Dr. Roger Ellis in Egypt

Dr. Roger Ellis recently returned from an assignment on reproduction management in Egypt. In this video clip, he speaks about his experience working as an ACDI/VOCA volunteer in Egypt.

Advancing Horticultural Export Promotion in Jordan

ACDI/VOCA sent me to Amman, Jordan for three weeks to work with the Jordan Exporters and Producers Association for Fruit and Vegetables (JEPA), a nonprofit association of producers, exporters and allied service providers that promotes the export of fruit, vegetables, herbs and cut flowers. Members sell most of their crops domestically and to Middle Eastern neighbors but are working to grow sales to the EU and other markets where they can fetch much higher prices.

The assignment was funded through USAID's Farmer-to-Farmer program, which ACDI/VOCA implements in numerous countries worldwide. Its focus was to provide recommendations for:
- Improving JEPA's website content, layout and user-friendliness to serve users better
- Tapping the website's potential to help generate revenue related to membership, advertising and other opportunities, building financial self-sufficiency
- Streamlining website adminstration to maximize efficiency
- Related staff training and developments to build long term organizational capacity

Upon arrival in Amman, Jordan at 2AM local time, ACDI/VOCA's driver greeted me at the airport, provided me with a cell phone and business cards and took me to my hotel.

After a few hours of rest, I was wide awake and took a quick run to explore the vicinity. A delicious, nourishing Middle Eastern breakfast buffet awaited at the hotel, with pita, tomatoes, cucumbers, thick yogurt, fuul (fava beans), eggs, za'atar (spice mix), fruit and halva. That afternoon, JEPA's Marketing and Administration Director took me to the office to meet the Executive Director and the staff with whom I'd be working. We became acquainted, reviewed the Scope of Work and discussed the work schedule.

I worked in JEPA's office following the workweek schedule of Sunday through Thursday. Awakening by six am with the sun, my day generally began with a run or walk followed by breakfast, then a 10-minute walk to JEPA.

The broad focus of my work shifted from learning, developing preliminary recommendations, and refining the recommendations across the three weeks.

During the first few days, staff met with me to revise the Scope of Work and clarify its terms, and show me how to obtain website information, process it and post it online. I also met with ACDI/VOCA staff and developed a work plan to organize and focus my efforts.

After that, any given workday might find me evaluating JEPA's website and those of comparative organizations, exploring the website admnistrative backend, researching issues and resources such as market requirements and trends, and outlining recommendations aligned with the Scope of Work. I also met with staff to learn about website user needs and JEPA's marketing activities (online and offline), and discuss preliminary recommendations.

The project also involved a technical component beyond the initial Scope of Work: learning my way around Joomla, the content management system being used for JEPA's in-development updated website. JEPA staff hadn't yet been trained so I provided a basic overview and documentation to help them get started with it.

To complete the placement, I developed a draft final report collating recommendations, discussed this with JEPA staff, and revised it per their input. As their new website is still in development, I'm sure we'll stay in touch to discuss it as it is completed and launched. JEPA really accomplishes a lot with a small staff, and each staff person wears many hats. I was really impressed at everyone's capabilities and overall accomplishments.

An ACDI/VOCA placement certainly allows time to explore and get to know a country and its people during afternoons, evenings and weekends. Amman is the world's longest continously inhabited city and vast in size, so it has numerous ancient sites, museums, cultural activities and markets. It's also home to a large, diverse population. Jordan offers a wealth of historic, cultural and natural sites for a relatively small country.

Many afternoons found me walking around different neighborhoods and taking a short run at a nearby park, enjoying the opportunity to see how everyday residents went about their lives. On weekends, I took in the Citadel, Roman Theater, downtown markets, a few museums and different areas of the city, as well as the Dead Sea, the Baptism Site at the Bethany, the Dead Sea Panoramic Museum. I definitely want to return to see more of the country's beautiful deserts and historic ruins, and get to know more about its culture and people.

Liberia

Thanks to the World Wide Web, I recently spent a month in Liberia. One evening, while watching the news, I idly searched ACDI/VOCA volunteer opportunity list, not really expecting to find anything that fit my qualifications. I was surprised to see a request for a small ruminant specialist to provide training workshops, in the managment of sheep and goats, to farmers in Liberia. Well, that was right up my alley, but where is Liberia? To my credit, I knew it was in West Africa and a trip to Google Maps showed me that it is on the west coast, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Wikipedia informed me that it's a country of about four million people and was founded as the Republic of Liberia in 1847. A recent civil war left the country without a functional infrastructure and, due to destruction of its agriculture sector, Liberians are dependent on expensive imported food. The government, along with the United States and other foreign aid organizations, is working to develop and improve crop and livestock production to provide food security for the country. To support this effort, the ACDI/VOCA Farmer to Farmer Program, funded by the US Agency for International Development, is providing volunteer trainers to bring modern agricultural production information to Liberian Farmers.

The small ruminant project request was for February, 2011, and it was already the end of February when I discovered the listing. Thinking that it was probably too late, I filled out the online application and attached my resume anyway. Thanks to a very efficient ACDI/VOCA staff, a month later I was packing my bags for the flight to Monrovia, Liberia's capital.

After a few days' orientation by the friendly staff in Monrovia, we headed up country to Nimba County, one of Liberia's agricultural regions. The 120 mile trip from Monrovia to Ganta, the largest town in Nimba County, took about six hours due to the rough road conditions. Few roads in Liberia are paved and, especially during the rainy season, the rutted tracks are often impassible. This, combined with the high price of fuel, makes it difficult for farmers to get their products to the larger cities where prices are better, and sometimes the ripe produce rots before it can be transported. With the lack of refrigeration and transport, there is no commercial meat industry to speak of. The livestock are slaughtered and consumed locally in the villages or not at all. Except for the meals I ate on the farm, I think I had chicken every day I was in Liberia. It's the only fresh meat in town.

Speaking of food, I was amazed by the variety of crops grown in the fertile Nimba county farms. My first workshop was held on a farm that produces pineapple, cassava, plantain, bananas, sweet potatoes, eddoes (similar to taro) and rice, and raises chicken, pigs, sheep, goats and cattle. I ate fresh fruit from the local market every day. What a treat to have mango, avocado, bananas, and papaya and pineapple ripe for the picking. There is no comparison to the tired well-travelled fruit that I buy in my local upstate NY grocery store. The lush vegetation and bountiful harvest brought to mind the biblical description of the Garden of Eden.

Another vision that often came to mind during my travels in rural Liberia was of Edward Hicks' painting, The Peaceable Kingdom. For the most part, the livestock on the farms and in the villages are allowed to roam freely. During the day they wander unattended along the roadsides and through the brush, gathering their own food, visiting the streams for water, and napping under the trees. Along with the pigs, sheep and goats, roam dogs, cats and children, and I was surprised that I didn't see any conflicts arise. When I mentioned that our dogs would probably chase the sheep and goats and kill the chickens, the farmer was surprised and explained that their dogs are used to them and don't cause problems. Like Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom, however, there was an undercurrent of tension, and another farmer admitted that sometimes dogs do kill livestock, and thieves on motorbikes plague the villages, stealing the livestock and other items they can sell. While this area of Liberia doesn't have large jungle predators, there are poisonous snakes that sometimes kill livestock.

My trainees ranged from higly educated Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) inspectors to illiterate villagers who had no sheep and goats but hope to someday. The mix worked well, as the more experienced attendees helped explain key points to the others. While English is the official language in Liberia, most people in the rural areas speak their own tribal language. Those who haven't been able to attend school are not fluent in English, so some translation was needed. In fact, when I first arrived, translation from their English to my English and back again was necessary. In time I got used to the African dialect and they got used to my American accent and we got along quite well. There were a few women in my classes, but they explained to me that they had to take care of their families and it was difficult for them to attend on a regular basis. Gender equity is a high priority for the ACDI/VOCA programs, and our target was to reach an equal number of women and men. During my trip, the workshops and the village visits included about 25% women. My impression was that, as in many places, the problem wasn't so much that women weren't allowed or encouraged to take part in agriculture and business, but theat they had to do so in addition to their other responsibilities, taking care of the children, cooking meals and cleaning. And believe me, when you have no running water or electricity, these chores are very consuming.

The project focused on transferring improved methods and techniques in small ruminant animal husbandry, covering topics such as animal nutrition, reproduction, and disease prevention. To illustrate important points I used photographs, diagrams, drawings, charts and demonstrations. There was no charge to the participants, but they were expected to pass on what they learned to other farmers, and to implement the recommendations made as appropriate. I couldn't have asked for better trainees as they had great enthusiasm, asked lots of questions, and discussed how they could apply the information presented to their own situations. We had fun with the demonstrations, especially milking the goat and taste testing the milk. Also popular were the field trips to observe which plants the sheep and goats were eating, then identifying them and determining their nutrtional value. Thanks to the MOA participants, who knew the common names of most of the plans, and to internet access, which allowed me to find the Latin names and nutritional values, we came up with quite a long list of local plants and feed bi-products that they can use to provide a balanced diet to the livestock. As a Midwesterner who is used to balancing rations using corn, soybean meal and alfalfa hay, it was a challenge for me to do it using palm oil residue, rice bran, and banana leaves.

As with other trips I have taken, I came away with a real appreciation for the ability of the farmers to deal with adversity with hard work, persistence and humor. The Liberian farmers' goals are the same as those here in the US; to feed their families, provide a high quality product for consumers, and make enough income to send their children to school and set some money aside for emergencies. Also, like farmers everywhere, they want their government to do more to support agriculture. There is an upcoming national election in Liberia this year, and I hope that through the electoral process, and with a little help from their friends, they can achieve their goals.

- Mary Gessert

Tuesday - Workday Commute in Liberia

I used to think that going to work was the worst part of a job. It’s still true. However, I feel that my daily commute of 20 miles taking over an hour might differ from those in the city, crawling along in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

In the pouring rain, I get picked up by a mud encrusted Toyota Land Cruiser along with about five other passengers. As the guest of honor, I get to share the front passenger seat with staff member Tommy, who fortunately is also thin, while the rest cram in the back seat. Soon we leave the broken pavement of Gbarnga and head on a muddy track north. It’s a bit wetter than yesterday, as the road resembles a river. Dominic our driver, skillful navigates over wooden bridges he can’t see and we slide up and down rutted slippery slopes.

He stops the car and calls out to “check the tires”, which is code for time to pee. Gratefully we all pile out for some relief. It seems like we are going through a green tunnel with a forest of mostly rubber trees, destined to provide latex for Firestone tires. We continue on in four-wheel drive, passing several small settlements of earthen shacks with smoky fires coming from the cooking area. Eventually we reach our job site in Gbenquelleh village, Bong County. It’s another elementary school with 20 farmers waiting for me to conduct a workshop on food processing, and build a solar dryer in the rainy season. Just another tough day working in the jungle, can hardly wait for the ride home.

However, the local farmers are glad to see us even though we are a little late. It is the second day of the workshop. Yesterday we talked about sanitation, food processing, marketing and forming co-ops. Today we will build a Sun Works solar food dryer, our second on the assignment. The first carpenter, actually named Joseph, pre-cut most of the pieces for the other two to be built. This allowed us to get them inside of our vehicle, and to save time building them with less skilled labor. I chose this design because it can be made with hand tools, is inexpensive, and is fairly waterproof, important in the rainy season.

On the way back to Gbarnga, we stop at a village to purchase some fresh palm wine, an indigenous slightly alcoholic beverage made from the sap of the Royal Palm tree. It looks like lemonade and is slightly sweet and still fermenting. Its good for just a day or two before the fermentation process uses up the sugar and turns it bitter, but it is tasty now. We empty out our water bottles and they are filled from a gallon jug with fresh palm wine, which will be my dinner beverage tonight, setting us back about 20 cents each.

Eventually we return home, and I take a refreshing cool bucket bath to wash off today’s grime. Tomorrow, we will return to finish building the dryer and cut up Chile peppers and Bitter Balls, a local variety of eggplant, their main crops to be dried in their new food dryer. Hopefully, it won’t be raining.

Ralph Bucca
Princess Anne, MD

Preparing a Strategic Business Plan for a Rice Cooperative: Ghana

My volunteer assignment in Ghana was in May 2010. The objectives of the assignment were to develop a five-year strategic business plan for the Osudoku Agricultural Cooperative, and to train the cooperative on its implementation. The deliverables requested in completing the assignment were the strategic business plan, a detailed implementation manual and recommendations for monitoring the implementation.

The host organization for this project was the KPONG Irrigation Project (KIP). KIP is one of the largest Ghana Irrigation Development Authority schemes. Presently, there are 2,500 households involved in rice production, which is the main crop of the irrigation project. The farmer cooperatives Osudoku Agricultural Cooperative Society, was established by KIP to organize, manage and coordinate activities of the rice farmers.

I was the third volunteer assigned to the Osudoku Agricultural Cooperative. The first volunteer was dedicated to strengthening the organization and governance of the cooperative and the second worked with the leadership on roles, responsibilities and skill building.

Work fell into place nicely. During the first week, I went along the canals and met with groups of farmers. I met with cooperative officers and the irrigation project management. I talked to loan officers, rice millers and brokers.

As alternatives materialized, ACDI/VOCA staff in Accra and their in-country agricultural teams were wonderful resources to flesh out ideas and provide substance. One of the big issues for the individual farmers is the interest expense for agricultural loans. ACDI/VOCA is working with major national lenders to initiate a program to better inform farmers on the cost of credit, provide training for financial record keeping and help farmers better present themselves for more favorable credit terms. The commitment and follow-up from the local staff is valuable, on this issue and in other areas, as well. It suggests that the volunteer’s time on the ground will be leveraged and lead to successful outcomes for the individual farmers and the cooperative.

During this first week, my daily routine also fell into place. KIP provided lodging in a guest room, which was simple and adequate. It was at the top of a hill, near the KIP offices and about 0.5 km from the road where the dining court and cooperative offices were. The town was north of the equator so it was consistently daylight from 5 or 5:30 A.M. to about 6:30 P.M. I woke each morning with the birds, all around the trees beneath me on the hill and went down to the courtyard for breakfast. I also ate my dinner there and enjoyed the company of the owners and a few regulars.

During the second week, I continued to meet with stakeholders so I would become familiar with the activities of the cooperative and the resources available. I began to work intensely to complete drafts of the documents to share with the many people willing to be a sounding board. One of the goals, identified early on by the ACDI/VOCA volunteers, was to build trust among members and the executive committee through a higher level of transparency, so I tried to talk to everybody who had an interest in the success of the cooperative. I wanted to know their story. I hoped they would take a stake in the cooperative’s business plan.

As my time came to a close, during the third week, I completed the deliverables and took the highlights of the strategic business plan back to the canals, to the executive committee of the cooperative and to a project management team. Their reception was positive and very gratifying.

The work is not done- that is clear. But there was agreement to hire a business manager or request a cooperative officer from the national government. With ACDI/VOCA continuing work and a staff person dedicated to project management, there are favorable prospects that rice farmers in the Osudoku Agricultural Cooperative can realize a better return on their work.

Sincerely,

Valerie Stinger
Palo Alto, California

Training on tractor management and operations in Ghana

In September 2009, I traveled to Ghana, Africa for ACDI/VOCA to help the farm workers who work on some of the farms that belong to the National Association of Agrie Mechanisation Service Centre. The Service Centre has a supply of new John Deere and Farmtrac 70 horsepower Tractors that they rent or lease to the different farms that belong to the Association. My project was to teach the workers how to service the Tractors and to adjust the plows so that they would do a good job of plowing. I had a super interpreter and we had 5 different farm locations for which we traveled over 1000 miles in Ghana. We had a Nisian SUV and a good driver, as well as Lawrence Addison, Chairman of the Association. David Wagner, another ACDI/VOCA volunteer, also joined us and spent many hours working up a business plan for the Association.

We would spend two to three days at each farm conducting meetings with the workers which would last two to three hours. My interpreter would help me stress safety on operating the equipment and how to do a good job of working the soil. After the meetings we would go to the field with the equipment, where we found out fast that the workers knew that the tractors had a high gear and a throttle and they knew how to operate them, but were not aware tractor speed affects the efficiency of the plows.

The fields have hard spots in areas and with the plow set too shallow and with the tractor going too fast the plow would come out of the ground and skip over the hard spots. A lot of my instruction included thorough explanations to the group that the hard spots needed to be plowed like the rest of the field so crops would grow there and that the fields would yield much better crops.

We would demonstrate this by resetting the plow and having the driver put the tractor in the gear that is designed for plowing, showing them a real difference in the improvement of the plowing. Most of the workers were glad to learn how to do a better job. They learned that being the first one done does not always make for being a good farmer. It is the quality of work that counts.

I hope that my meetings with the workers and the managers will give long-term benefits. Everyone treated me great and it was a real pleasure for me to have to have these projects and to meet and work with so many great people.

This was my 22nd trip to someplace in the world and the projects keep getting better.

Sincerely,

Bill Kunzman

Bloomfield, Iowa

Proper Banana Fertilization: A volunteer assignment in Lebanon

In August 2009, I traveled as an ACDI/VOCA Volunteer from my home in Florence, Alabama to Beirut, Lebanon. This was my second trip to Lebanon; my first being a brief stopover in September 1975 on a Pan American flight from Iran to the US, as a returning Peace Corps Volunteer. The first visit was shortly after the start of the Lebanese Civil War and the Pan Am flight was met by armored personnel carriers, in contrast to the second visit in August 2009-- a peaceful arrival without event. Arriving at midnight, I was met by Noubia Gribi of ACDI/VOCA Lebanon and her husband Sid. They had big smiles which made me feel welcomed. They transported me (this jet-lagged volunteer) to my hotel in Beirut where I welcomed the time to rest.

The following morning, I was met by Mr. Charbel Abou Haidar of ACDI/VOCA Lebanon. After a brief orientation at the ACDI/VOCA Beirut office, Charbel and I left for the site of my eight-day assignment in South Lebanon. Along the way, Charbel indicated various points of interest, including the American University of Beirut. We arrived in the early afternoon to the ancient city of Saida where my hotel overlooked an ancient fortress built during the period of the Crusades and situated in the waters of the Mediterranean—completely water locked. I later learned from the hotel staff that my hotel, as well, was built by the Crusaders, around 1100-1200 A.D. After checking into the hotel, Charbel and I went to visit my host the Hariri Foundation and Mr. Ibrahim Hariri (Program Director, Agricultural Development) and Mr. Ali Dimassi (Field Coordinator). They gave me a tour of their agricultural research station where they were developing methods of growing bananas under net houses and drip irrigation. These innovative techniques were demonstrated to the banana farmers in South Lebanon.

On the next day after a good night’s sleep, I met my host with the necessary energy to fulfill my mission goals, that is: 1) helping the banana growers in South Lebanon with their fertilization program for bananas, and 2) determining whether they were applying more fertilizer than required for profitable yields, thereby increasing the potential for environmental pollution.

Ibrahim and Ali took me on banana grower site visits as well as to an impressive agri-input dealer in Saida, where banana growers could purchase the latest technology of irrigation (drip irrigation), fertilizers (water soluble and slow-release fertilizers), hybrid seeds and pesticides.

We visited banana growers in South Lebanon where I gained an understanding of how growers were cultivating their bananas and the fertilization programs they were using. These visits were my latest exposure to banana production; my previous exposure having been in Central America in the 1980s, where I was a Research Agronomist dealing with the development of best fertilization practices for bananas being produced under the Dole label.

Based upon the visits, I saw growers who were using some of the best agronomic tools related to irrigation (drip irrigation) and fertilizer technology

The banana farmers provided information about the amounts of fertilizer they were applying to their banana crops. Using my soil fertility background, which includes a two-year stint with the International Fertilizer Development Center in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a comparison could be made to the established agronomic information on the amount of nutrients required by banana plants in order to provide economical and profitable yields for growers. Based upon the comparison made, it appears that farmers could possibly reduce the application of fertilizers to their banana crops by 20%, without significantly impacting the banana yields. In order to validate the impact, a recommendation has been made to the Hariri Foundation to seek funding to do cooperative on-farm fertilizer trials, measuring the yield impact (positive or negative) where present commercial rates of fertilization are compared to banana yields from plants grown with 20% less fertilizer. A reduction of fertilizer use by 20%, without having a negative impact on banana yields, will save the banana farmer $530/acre. The cost of fertilizers makes up approximately 30% of the farmer production costs to produce bananas.

Based upon the assignment, it was established that banana farmers need to take soil samples for determining the nutrient status of the soils where bananas are grown. The results from commercial soil testing laboratories and portable soil testing laboratories should be evaluated in the formulation of a fertilization program leading to profitable yields and a reduction of potential environment pollution. The development of the fertilization program would be prepared with the participation of agri-input dealers. This is a viable extension activity that the Hariri Foundation can conduct on behalf of the Lebanese farmers.

Prior to leaving Lebanon, I met with Mr. Hassan Istaytiyyah (Farmer-to-Farmer Country Director for ACDI/VOCA) who gave me his perspective and personal experience of the 1975 to 1990 Lebanese Civil War. By having the opportunity to serve as a volunteer to Lebanon and interact with the Hariri Foundation, on behalf of the USAID funded Farmer-to-Farmer Program implemented by ACDI/VOCA, I left Lebanon, encouraged that the country, having survived and emerged through many years of civil strife, will continue to be a productive and enjoyable place to work and live.

--Steve Kovach