and minerals, either because these compounds are not present in rice, especially when it is polished [white], or they cannot be absorbed by humans,” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) nutrition specialist Roland Kupka told IRIN. “Diets that are primarily based on polished rice may thus lead to deficiencies in iron, zinc, vitamin A, and thiamine [B1] deficiency, which in turn impair growth, immunity, and mental development among children.”

Mineral and vitamin-packed foods include fruit, vegetables and animal products like eggs or fish, said Kupka.

UNICEF estimates 40 percent of under-five children in the arid Sahel are chronically malnourished because they lack the vitamins and minerals needed to bolster their immune systems and mental skills. Another estimated 300,000 die every year from malnutrition.

While health workers may have scales, armbands and yardsticks to measure acute malnutrition (when children are underweight for their height), they are less likely to have microscopes to analyse blood work to measure micronutrient deficiencies.

Comparative advantage

When asked whether rice overshadows more nutritious agriculture sectors, the director of Africa Rice Centre, Papa Abdoulaye Seck, told IRIN that rice cultivation can subsidize these other crops.

“Rice is a strategic commodity… We can do business with rice. Imagine if the US$2 billion dollars [2006 estimate] that Africa spends on rice imports every year were reinvested in the agricultural sector - do you think Africa would now have 265 million starving people?” asked Seck, referring to an estimate from UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).


Photo: Tomas de Mul/IRIN
Rice fills stomachs, but empty in other ways (file photo)
Seck said farmers in Africa have a comparative advantage in growing rice. “We want to develop rice instead of [only] vegetable gardening, because Asia, the largest producer of rice, will not be able to continue doing so. In Asia, there is arable land, but less water. While in Africa, we have enormous potential.”

FAO estimates farmers use 17 percent of cultivable land in Africa, which leaves some 126 million hectares to plant, he said.

Lack of seeds

Based in Niger, vegetable breeder Kumar said ICRISAT and AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center have worked with local groups since 2001 to establish in West Africa 2,500 vegetable gardens that use low-drip irrigation - small perforated pipes that deliver water directly to plant roots.

“There are local vegetables and people know the importance of traditional vegetables, but they do not have the seeds or they get seeds donated from other countries that are not adapted to local conditions,” Kumar told IRIN.

He said land in the Sahel is not the main obstacle to expanding vegetable cultivation, but rather lack of seeds. The vegetable plots are at most 500 square metres. Vegetables that can survive in the Sahelian sun need to be grown for their seeds, but seed commercialization is undeveloped.

Then there is tradition. “Staples like millet and sorghum have long dominated diets in the region, and they are suited to the climate. Vegetables, including indigenous vegetables, have always been part of local diets, but improved vegetable varieties that grow well in the Sahel were introduced only in the past few decades,” said AVRDC’s director for Africa, Abdou Tenkouano.

Problem of perception

There is also the problem of perception. “Vegetables like traditional leafy greens are sometimes viewed as ‘food of the poor’. People may not know how to prepare vegetables to benefit from their nutritional content, and they may lack knowledge on the health benefits of a balanced diet,” he added.

For the past two decades in Mali, Mariko Fadima Siby has grown 'fonio', a local cereal found throughout the Sahel.

She told IRIN rice has always been seen as a sign of status. “Since rice cultivation first picked up here in West Africa decades ago, you were somebody if you had rice during the holidays or growing in your field. It is not that local crops were forgotten, but they paled next to the sheen of rice.”

But eventually, people turn to what grows in their backyard, Siby concluded. “This is a hot place in the world. Whatever takes root here, we will take.”

pt/cb

Themes: (IRIN) Food Security, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition

[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88650

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Moringa- A Gift from God

While at Echo's (Education Concerns for Hunger Organization) conference in December of last year, I was reminded of the importance of this plant. My friend Andy from Echo, sent a bag of dried Moringa home with me years ago to try.

While in Liberia, I seen that it had been introduced to parts of Nimba county from Ghana.(that is what I was told...need to research that)
I can't help to think of the possibilities that this could provide for local farmers. While it would provide income generating activities for the small market holder, it would also provide nourishment.

What's great about this plant, it can grow almost anywhere and can take arid and semi arid conditions.

I will be studying this plant (hope to go to ECHO for two weeks this year) and I pray that we can be part of the production of it someday... somewhere.

Check out this video....

Out of Poverty-the old fashioned way

Last fall, I was told about a guy named Paul Polak. "Never heard of em" , I said. I was talking with another ministry explaining the ideas and the method I was thinking about to reduce poverty in rural areas, it was then I was told of the book 'Out of Poverty'.

I returned home and I Googled it, and ordered the book on Amazon right away. That book radically changed my thinking and it confirmed some thoughts and ideas that had been rattling around in my cranium for some time.
What the book did for me is to realize, that if I were to dedicate the rest of my life to working with the rural poor, the approach should be the old fashioned way, work for it.

While traveling in West Africa last month, I witnessed many NGO's that I would imagine are getting thousands and if not millions of dollars and Euros to eradicate poverty. What kind of impact are they having? I would imagine some. But is it the long range solution?

The point of this post is using grass roots approach to reduce poverty.(I won't use the word 'eradicate' on this blog, Jesus said the poor will always be among you) There are 800 million small subsistence farmers in the world and they tend to be overlooked for many reasons.

But Paul Polak, the founder of International Development Enterprises (IDE) has proven methods that they share with others in reaching the rural poor. I hope that we can incorporate these into our ministry.

(From his website)
Paul Polak is drawing on his 25 years of experience, Polak explodes what he calls the "Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths": that donations alone will end poverty, that national economic growth will end poverty, and that big business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Polak shows that programs based on these ideas have utterly failed–in fact, in some areas where these approaches have been tried, such as sub-Saharan Africa, poverty rates have actually gone up.

These failed top-down efforts contrast sharply with the grassroots approach Polak and International Development Enterprises have championed: helping the dollar-a-day poor earn more money through their own efforts. Amazingly enough, unexploited market opportunities do exist for the desperately poor. Polak describes how he and others have identified these opportunities and have developed innovative, low-cost tools that have helped impoverished rural farmers use the market to improve their lives.

Good stuff...stay tuned for more developments...

Trashy Bags-our bags are trash

While in Ghana for a few days, we visited a very unique and much needed business.
One thing I quickly realized on my first visit to the Gold Coast, is that the trash is limited compared to the other parts of Africa I have been.
Maybe one reason is this company has collected over ten million water sachets (they sell water on the street in these convenient plastic bags) all over Accra.
They pay women a certain price for large bags that are full of these sachets. Income opportunity number one.
Then they are washed and sorted all by hand outside of this modest little factory/building.
Then they are washed and trimmed to specifics with a scissors...by hand. I think you get it here.
These bags are all by hand and are cleaning up the environment and turning trash into jobs and profit.
Its been one thing that has been on mind since first arriving on African soil...there has to be some way to make something out of all this plastic?
There is so much plastic in Africa, that Uganda has banned them.Plastic is interfering with water penetrating the soil as they have become a liner. Every little thing you buy in Africa, they want to give you a plastic bag...
Then we saw the sewing process and so on at Trashy Bags. Very impressive.

Hopefully this can spill over to other countries and provide more work and income so people can be self supportive. GO TRASHY BAGS!

If you want to order these they will be available in the US on this website in about two weeks...http://www.business-connect.net

You can go to Trashy Bags website here

On the Road again...and hold on

Traveling in Liberia is interesting, to say the least. The roads here are few and beat up. Fifteen years of war can do that to a country. To travel anywhere is not easy. First of all the public transportation here needs a major overhaul. The auto taxi's here are clunkers. We were to travel last Sunday to Cote d'Ivoire from Ganta, Liberia.
Our experience started as we went the 'parking station' to get a vehicle. There they sign you up for a taxi. Imagine this... in one little car they will load three people in the front seat(this includes the driver) and four people in the back seat. We could wait for the car to fill up or we could pay for extra seats. This was a easy decision. We each bought two seats. Cost? Ten bucks per seat. No problem. Ok, now my partner asks "do you have a spare tire?" and "does it have brakes?"
So we loaded up...when the driver assured of us both. One women joins us with a little baby and we are off.
Just after going down the road, I realized something. This thing was one piece of junk. We had to push start it every time and everything creaked, squealed,and begged for mercy.
One and half hours into the trip ...it started falling apart. The passenger front tire brake pad was found in the red clay dirt road as the driver realized we had problems.
So not only was our driver, a chauffeur, he was also a roadside mechanic.
He pulls out his bag of parts and starts to fix this beater. Two hours later, he assures us that we will be going soon. (this is after another roadside mechanic jumps in to help)
But,one thing I have figured out in Africa, that while it might take time, it usually happens. We arrived safely at the Cote d'Ivoire border after leaving six hours before.
We said good bye to our driver and prayed for the next passengers to ride in the 'car'.

In Country-Liberia

As I landed In Liberia on Thursday afternoon I was greeted with palm trees and a very beautiful landscape. Overhead on arrival, I was amazed on how ‘green’ it was. Most of my experience in Africa has been in the dry season in Senegal.
As soon as I got off the plane, I was also reminded that this country is coming out of a long bitter confusing war. UN planes and vehicles were everywhere around the airport. Most Americans, including myself were oblivious to what happen here for 13 years. The devastation here from the war I am sure runs very deep into the culture.
I was amazed at the airport. It was very clean and orderly. I had this picture painted of it in my mind, and it was nothing like I had expected. This country is rebounding with resiliency.
My first night for dinner we met with a local doctor at his house. Inside, although very small with electric run by a generator, we were warmly received. There were many laughs and introductions that night and I had a sense I was really going to enjoy getting to know this country.
The heat and humidity here are high. It’s taking some getting used to. I love warm weather, but the humidity here is one thing I could do less of .
The last two here in Monrovia have been full of meeting with Equip Liberia and LEAD Liberia. Two organizations that I am praying about to collaborate with in the future. I am so impressed with both.
LEAD Liberia is a NGO that is building up Liberia through small and medium enterprises. Training and access to capitol for Liberians to build their business is the heartbeat of this organization. Yesterday, at the national conference/Monrovia, we heard about customer satisfaction and the importance of it. The ambassador to Liberia from the US was the keynote speaker. Here she encouraged the Liberian small business owners to be honest and fight corruption.
Equip Liberia is working in rural communities and assisting in reestablish medical work. The work is around 80% in rural communities and is putting a good size dent in bringing back medical care for everyone.
Tomorrow we finally head out to the bush. I am excited to what God is doing out there and look to join Him in the work.

On the Road Again...Goin places I've never been

On February 14, I embark on a 23 day three country trip, to West Africa. Landing in Accra , Ghana on the 15th , I will spend 2.5 days with the Reeds in the capitol city. Renita Reed of Partners Worldwide will be my host and 'tour guide'. The Reeds spent around four years in Liberia and have now settled in Ghana. I am so thankful for this opportunity.
I have spent a considerable amount of time communicating with Renita in preparation for this trip. I will also be with some North Americans from Michigan and Indiana while In Monrovia.

We will visit a few organizations and villages while in Ghana and then take off for Monrovia, Liberia. I will be spending around three days in Monrovia, which is the capitol of this war torn country. I then will proceed to venture out into the bush, Nimba county for about one week. There I will have the opportunity to see the work that Equip Liberia and L.E.A.D are doing in these farming communities.
Then its off to Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) for around five days. Here, I will visit with a pastor who has incorporated a demonstration farm and training center into his ministry. Because of the looting by rebels around 2003, it has to be reestablished.

So whats the point?
As we are beginning a new season of life with Equip International, we are looking at plugging into an opportunity for ministry and development.
I am interested in what these organizations are doing, and seeking God's plan for our lives.
Exciting times!

And I'm sure I will be ready to go home again...after visiting places that I've never been...

Oceans Waste Management-Monrovia Liberia

OCEANS from Partners Worldwide on Vimeo.