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!
Sigh – should read ‘Your notion’. The perils of speed-ranting.
“The perils of speed-ranting”
Oh, fun ! The Ad-Hominem Chicane, the “You obviously haven’t read carefully enough” Hairpin, the “You can’t prove I meant that” Slalom, full down on the accelerator for the Easy-cliches Straight …
Anno: “Blah blah blah conspiracy against Muslims blah blah blah usurious banks blah blah blah the Joooos”
Mark Golding: “I completely understand your argument that contains a strong element of truth.”
“Badly losing the war in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus has decided to promote a violent civil war in Afghan villages.
That is the true intent of the new so-called Local Defense Initiatives that Petraeus forced down the throat of Afghanistan’s puppet president Hamid Karzai. The new plan is a variant of the Community Defense Initiative that Gen. Stanley McChrystal tried to impose on Afghanistan after Obama selected him to lead the expanded war effort in 2009.
The Petraeus strategy calls for putting 10,000 job-hungry Afghan villagers on the Pentagon payroll. They will be given money and guns so that they can form militias and shoot and kill other members of their village who are asserted to be either pro-Taliban or opposed to the U.S./NATO occupation.
The new strategy further underscores the criminal role of the Pentagon generals. Petraeus is consciously fomenting civil war and ethnic rivalry just as he did in Iraq. Gen. James Mattis, Petraeus’ new boss at Central Command, when speaking to a crowd in San Diego in 2005 about his experience in Afghanistan, said “it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot ’em.”
President Obama and his military team recognize that it is less damaging at home, where there is almost no support for this endless occupation, to foment civil war in Afghanistan and pay desperate Afghans to slaughter each other as a means of reducing U.S. casualties.
U.K. taxpayers who are experiencing devastating cuts in County and local budgets, layoffs of public workers, soaring tuition costs in public colleges?”all because of budget shortfalls?”will see millions of their tax pounds go to fund the occupation of Afghanistan and pay the salaries of poor Afghans so that they can shoot other poor Afghans. This is a classic divide-and-conquer tactic used historically by all colonial powers to break up a united resistance by the people whose lands they occupy.” – ADC
Echoes of Nixon and Kissinger’s murderous ‘Vietnamization’ plan that failed? – the Vietnamese were unwilling to live under foreign occupation and we witness with only minimal knowledge that ‘divide & conquer’ is being tried in Iraq and now in Iran – pitching Shia against Sunni is a classic corruption of Islam demonstrated before our very eyes in Saudi and Dubai where West meets East in an absurd mixing bowl of money and religion.
I second you analysis Mark, it is a strategy that is counteracting their exit, providing the US with more semi legitamite reasoning to further outstay their welcome.
Karzai is increasingly getting tetchy about his cabinet as well as about what is galvanising itself into a civil war outside the Kabul enclave.
The US failed to realise that paying Iraqis does not translate into paying Afghans, they will have to live on with the Taliban in future, thanks to the west creating this beastly political strand of islam.
Now petreaus believes that he can untie the family ties and inter tribal connections by paying some money and handing out guns?
It will fail, the Taliban will get more arms, just as the Northern Alliance is armed to the teeth thanks to the EU, Pashtuns have a family code and bond that will not allow this to work, a waste of time and money, like you said.
What it will create is more hate and more impetus to kill any westerner, not just the US soldiers, it will turn Afghanistan into a frenzy.
Hours before the slaughter of nine unarmed Turkish activists delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, seven Turkish naval personnel were murdered in Turkey’s Iskenderun seaport in Hatay province near the border with Syria, by the PKK.
The PKK according to Professor Sedat Laciner has received some training from Israel. This seems reasonable considering Turkey’s support for Iran against Western sanctions.
Israel has supported the PKK against Iran. We remember well that Israeli advisers also encouraged the Kurdish groups to cause trouble and killings against Baghdad to establish a separate Kurdish state in the Northern Iraq.
What concerns me at the time was British Special Forces involvement in Northern Iraq together with the Israelis.
According to Dr Nilgun Gulcan they legitimate their existence with help to the local Kurds yet everybody knows that they have a hidden agenda and secret relations with the armed groups in the region.
Israelis have also been reported to be operating with Kurdish rebels in Iran along with US and British Special Forces, in what Tehran claims is a systematic campaign to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
Recently, US lawmakers warned Turkey that unless it abandons its policy of befriending Iran and shunning Israel, it would pay a hefty price.
“With regard to Congress of the United States, there will be a cost if Turkey stays on its current path of growing close to Iran and more antagonistic to Israel,” US Republican Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana told Turkey’s envoy to Washington last week.
Pressure is now on Israel after the assassination of a Hamas leader, discussion by IAEA over Israel’s atomic arsenal, the attack on Gaza-bound aid convoys, and the international push for the lifting of the Gaza blockade and I am closely watching the actions of British government and deployment of British agents and Special Forces in these critical areas.
@Craig
Re: Aid, trade and economic development
The idea of “aid” for Africa from the European Union or any Western donor, is one which has in it the seeds of the underdevelopment of the continent.
A simple example might suffice. Say, the cost of a tractor were to be measured in terms of the physical terms of trade, then we could use a fifty year spread to assess the change. Say in year one, it took “x” tons of pineapples to buy one tractor from the UK, then by year 50 we find that it takes “x plus 30” tons to buy the same type of tractor. The countries with manufacturing and technological capabilities sell at prices that militate against the capacity of the non-industrialised to keep apace with prices, thus overtime despite producing more they actual less in monetary value. In a sentence, the terms of trade work to the disadvantage of the non-industrialised countries.
Then we get to “Aid”, because the same countries that have the advantage of being industrialised come to the non-industrialised on the pretext that they are somehow going to assist with their development. The package given might be exposed by reference to Cuba.
Cuba, as you know, is a small Caribbean Island, with about 10 million people. However let’s consider its foreign policies by reference to some examples:-
1. It sent some 60 thousand troops into Southern Africa to fight the racists during the Apartheid era. At the same time Israel was selling nuclear technology to Apartheid South Africa. Also, leaders such as Margret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were doing everything in their power to prolong the life of the then South African government. The Cuban intervention served along with the ANC to defeat the racist regime.
2. The oppressive nature of Western involvement has its mirror image in the way trade relations are conducted. Cuba has sent its health workers, doctors, nurses and others around the globe to assist countries in need, and Haiti is the most recent instance, before and after the earthquake in that country. Contrast the announcement of billions in aid coming from the US. What happens as always is that a large monetary number of “Aid” assistance is announced. The pattern is then for the expenditure to be linked to a steady stream of consultants and the money is then channeled back into purchases from the donor country for purchase of their manufactured goods. By contrast, I have travelled and seen the Cubans proceed as follows. A school is needed. They send their workers, the recipient country provides the land, the workers build the school, and if technical is assistance is thereafter needed sufficient teachers are also provided for so long as is necessary. There is there no grand announcement of the billions that are being donated, but the results are quite immediate and direct. Cuban doctors and nurses are presently assisting with building a health service in Venezuela and Haiti for provision of health services to the poor. An instance of Western “Aid” is the “Caribbean Basin Initiative” which was an “Aid” package under the Regan Admisntratin that was announced as being a measures to reviatlise and grow Caribbean economies, and now some thirty years on the economic disadvantages are as persistent as ever. Likewise, there is this stark contrast with how the UK or EU goes about the “business” of providing “Aid” as compared to Cuba. It is not just me saying this, because those doing it actually admit:-
“The principal beneficiary of America’s foreign assistance programs has always been the United States.”
US Agency for International Development Source: “Direct Economic Benefits of U.S. Assistance Programs,” 1999
So, it is not that there is not a known way of assisting poorer countries. It is just that a schema is in place that actually perpetuates the poverty and inflicts dependency on the recipient country.
The pineapple project may not be as bad as I have just described, but I doubt I am incorrect about the matrix within which trade between the UK and Ghana operates.
Over to you Craig.
As in Africa, the Brits created the problem in Turkey by dividing Kurdistan. You have only to look at the relentlessness of the problems of Northern Ireland to understand the longevity of the damage caused by us in Eastern Turkey.
It’s all very well the Blairs and Eurozone applying pressure but the former colonial powers created the problems purely in order to destroy the power of the Islamic Caliphate there. For this reason the agenda of the West will never be accepted as a model for reform. The West is going to have to come to terms with the fact that its violent past denies them legitimacy now.
That is, in the light of the Blair Bush invasions, any legitimacy that the West might have clung onto, has now completely disappeared. In relation to Turkey, Israel is merely a maggot on the carcase of Western influence and power.
I only ask, humbly, for a rich, privileged man to send a copy of his book to a poor man.
Am I asking for something that goes against Craig’s liberalism? Does he think I’m some kind of socialist? I’m not. I only want to read the book, but I have no money. Are mangoes more important than me? If so, why? The fat Mango manager makes 3 of me. He’s not poor. Nor is Craig.
I suspect they are hypocrites: everyone else but them should help the poor while they get fat off the taxpayer.
neil barking too loud. I’m not rich either, but there are far far worse off people than me in the world, all without education and without computers to complain about their poor status.
Now would Craig be better to sponsor a school in some colonially pip squeeked part of Africa? or would it be more charitable to give you what you demand, playing on the rich and poor argument as advanced by your vary self?
I for one would try and access your local library with your computer, expend some CO2 and ask them to purchase the book so you can read it, the english social formula for getting something for not very much.
That said, I/m not quiet sure whether your educationary replenishment and upping of facts, is as important as the need to cut down on CO2 exhaustion.
That said, I’d better cut this…….
“It will be recalled that in February this year on the first visit of a French president to Haiti, Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged “the wounds of colonisation” and said he knows well “the story of our countries on the question of debt”. At that time, he announced the cancellation of all of Haiti’s US$77-million debt to France and promised to provide aid of US$400 million over the next two years.
Official agencies have reported that France is one of several countries that have not followed through on their pledges.”
Exactly as I said in my earlier post: for the complete article go to: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Two-per-cent-to-Haiti-not-enough_7806194
Ingo – a nice succinct post (on Neil’s wish for a free copy of “The Catholic Orangemen of Togo”).
Neil – my copy of the book is not spare, but it might become so in the latter stages of my library slimming project. I’ve just been inspired by Orhan Pamuk’s essay “How I got rid of some of my books”.
If you send me your address, I will send you one or two books (free) -title(s) still to be decided but decidedly not rubbish. If your reactions to them – posted on this website – show that we are on a wavelength, who knows what might develop?
Save your postage, dude. Different wavelengths, let me assure you. Barker’s got “previous” on this site. His persistent and distracting begging soon morphed into spiteful malice. He also announced his intention to subvert Craig’s copyright. The guy’s an agent provocateur.
Mind you, if you can find out his address, that could be useful information …
—–“on Neil’s wish for a free copy of “The Catholic Orangemen of Togo”)”——
That book is free. It’s “Murder in Samarkand’, which Craig does not publish, that Neil is asking for.
Considering that he can download a pirate copy through Bit Torrent for free he has a cheek asking Craig to lose money by having to pay for the postage.
Barker – if you’d deposited 10p in a jar for every time you’d demanded a free copy of CM’s book, you’d have more than enough to buy it by now in hardback. Since you clearly can’t afford your own machine and ISP, you must be in a library by now. Explain why the library cannot loan you a copy, which would save us all the unedifying spectacle of your demanding free books from an author.
Personally, I think you’re another miserable troll with nothing worthwhile to add to a decent blog, so you choose to detract from it instead. Shame on you. Actually, it’s quite funny to think that in Britain in the 21st century, a grown man would genuinely need to beg (on the Internet too!) for months, for the price of a paperback! It’s on Amazon for £1.54 used right now. Times must be hard indeed wherever you are if that’s too much of a reach!
Not in England. No library. No credit card. On a free connection in a shop.
And you find this funny, Glenn?
Shame on you and on Craig too. He sponged off the taxpayer for years.
I like to remind Craig occasionally of his rich, privileged existence.
I have to agree with Neil Barking, as I am in a similar position. What is really funny is the smug self-satisfied ignorance of so many of the posters here. It’s not a sin to be rich but noblesse oblige…..
@ Ben,
I don’t have a billion or even a million. I get up every morning and do work, and the work I do has quite significant impact on the lives of the persons I defend.
Craig is a small potato – but he most times sows good seed ( shit – I believe I got that right – even if the vice-President of the US did not know the spelling). Murray is not a bad person, but I believe that despite his inherent goodness and courage, he may have bought into some of the Western bullshit.
But, here is the good news – didn’t you hear that within a couple years with Western “Aid” Haiti is going to be developed and be just like Taiwan.
Sure -just watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVVRoWxFB1s
@Craig,
My apology. Not a potato. No – a big pineapple.
CB
“Not in England. No library. No credit card”
If you’re that desperately poor, I’m suprised you’d not have more urgent concerns than picking and choosing what books you fancy reading. Maybe there’s a good reason, but I can’t help noticing you’re not telling what it is.
[“Full disclosure” :- I’ve been trying to keep my head down because it was not an acquaintance I wanted to renew, but “I like to remind Craig occasionally of his rich, privileged existence” is too irritating.
I remember this Neil Barker, from something like 15 years ago. He had a very similar style in various newsgroups I was reading then – bizarrely irrelevant moral blackmail, then turns spiteful when it doesn’t get him what he’s looking for. I’ve avoided him since. Trouble maker. Sorry for himself, wants to take it out on other people.
But that’s nothing that can’t be seen from his behaviour here, which is why I haven’t felt it useful to say before.]
Neil Barker wrote on a previous thread that he’d already been sent the book, and asked how the anonymous sender had got his e-mail address.
Murder in Samarkand is referenced in this scathing attack on ‘Tonybler’, his criminal actions in Kosovo, his growing collection of medals and his book due out soon and already much reduced in price!
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m68054&hd=&size=1&l=e
A Bright Shining Lie Pt 2
On another matter to do with Blair.
This in the Independent by Rentoul (Tonybler’s puppy of course) and Goldsmith his AG. Is this some sort of softening up or smoothing of the way for him (Blair) prior to the outcome of yet another enquiry, this time on UK complicity on torture?
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/07/18/lord-goldsmith-on-torture-the-full-transcript/
“Are mangoes more important than me? If so, why?”
Talk about asking for trouble …
1) Mangoes feed people.
Thanks for the link ‘somebody’ – I applaud your awareness.
Right now, I have literally zero respect for Lord Goldsmith, a weak man who, despite a great knowledge of law, has allowed himself to be compromised by others against that great knowledge which elevated him to UK Attorney General – a responsible position of trust.
Goldsmith said, “If I bear responsibility for anything then I bear responsibility for it, so I don’t put that aside.”
I disagree – Put aside you do Peter Goldsmith QC – on torture – in the same way, the same modus operandi, the same weakness that lead Britain into an illegal war. A war that cost the lives of more than a million Iraqis and displaced another 4 million Iraqi families having fled from their homes.
We, the citizens of Britain have had to bear the enormous consequences of your failure to stand firm on law. We are ashamed and we are angry.
On February 11th 2003 our Attorney General stood in the White House and succumbed to pressure from America. A tenuity which led to the 13 page document sent in a minute to PM Blair on March 7th 2003. A piece of government paper that signed the death warrant for thousands of Iraqi babies, Iraqi toddlers, Iraqi children and innocent civilians, all consumed by fire until their little blackened bodies were unrecognisable.
Some tell me in your defence Peter Goldsmith QC that there is a secret clause in the Trident submarine treaty that was signed by Mrs Thatcher in 1983. The secret clause states that the British Prime Minister is required to go to war if he/she gets the order from the President of the United States.
If that is the case, then speak out at the torture inquiry – bear the responsibility, as you have proclaimed – or die in fear of the agony and pain you have directed on humanity.
What I find perplexing is that he has not got the gravity to work with more experienced staff in the FCO legal department, as we now got to know, they actually approached him and offered their support.
he’s culpable and part of it, no doubt, to wriggle now, its very easy with hindsight and they are all apologetic now, Straw Hoon and Goldsmith, whilst Blair seems to inhabit another planet alltogether and the bombs go off in Baghdad/Iraq on a daily basis.
How Antony Ward, a scavenger, corners the world’s commodities markets, especially Africa’s, for the benefit of his hedge fund. Like Humpty Dumpty will be have a great fall? I do hope so.
Ghana is mentioned within –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/7897389/Cocoa-king-Anthony-Ward-is-hungry-for-African-food-production.html
Re Blair’s Badnesses – Craig’s “Catholic Orangemen of Togo” contains important evidence about the cavalier way Blair was prepared to treat UN sanctions in Sierra Leone.
So, will the prosecution and the defence please both look at the Landline saga? The role of British mercenaries in the Blair years (with Brown in the Treasury playing his lesser but still crucial tasks) has lessons not just for judging the past government but guiding this and future governments towards less wayward policies.
Anyone who helps bring that evidence again before the public will be doing valuable service in making sure that the final verdict of this generation on Blair is a rounded one ( for a good image of roundness, think dung-beetle).
CAMERON & the ‘BIG SOCIETY’ Repair Unit
David Cameron has been tasked with repairing ‘broken Britain’ by infiltrating our communities with ‘an army’ of 5,000 professional community organisers, specially trained to glue the ‘cracks’ in our society.
The plan, based on a community organising movement established by Saul Alinsky in the United States is designed to ‘seek out’ government activists or radicals that never make ‘the team’ and oppose the idea of deep state.
The ‘Big Society’ is clever in that it will attempt to unite the British public while the government attempts severe cuts in public finance and attempts to move some elements of the NHS system into private hands in the same way as it will attempt to hand over the welfare system into private companies whose success will be based on a bonus system using government (our) tax money.
I call the system ‘creeping infiltration’ into local communities and parishes to undermine the present decision making processes that currently exist in our cities, towns and villages.
Public opposition to the Iraq war and now Afghanistan wars, the anger of politicians stealing money through expenses and the push for war on Iran, together with severe cuts in the next few years need a system to nullify, weaken and divide unions, anti-war organisations and the general public from rioting and marching.
The ‘Big Society’ funded by the ‘Big Society Bank’ of unclaimed assets are ‘deep’ governments way out of a crisis.
Watch out for your next community centre spy!!!
—-“What is really funny is the smug self-satisfied ignorance of so many of the posters here. It’s not a sin to be rich but noblesse oblige…..”——–
Nobody’s under any obligation whatsoever to pay for reading material for those who can’t be bothered to buy it.
If Barker doesn’t have a credit card he can send money in advance to Amazon. There are millions more worthy causes than him.