May 2007

Rockefeller is using the small-scale private sector to help with its seed. It’s sad but true. The individuals working in the public sector have little interest in success… and if small shop owners can get

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can get a profit by selling seeds along with information to farmers then it means that when a project finishes the shop owner still has an incentive to distribute seed… because they will still make money. Good outputs can therefore outlast the project – sustainability in action rather than just some word in a concept note.

Also, why shouldn’t people be able to make money if they help farmers – it’s a good thing. It has been a hard lesson for a lefty liberal like myself to accept that private sector can be a good thing.

By some chance I am now entering an after work drinking relationship with a guy who runs one of these projects. We are discussing whether there could be a job in it for me.

My trip to Chile
I’ve just got back from Chile. It was good to escape Nairobi for a while. I needed a break – although this was work. But you know what they say – a change is as good as a holiday. I cannot describe to you how nice it felt to spend Saturday and Sunday wondering around the city (Santiago) with a map in my hand and looking like a clueless tourist. Not really something that is possible in Nairobi. Was also great to meet the backpackers in the hostel. Starting out on a 6 month tour of the continent. Excited. Having left their work and responsibilities behind.

On my other day off I went up to the mountains near Santiago. So nice to play in snow and enjoy the view.

Was fun rediscovering my Spanish too.

Work was interesting although the jetlag, combined with a growing cold, really killed me and in the afternoons I was a bit of a mess. I was in Chile to meet with the people who run a project similar to mine for Latin America and the Caribbean. Sharing experiences and ideas. I learned some new things and had some new thoughts. Also understood better some of the drive from my Rome bosses who had initiated my Africa project to replicate the success of the Latin American one. I now have some serious thinking to do about how much of the experience of South America is relevant to Africa.

Back in Nairobi
When I walked back into the flat in Nairobi yesterday my flatmate, Lara, asked if that was it and I was returning to Europe now. I have been a bit grumpy recently and she thought that when I saw some other place I would wash my hands of Africa – up and leave. I haven’t. Not yet.

Why have I been grumpy? I think, as I said, needing a break. I’ve had one long weekend and two other days off plus Christmas, boxing day and new year since before I arrived in early December. And the strain of being here does begin to pull. I was becoming much less tolerant of all things disorganised over here.

Also, even my weekends now aren’t much of a break. I’m looking for jobs. Searching the internet. My contract finishes at the end of July and I don’t yet have anything to go to. I have French lessons three evenings a week and the other two it is really difficult to motivate myself to stay at work late to look for jobs… also, it’s not safe to stay alone there much after dark.

Right, I’m off to bed now to nurse my cold. Hot Toddy, cough medicine and paracetamol are all my new friends.

Sunday 22nd April.

Been a while since I blogged. Done lots of stuff since then.

Highlights

1. Visit to Nakuru National Park
2. Conference in Mozambique
3. Camping with Samburu tribes people over Easter
4. Rant about how European attitude to GM is damaging Africa

1. Nakuru National Park
Yup, so back in March I went to Nakuru national park – about 2-3 hours north of Nairobi. Some buddies (including my friend Borris from FAO-Rome… used to do the lake swim with me) and I hired a vehicle and drove along the rift valley up to the park one Friday afternoon. As we checked at the park gate, I met Sandra a teacher at the German school I’d had coffee with several weeks ago (a friend of another Rome buddy from the lake, Sebastian). So we decided to check into the same youth hostel/banda/ hut things and hang out together. This should be surprising, but… well the Nairobi crowd really is small – and there’s a good chance to bump into people all over the place.

Got up early to be greeted by a beautiful sunrise behind our hut with a heard of Buffalo. Beautiful.

The centre-piece of the park is Lake Nakuru, surrounded by some gentle hills and the special thing about the lake is that it is packed with Pink Flamingos - squillions of them. We went down to the lake side and the mass of pink birds was mind-boggling… Borris commented that the sound of all their feet walking around the lake, in and out of the water, was like a waterfall.. and yes. He was right.

Also met about 15 Rhinos (both white and black). The white ones are bigger and lighter in colour but actually get their name from the fact that they have a WIDE mouth.. and then the word was mistranslated somewhere to become white. Anyhoo, the wide mouthed white rhinos are grazers, eating vegetation off the ground (grass) – they are also social creatures that hang out together a lot. The black rhinos, which are smaller and more solitary, have a pointy mouth to help them browse for food from the trees.

The usual lions and monkeys were also seen, but the coolest thing was my first leopard – a baby, curled up on a tree. Auaaaahhhh.

The Saturday night, Borris and I wanted to take a slash around 2am… and opening the hut door to cross the site to the toilets/bushes, we were greeted by three great big Buffalos, the closest within 5m of us. I think I mentioned before that Buffalos are the 2nd most dangerous animal in Africa… killing and maiming many each year. Yieks!

Sunday morning we breakfasted outside with Zebras (including a baby) munching grass within a few metres of us.

I feel so spoiled here.

2. Conference in Mozambique
Yes, at the end of March, I went to Maputo for an incredible week. The conference brought together all the people funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in Africa. Over 400 of the best crop scientists, breeders and seed distributors on the continent, all doing amazing work. I am not funded by Rockefeller (an American charity run by an oil rich family) but when I heard about the meeting I demanded an invite. It was inspiring to meet these guys who have been nurtured by the Foundation over the years and trained to be top-class people and are really working, using plant science to improve crops… make them disease resistant, drought resistant, high in vitamins, low in toxins, insect resistant, striga resistant. Then at the same conference were breeders who could transfer the improved traits into locally adapted varieties. This is normally the furthest a scientist would think about a problem.. but having worked with the UN in Africa I now realise that its only the start of the problem. We have a lot of good crop varieties which aren’t being used by farmers… either because farmers don’t know about it… or because they know about it but can’t access the seed. There have been enormous problems making enough good seed for farmers to plant… and then getting the seed to the farmers.

You see almost 80% of Africans are small holder famers with about a hectare of land each. There are therefore, almost by definition the rural poor of Africa and any pro-poor policy or new variety should really target these people. They tend to live a long way from cities along very very bad roads. It used to be the job of governments to get seed/education to farmers, but the economic policies of the west, which led to reduction/removal of agricultural subsidies mean there isn’t enough money to do this effectively. It is in the domain of the private sector… but if there are no (good) roads to reach the small holder farmers, it is difficult to transport the seed. Even if there was a means to transport the seed, it becomes difficult to sell to the farmers who may not understand why its better, may be nervous about taking a risk on something new and don’t have access to any credit and rarely have spare cash. The same is true for fertilisers.

The issues of Seed Production and Distribution is big. Possibly almost as big as the issue of how the farmer will get their produce back to the market to sell once she/he’s grown it.

And the Rockefeller initiatives have made enourmous progress in this area reaching millions of small holder farmers. Some people would claim the issue shouldn’t be that big. If Coca-cola can get its product (which helps nobody) to the back of beyond and generate demand (which it can) then there is no excuse for the seed industry.

Rockefeller is using the small-scale private sector to help with its seed. It’s sad but true. The individuals working in the public sector have little interest in success… and if small shop owners can get

Johannesburg, 10th April 2007.

It was funny arriving in Jo’burg. Completely against all UN rules, I booked myself into a backpacker type B&B hostel on my arrival. As I was taken to the airport the thing which really struck me was that I was on a Highway. A motorway. Wide, smooth, clear, organised. We do not have them in Kenya. Also, the area around my accommodation looked very like suburban America. Wide roads, leafy criss-crossed residential, 4-way stops, malls… just more security here.

Sao Paolo, 11th April 2007

I have seen less of Brazil than I saw of South Africa… I don’t know if it is my romantic ideal or the winter light, but, as we came down to land in Sao Paolo and drove around the airport, it just seemed like a shiny happy place. Something that I can’t describe…

I’m sitting around in the airport now. When I saw the Air France plane and then the KLM… I felt somehow sad/happy. I am now so far from Europe (in my experience, Africa and many months are between Europe and Brazil) and seeing these things from home was quite a surprise… not at the intellectual level, but at the emotional level. I am sure that many people have shared this experience when far from home but the urge to walk smuggle myself on board the Air France plane was almost overpowering. I almost forgot how excited and fortunate I am to be coming here.

I spent 15 minutes watching the Air France plane leave its gate, taxi to the runway and take off. Just thinking about the connection.