Tag Archive for 'farming'

Naivasha rocks

Published on July 27, 2007 in Africa and Travel. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

[Nairobi, Kenya]
OOOPS…it looks like I took a hiatus from blogging here and on my MaxTheITpro blog. I got so swamped with stuff. Peeps wanting business plans written. Other peeps needed their PCs fixed, blah, blah, blah. My neighbour, literally, got screwed by her computer repairman who wanted to charge her KSh 12,000 to repair her son’s game PC, and he did jack all. In fact, he stole the internal FAX/modem and most likely swapped video cards on them. Bad customer service for sure. Anyhow, when he showed up at the house, my neighbour introduced me as an IT professional, and then he started to get really nervous. Suffice to say, we didn’t pay the crook and now all is well. My advice? BUYER BEWARE!!!

Beautiful Naivasha
Well, I took 2 trips up to the Lake Naivasha region (part of the Great Rift Valley) and stayed at my neighbour’s cottage in swanky Green Park. Damn, I saw tons of buffalos, giraffes, a few hippos here and there, gazelles, and a pile of other AMAZING wildlife. The view of Mount Longonot in this area is absolutely spectacular. Now, check this out. We were driving back from our friend’s place near HomeGrown Flowers at around 11 PM and lo and behold, we saw 2 giraffes walking together on the road back to Green Park. Cool!! Then we saw lots of zebras with their beautiful stripes. And this is like an hour outside of Nairobi. This is what’s so amazing about Africa.

Harmut, the Flower King…
I wanna thank Hartmut from Bilashaka Farms for showing me, Alexi and Justin around their massive flower operation. You see, I’m looking to get into Jatropha farming to produce BioDiesel. Plus I’d really like to get hemp going in East Africa too. Big coin. But I was AMAZED at the sheer size of Bilashaka’s operation. They were utilising every nook and cranny of technology to produce some unique flowers that are sold in Europe. Anyhow, I kept picking Hartmut’s brains on everything and anything to do with farming such as cultivating, soil, irrigation, etc. Let’s just say that this dude knows his stuff. Oh, I bet most of you peeps didn’t know that Kenya is like numero uno (#1) in the world for producing those lovely flowers that you peeps in the West just can’t get enough of. :-) Go Kenya go!

By the way, Hartmut’s cook made the BEST mouth watering steak I’ve ever had. Everyone at the dinner table shared the same opinion. I can still taste remnants of that juicy, succulent flavour on my tongue. Of course, I’m usually fixing (or improving) someone’s computer whenever I visit peep’s homes, so I was more than happy to make some improvements on Harmutt’s and Emma’s (his girlfriend) PCs. Now, Harmutt is also a pilot and a flying instructor. In fact, he was supposed to come back to Green Park to take me for a flight over Mount Longonot, but he had brake problems and I’m like “Dude, don’t worry about the plane ride…we can do it another time when things are SAFE.” I ain’t in no hurry to visit Hell. :-)

Kool gadget to die for…
Now, on my return visit to the Naivasha region, I met Andy who’s a manager at Homegrown Flowers. Now, I hear these guys are huge…much bigger than Bilashaka. Anyhow, Andy had this wicked Nokia N95 (I think) that had EVERYTHING but the god damn kitchen sink built in. For KSh 58,000, it is the god of all mobile devices. What does it have? I thought you’d never ask. It had WiFi, EDGE/GPRS, HSDPA (a super high speed 3G mobile Internet access technology), MP3 player, can read/write MS-Office files, GPS receiver with maps, 5 mega pixel camera, blah, blah, blah. Damn Andy!! :-)

Oh, thanks to Andy’s very kool wife, Fleur, for that warm Naivasha hospitality. We LOVED that amazing breakfast before heading back to Nairobi “that” Tuesday morning. :-)

Pictures?
I promise to put up some kool pics soon relating to my very memorable Naivasha visit.

L8tr!

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Cotton: World’s Most Toxic Crop

Published on April 23, 2007 in Africa, Business and Opinions. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

[Nairobi, Kenya]
THEY SAY humans are the most intelligent creatures on the planet. Perhaps so. What’s shocking, though, is how the majority of the world’s population allow certain toxic industries to flourish. I’m talking about industries that pollute our fragile environment every day — especially when greener alternatives exist. You need an example? Cotton farming. Hemp could replace this crop while making our world a cleaner, more livable place over night.

I will leave you with this article (see Google cache) below, courtesy of the Washington Free Press, which is a “bi-monthly newspaper from Seattle highlighting labor and environmental issues. Emphasis on local issues, with some national and world-wide news.” It’s based in the beautiful state of Washington (USA.), which is located in the Pacific NorthWest — a region with tons of avid green citizens who love the outdoors. Cities such as Portland, Beaverton, Vancouver, Seattle, Olympia and Tacoma are located here. By the way, don’t forget to take a peek at an earlier Go Africa go! blog post I wrote last month in Tanzania: Hemp Farming in Africa: A Billion Dollar Industry? After you read it, prepare to be very angry. You’ll also realize that Africa could be raking in billions of dollars simply by growing hemp.

Dude, why’re you wearing that shirt?

Cotton: World’s Most Toxic Crop
by Organic Consumers’ Association

Cotton is the most toxic crop on the planet. While only three percent of the world’s farming acreage is cotton, these crops are sprayed with up to 25 percent of the world’s pesticides and herbicides, including some of the most toxic ones, such as aldicarb. And of course cotton is present in many other consumer products besides garments–food products, tampons, bandages, baby diapers, mattresses, bed linen, etc.

According to www.sustainablecotton.org, “the simple act of growing and harvesting the one pound of cotton fiber needed to make a T-shirt takes an enormous toll on the air, water, and soil, not to mention the health of people in cotton growing areas. The cotton grown for just one T-shirt requires a third of a pound of agricultural chemicals.”

Moreover, some 60 percent of a cotton crop, by weight, enters the food chain in the form of cottonseed oil which is used widely in processed foods, and as cottonseed feed for cows, ending up in meat and dairy products. The pesticide residues from these cottonseeds concentrate in the fatty tissues of these animals, and in turn are passed on in meat and dairy products to consumers.

Genetically engineered (GE) cotton is another problem. Playing on concerns about pesticides, Monsanto has pushed GE cottonseeds onto the market in more than a half-dozen countries as the “green alternative” for cotton growers. In terms of human health hazards, herbicide-resistant GE cotton plants–and their oil and seed derivatives–contain foreign proteins, bacteria, viral promoters, and antibiotic resistant genes–food ingredients that humans have never eaten before. These GE plants and their derivatives are unlabeled and untested for hazards to human health and the environment. Over ten million acres of genetically engineered cotton are now being grown across the US. These cotton plants are gene-spliced so that the cotton plant emits its own pesticide, or else the plant is genetically engineered to be able to survive mega-doses of powerful pesticides.

Biotech cotton is a mortal threat to organic cotton farming, the real “no pesticide” alternative. This threat is two-fold. First of all, it is a source of genetic pollution (like GE corn or canola), spreading its altered DNA. Even worse, it is slowly but steadily building up resistance among cotton pests, creating the preconditions for cotton superpests to arise.


Oh…
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Hemp Farming in Africa: A Billion Dollar Industry?

Published on March 8, 2007 in Africa and Business. 7 Comments Tags: , , , .
[Dar es Salaam, Tanzania]
ARE you kidding me? A billion dollars? Read for yourself…courtesy of Jack Herer, hemp expert extraordinaire:

February 1938: Popular Mechanics Magazine:

“NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP”

February 1928: Mechanical Engineering Magazine:

“THE MOST PROFITABLE & DESIRABLE CROP THAT CAN BE GROWN”

Well, if you’ve been sleeping in a cave for a good half century, you’d probably never realize that mankind has been blessed with a plant of magnificent (almost magical) proportions. A plant that can do almost everything (food, medicine, skin care, building materials, clothing, industrial composites, natural herbicide/fertilizer, and tons more cool stuff) except fix your kitchen sink and babysit the kids.

In a sense, hemp is like the Chameleon Creature in the The Mighty Hercules cartoon series, which I used to watch religiously during breakfast time before heading off to public school in Ottawa, Canada. Oh alright, I watched it a bit in high school too. Boy, the Chameleon was an amazing foe. He could instantly change into a bird, another person, a snake, a tree, a giant blob monster – anything – in order to evade capture or to battle Hercules. I always dreamt of having such “chameleonic” powers. Oh well, dreams like that only materialize in movies on the idiot box (TV), eh?

$how me the money
So, how good is hemp as a potential income earner for farmers here in Africa? Well, take a peek on Jack’s thoughts:

“As you will see in these articles, the newly mechanized cannabis hemp industry was in its infancy, but well on its way to making cannabis America’s largest agricultural crop. And in light of subsequent developments (e.g. biomass energy technology, building materials, etc.), we now know that hemp is the world’s most important ecological resource and therefore, potentially our planet’s single largest industry.

The Popular Mechanics article was the very first time in American history that the term “billion-dollar”* was ever applied to any U.S. agricultural crop!

*Equivalent to $40-$80 billion now.

Experts today conservatively estimate that, once fully restored in America, hemp industries will generate $500 billion to a trillion dollars per year, and will save the planet and civilization from fossil fuels and their derivatives – and from deforestation!

If Harry Anslinger, DuPont, Hearst and their paid-for (know it or not, then as now) politicians had not outlawed hemp – under the pretext of marijuana (see Chapter 4, “Last Days of Legal Cannabis”) – and suppressed hemp knowledge from our schools, researchers and even scientists, the glowing predictions in these articles would already have come true by now – and more benefits than anyone could then envision – as new technologies and uses continue to develop.” {source}

My Thoughts
Okay, all I want to say is that I sincerely hope government leaders here in Africa are much more sensible (and less corrupt) than their counterparts in the USA who have made hemp illegal to grow for purely political reasons. Heck, they’ve even passed these ridiculous policies on to other naive nations trying to earn favours (usually access to US markets, or financial aid). This is in order to protect some very big and powerful corporations (Archer Daniels Midland, Dupont, the entire pharmaceutical industry, the toxic cotton industry, among others) as billions of dollars in profits and shareholder equity are at stake. You don’t believe me? Well take a peek at this:

“A further crisis for Hemp arose in America during the 1930’s due to propaganda created from companies with vested interest from the new petroleum based synthetic textile companies and the large and powerful newspaper / lumber barons who saw Hemp as the biggest threat to their businesses. Traditionally, Hemp was processed by hand which was very labour intensive and costly, not lending itself towards modern commercial production. In 1917 American George W. Schlichten patented a new machine for separating the fibre from the internal woody core (’Hurds‘) reducing labour costs by a factor of 100 and increasing fibre yield by a factor of 60. Mr Schlichten and his machines disappeared, not surprisingly!” {source}

Well, thank goodness there are countries such as Canada, France, Russia, Norway, Holland, China and many others whose governments are led by individuals with a different political agenda. If you look at that list, you’ll also notice that said nations were not “suckered” into sending their troops to Iraq with all of that faulty (and expensive) so-called intelligence. So it appears that there is some sanity in this world after all. :-) But I’ll leave it to Uncle Nick to show you how much insanity exists right before our very eyes. Once again, here’s further proof of the hypocrisy of the US government when hemp enters the scene:

“During the Second World War the supplies of Hemp from the East were being cut off so American farmers were encouraged to grow Hemp for military use (webbing, canvas etc.) under the banner of “Hemp For Victory“. After the war, licences were subsequently revoked, at a similar time to the last Hemp crops being grown in the U.K.” {source}

In closing, I suggest that farmers here in Africa should seriously consider the possibility of growing hemp. Period. This would create excellent opportunities to use it domestically while also earning valuable foreign exchange since it has, literally, thousands of industrial uses. You see, the plant is like a damn chameleon. :-)

Oh, I know who hemp reminds me of: Michael Jordan. Besides, his great high-flying offensive basketball skills, MJ will probably go down as the greatest defensive player ever. He used to shut down the best players from the opposing team night in, night out. In addition, he was a great passer, shooter, ball handler and rebounder. He simply did it all – just like hemp. :-)

By the way, don’t forget the numerous jobs that would be created to support the hemp industry along with the knowledge that the environment is getting a big friendly boost. One other thing. It’s no secret that certain agricultural products (cotton, sugar, etc.) are not bringing in the profit margins for farmers that was guaranteed in the past.

“According to the government’s Annual Vulnerability Monitoring Report 2005, cotton prices have fallen steadily over the past few years as a result of international competition and last year’s price for cotton was about 33 percent lower than the previous year. A similar fate has befallen the sugar industry. The European Union plans to slash its price to suppliers in African, Caribbean and Pacific Least Developing Countries by 37 percent from the start of 2007 to bring it in line with the global price, causing the profits of Swazi producers to shrink significantly.” {source}

Now, according to Lufto Dlamini (Swazi Minister for Enterprise and Employment), “in hemp we have an alternative to cotton, which has let us down badly over the last few years.” {source} This is yet more food for thought, and a sign that some government leaders in Africa are starting to see hemp’s true potential. Right now, this is probably one of the best win-win business opportunities on the planet and, perhaps, in the history of the world.

Go hemp go! :-)

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