Outgrower produced pineapples ready for juicing
Pineapple crowns are replanted. After castration each plant will produce five or six viable suckers which are given to smallholders as initial seed
The factory farm will produce its first commercial pineapple crop in March 2011
A small sample of organic peppers from one outgrower being assessed for quality. It is vital that local farmers do not become over-dependent on a single cash crop.
In my first overseas job I had the agriculrture brief at the British High Commission in Lagos for four years. Being me, I threw myself into it and the enthusiasm has never left me. The passages in The Catholic Orangemen of Togo on African agriculture are among my most passionately felt writings.
I remain immersed in the policy questions of the impact of colonialism on land ownership patterns, and the destruction of African agriculture by first world agricultural protectionism and dumping. But there is still no work that makes me happier than practical involvement with African farming communities. My main work in Ghana is in the energy sector, but I have been helping on a voluntary basis with a number of agricultural projects. This one is led by my old friend Felix Semavor.
How do I help? Well, I help to access development funding – in this case, the US government is helping with a feeder road, and the Dutch and Danish governments have helped provide agro-processing equipment. I spent Monday morning working with outgrowers to finalise their business development plans for startup loan applications. I have been advising on meeting the requirements for fairtrade certification, right down to details like methods of latrine construction.
I have also been able to help a little in dealing with potential UK and European customers.
This particular project involves production of flash frozen coconut, pineapple and mango pieces and of juices – primarily mango and pineapple, but we are also looking at pineapple and papaya and other mixes.
The project is primarily aimed at the export market, and I believe will be very succesful. The factory will ultimately support some 10,000 outgrowers. Once an outgrower cooperative has a total of 100 hectares, the economics comfortably support a communal tractor and pickup.
All is not entirely straightforward. There has been a widespread failure of the mango crop this year. probably because of exceptionally heavy early rains during the flowering period. Growers are establishing large pineapple fields. These have to be sloped, as retained water can quickly lead to Phytophthora infestation – something we have largely eliminated. But the result is of course the danger of soil erosion in the rainy season. There is no sign of a real problem yet, but these are early days and we are looking at bunds and intercropping.
I have tried very hard to affect my country’s foreign policy, both from the inside and the outside of the political establishment, to improve respect for human rights. I have achieved a small amount and been personally hurt by the attempt. I will still keep trying. But nothing is better for the soul than working to help people in poverty improve their lives, and to produce crops from the earth. Voltaire was right. Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
I do hope that you will buy and read The Catholic Orangemen of Togo, which I hope is a profound text on the condition of Africa disguised as a series of anecdotal romps. That was what I was trying to do, anyway.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/buy_the_catholi.html
Apart from which, I am moving house on Thursday and am somewhat strapped for cash. If you too are strapped for cash, there is an option to read it free on line. If you have already read it, buy a copy for someone else as a present. If you think its rubbish, buy a copy for someone you don’t like as a present!
Alfred: “The Holocaust was either a crime against humanity without compare in the history of the world and for which all the World is in part to blame — a view with many political consequences, or it was merely one of a many twentieth century state-sponsored mass murders in which Jews have been involved not only as victims but also as perpetrators.”
Fuck you, Alfred. The Jews were not perpetrators in the Holocaust.
I might be interested in buying an updated paperback edition of Catholic Orangemen, particularly if these or similar pics are included (“The Man from Del Monte is not sure” is a must).
Comment in a Guardian thread on ambassadors.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/14/ambassadors-job-diplomat-training?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:b6b7be19-d258-47a7-b9f1-5b32dcf0a321
The article is by Oliver Miles but the comment is by Charles Crawford.
“Part of Craig Murray’s problem in Uzbekistan was that the Embassy was seriously underpowered, leaving too great a policy and operational burden on the Ambassador personally. Plus his communications equipment was not good (cost/security reasons) which meant that he found it difficult to have a sensible dialogue with London about sensitive policy issues.”
You can probably just use this as the URL
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/14/ambassadors-job-diplomat-training
‘Reprieve: Blair overruled FCO demands for access to rendered prisoners. “Tony Blair expressly ordered Jack Straw to violate the law”‘
http://tinyurl.com/3yby5kp
Mais, oui, c’est sur
I have little confidence in what the EU is doing. Same game…different package.
Anyway, here is why in a genuine, humane and progressive way we need to think globally.
Here is the evidence. They produce the shit – package and export the shit – and – guess what – we eat the shit… just watch….http://www.vimeo.com/11817894
Hey all – here is something of interest if you want to understand how the system really works..http://markcurtis.wordpress.com/
You’ve probably seen this already, but just thought it needed highlighting…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2010/jul/14/toture-files-key-passages
Hope that the move goes well today Craig and to wish you, Nadira and Cameron happiness in your new home.
Best wishes for moving house today.
The true colonial who flourishes in the ruthless slaughter stage of his career never forgets, Winston Churchill-like, to proceed to the leisured gardening stage. But I think this ‘il faut cultiver’ is the statement of one who tried to do good and was frustrated in his efforts. Cultivation is the refuge of the both the megalomaniacs like Blair as well as the vexed and persecuted.
In the latter case they are recovering from the injustices done to them by others, while in the former, from the injustices they have done to their own cause and themselves. Rehearsing to themselves as they prune their roses that they had no choice in their violent invasions but to prune the power of those Muslim societies, which were after all so much more beautiful than themselves.
Best wishes to Craig & Nadira in their new home.
‘Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.’
Henry Van Dyke
Thank-you for the link Chin – interesting
This is one of the typical American 911 truthtards, who produce the content that you people believe without skepticism:
http://911blogger.com/news/2010-07-14/stickers-plane-saga-delta-1165
Please note an urgent post here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/07/torture_inquiry_1.html
Thank-you
Mark
You never explained what Children of Iraq actually does. You deliver publications under the umbrella of an Iraqi medical programme. Is this to proselytise against Islam? The soft side of the war on terra? Or do you give aid as well? Enlighten please, if you have the time.
Good luck with moving homes into a more spacious and relaxing abode.
I’m screwed to the floor at present, my gout is killing me and I can do as I want. Some ex pats swear by Rishi mushroom, anybody heard of it?
“Castration” of pineapples sounds like a bit of extreme phrasing. Is it standard?
Craig
Adding to good wishes to the family for your move [I’d have done so sooner but tied up communicating with a monolingual Hungarian couple who are my new tenants. I don’t speak Hungarian: so, we are all becoming dab hands at improvised sign language and expressive grunts], can I add further reflections on pineapples?
In many parts of London (and no doubt other places in the UK} pineapples feature on top of either side of garden walls – with or without a swinging gate – leading to the front door. I have always understood this to be a symbol of prosperity and fecundity. Appropriate for a pineapple farmer and his flourishing family.
Ananas also has a touch of the exotic, not being a genus native to these islands ever since the Flandrian Transgression islanded them from the Eurasian landmass. Pineapples are also an internal decorative feature (and on some crockery and cutlery).
No doubt googling will provide more on the pineapple’s iconography. Indeed, here’s Kew:
“…its Latin name Ananas came from the word ‘nana’ which was the local people’s name for the plant. People in the Caribbean area at that time valued the fruit highly, placing it outside their homes to welcome visitors. Later, Europeans adopted this habit with the pineapple motif used on gateposts and in carvings.”
Will your new home have decorative pineapples? I also suggest as an appropriate dish to celebrate your move pork loin chops with a sauce made from onions and garlic, dry white wine, chicken stock and crushed pineapple flesh and juice. It’s delicious – I’ll email you the recipe I used. [It calls for “kosher salt”, which seems strange for a pork recipe. As I made it, this was a fully kosher non-kosher dish i.e. no ingredient used was in accordance with kosher/ halal rules of food preparation.]
Anno,
‘Is this to proselytise against Islam?’
Why are you of the opinion I am trying to convert people’s beliefs?
Strange?
Mark
Is what to proselytise against Islam?
There have been many U.S. websites urging people to rescue Iraqi orphans from their hateful religion and the mess the US leaders made there.
I appreciate that every effort to help people in a war-zone is overloaded with political camouflage just to get permission to be there at all. Your website doesn’t explain what you are doing there. Perhaps if it did, you wouldn’t get permission to go there, but others are there adding insult to the injury of invasion, by forcing their own culture onto the suffering people.
As I perceive it, the war on terror has forced all the Muslims to bend over backwards to pretend that they are not Muslim, to avoid the prejudice generated by the war and its media propaganda. And all the non-Muslims have cranked up their political correctness to wincing point, that they love Muslims, but those naughty acts on 911 force them to act, much against their own wishes and consciences.
I would have contributed to your charity if it had been clear what you were trying to achieve. But I realise that muddied waters in war-time are camouflage for both good and bad deeds.
I’m not expecting an answer from you but you must agree that in the context of Craig’s post colonial enterprises in Africa, it’s fair to ask the question whether foreigners are there to help or like many of our countrymen in Africa, continue the plunder, with the same remorseless vigour as before.
Somebody who is proselytising against Islam is this creep from Holland.
Anti-Islamic crusader launches recruitment drive in UK
By Allan Hall
16th July 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1295047/Dutch-politician-says-UK-freedom-alliance-countries-Islam.html#ixzz0tqS49TCA
I have not read the comments. This one made earlier by a Medialens contributor had not appeared.
++++++++++
To dignify this man as a “crusader” in your headline reminded me of other great Daily Mail headlines:
“Youth Triumphant” in support of Adolf Hitler in 1933
“Hurrah for the Blackshirts” in support of Oswald Mosely in January 1934
Racism and fascism are twin evils.
+++++++++
How is the emptying of all those boxes going Craig?
Lament for child killed by Israeli Army
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr1s_wxN0qQ&a=5PMKrIfCyfA&playnext_from=ML
The crimes Larry from St Louis and his friends try to hide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHy1xpznE48&feature=related
Mark Curtis has a British Establishment fantasy that the UK covertly supports terrorists in order to further its national interests. a fantasy that self-aggrandises the political class, that they still sit down and discuss things with their enemies in the morning before engaging with their enemies in battle after lunch.
The reality is that the British establishment is a vast ignorant iceberg elite, with an even vaster ignorant British public sitting unseen beneath the water. They regard their culture and usurious economics as being vastly superior to anything anybody else has yet come up with, and yes, they do send a lot of people over to win the battle of the hearts and minds of their enemies. Craig Murray is one and Mark Golding is another.
To say that the British Establishment secretly supports terrorists is like saying that a football team mascot helps them win the world cup. Robinson Crusoe planted his flag and cultivated the soil of his remote destination. Can’t anyone see the irony in the creation of the Crusoe myth, that colonisers are satisfied with the illusion of converting the alien into the familiar, Ghana jungle into Lincolnshire sugar beet.
The world of Teaching English as Foreign Language, TEFL is a sprawling octopus of de-Islamification. The stick and carrot of the invitation to Turkey to join Europe, satisfies the political class like Paddy Ashdown, that politics works.
In reality, nothing has cemented the Muslim people of the world together than the antrics of Bush and Blair. The West is like a sand cliff being slowly washed into the sea. The economics of usury, like farmland being returned to the sea, a barren, salty wasteland. The Protestant dream is being taken back by the relentless greed of usurious bankers. Planned downsizing, part of the economic cycle, drawl the British ruling class.
Pretentious twats!
Still we have vastly superior Ananas experience coming in here, Dean Kuntz, with tz, has managed to say it all in two words.
‘Pretentious twats!’
Whethert his was directed towards us or the simple pineapple growing operation is not quiet clear.
Anno,
I completely understand your argument that contains a strong element of truth. With respect you should know my position by now from an understanding of the thrust of the majority of my comments here.
As I told Tony some time ago, I cannot accept any contributions because despite 6 yrs past we are still fighting for charitable status and right now the Charity Commission has again requested evidence of our application made in 1995 which they responded to by letter.
Finally, rest assured your questions were put to me at an HTB conference in London I attended; the warm welcome and love I received there was proof the community door was wide open for me.
“Robinson Crusoe”
I saw a copy of that in the library a while back, and suddenly realised I’d never actually read it, I only thought I knew what it was because there’ve always been people telling me (as an illustration of the mindset, it’s interesting, the importance of his relationship with God and so on. As a novel, it can get tedious).
What struck me most was the importance of his gun. He says it very clearly, that without the ability to kill wild animals at a distance, he’d have starved long before he could develop other food sources, he’d have had no chance.
Quoth anno:
“They regard their culture and usurious economics as being vastly superior to anything anybody else has yet come up with, and yes, they do send a lot of people over to win the battle of the hearts and minds of their enemies. Craig Murray is one and Mark Golding is another.”
What gargantuan bollocks. You notions of the homogeneity (look it up) of this nation, or even its elite, is infantile. Come back when you’ve picked up a shred or two of reason.