On Friday, November 11, I will be departing Ghana for Liberia, along
with Rick Slager, who has been working with Hopeline Institute for the
past two weeks. We will be joined there by Dr. Todd DeKryger, who works
as a senior scientist with Nestle in Fremont, MI, and specializes in
many agronomy fields, especially pest management. We will be spending
our time visiting farms, conducting workshops for farmers, and working
on LEAD's research farm. (For more information on the research farm,
please visit
www.leadinliberia.org. There are some exciting things happening there!) In addition, I will be performing audits on the various LEAD county offices, checking in with staff and interns, working with LEAD's board on strategic planning for 2012, and visiting some old friends in Thinkers Village.
This week has been one of careful monitoring of the
situation in Liberia, with the run-off election on Tuesday. On Monday
there was a large protest which broke down into some violence, but election day did proceed peacefully. There was a very low
turnout of around 37% (the turn-out for the first round was just over
70%). Speculations are that the low turnout is because many people
assumed President Sirleaf would win, however since her opposition
decided to boycott the election, some people supporting Tubman decided
not to turn out either. They will be announcing the results in the next
few days; early predictions have President Sirleaf at around 90%
and Winston Tubman at 9%.
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Introduction of farmers to the concept of hoop houses.
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It is exciting to have Rick Slager here in
Ghana and soon in Liberia again. Rick leads the program called the
Rural Empowerment Initiative (
www.ruralempowermentinitiative),
serving small holder farmers in West Africa, through Partners
Worldwide. The focus of this trip to Ghana was to visit the
agricultural members of Hopeline, to see the challenges facing the
farmers, to get a sense of the market demand, and to work alongside
several farmers in erecting a hoophouse next to the Hopeline office.
This hoophouse will be used for demonstrating the effectiveness of this
structure in tripling yield, as well as reducing the need for
pesticides, chemicals, and herbicides.
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Mosquito netting provides ventilation and bug protection.
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| Nicholas (right), farmer & owner of hoophouse. |
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I
have included some pictures of the building of the hoophouse - this
particular one was build for about $800 US, with all materials being
found in country. This hoophouse will be "sold" to one of Hopeline's
members, Nicholas, who will be using it for growing tomatoes. We expect
that his loan will be able to be paid off in 120 days (after one
harvest), even though the Nicholas will be given a year to pay it back.
Hoophouses are great because they help to control the amount of water a
plant gets, as well as the way in which the water comes; it protects
from the sun, allowing in the rays that are good for the plant and
keeping out the UV rays; the hoophouse is lined along the bottom and on
both ends with mosquito netting which is buried into the ground, which
helps to keep out many pests; there is a drip irrigation system that
delivers the appropriate amount of water to the root of the plant, which
can also be hooked up to a fertilizer drip to make sure that each plant
gets enough fertilizer. Nicholas will be mentored by Rick as well as
Cynthia, the SME coordinator for Hopeline. We hope to be able to prove
the effectiveness of this in the next year and improve on local
resources to make this even more affordable for farmers.
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| Rick and the construction crew - a job well done! |
