The making of the Mpanga Site

Aside from being a bumpy 3 hour drive from Kigali (the capital city), having no electricity or running water, having to use a latrine for a potty, swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the occasional Cape Buffalo stampede, the site at Mpanga is turning out to be more than we could have imagined. However, it took a little work to get it ready to be farmed.

Justin called with great excitement from Mpanga about this time last year reporting that a brand new Cat 963D Highlift bulldozer had been delivered for clearing land, but they were having trouble getting it started. The next day they discovered the problem...there was no alternator. Someone had stolen it. This, as we are learning, is common in Rwanda. After countless calls between Rwanda and the States and a trip to Fenton MO, a replacement alternator was purchased and included in my checked bags bound for Africa along with 200 lbs of additional tools and parts. By now I'm used to fetching parts when things break down around the farm, but this takes "parts run" to a whole new level.




Justin, Rich and Ben trying to figure out how to install the alternator



A second bulldozer arriving at the site

Here is the progression of land preparation on field 1 at the Mpanga site.

Finally being planted

Corn starting to come up.
 The mountains you can see in the background of this picture are Tanzania.

We've heard a lot of criticism regarding the clearing of trees for the purposes of agriculture so let me just address that here. The best rebuttal I've heard for this kind of criticism actually came from a Ugandan native named Grace who was working with a group of American college students doing a study on the neighboring village. She was among a small group of us watching as Justin started pushing over a big, beautiful tree in the middle of field 2. The other American and I were somewhat horrified to see it going down and were cringing as it's roots started to surface. The African woman looked at us and simply said, "my people are starving, plant more trees somewhere else."

One problem we've noticed in Rwanda is that the hillsides have largely been cleared for farming which is leading to significant amounts of erosion. Another member of our team is working on an Agra-forestry project which will focus on reforestation of the hillsides leaving the valleys and flat lands, like the one we are working on, available for food production.

So, bulldozers and excavators have become a regular part of our machinery line-up and, truthfully, I'm thankful that my husband occasionally has a chance to operate them. Demolition of this magnitude is evidently very therapeutic and much cheaper than the therapy it would require to survive in our home with a very strong-willed 3 year old, 18 month old twins, and a somewhat snarky wife.

As of right now, the team hasn't discovered any missing alternators or crucial parts that were overlooked in the packing process, but a girl can hope, right?

Willie: the voice of Global Agriculture? Yikes.

If you've ever been lucky enough to be around when the subject of modern farming practices comes up in conversation, you know this is a major hot button for me. My husband has learned to live in fear of the moment when someone within earshot of me mentions something about organic foods being healthier, factory farms being inhumane, pesticides being used irresponsibly... you get the idea.


My goal in this post is not to take on each of those issues individually. There are tons of much more qualified folks within the Ag Industry singing that song and supporting what our farmers do. (like Holly Spangler, who you can read here or Emily Webel here)


The central issue for me, the hot button, the soap box and the message of this post is this: the decisions we make, the commercials we run, the legislation we pass, the agricultural science we criticize...things we think will simply make a difference on the shelves of our local grocery stores actually have GLOBAL IMPACT.


Here's a recent example that I've been itching to tackle ever since the Super Bowl. As many of you recall, Chipotle ran an ad casting modern farming practices in a very bad light, depicting animated pigs being pumped full of chemicals and pills until the animated farmer has an epiphany and knocks down buildings and fences to allow said pigs to run and frolic to their heart's content.

Here's how Fox News reported it: "It may feature cute animation, but the message is a strong one. It’s an indictment of what many consider a dark side to the meat industry here in America: factory farming. While people may dream of animals roaming free before being taken to slaughterhouses, in reality, most meat comes from animals held in cramped cages their entire lives, pumped full of drugs and food that plumps them up in a short amount of time."


Now, while the advertising major in me can appreciate the well crafted message and clever animation, and even the Willie factor, the part-time, very inexperienced and very new-to-this economic developer in me is horrified.


And here's why.


Chipotle is trying to sell more burritos. Simple. As. That. They are using a popular social issue and great advertising to do so, but at the end of the day, they have a bottom line and share holders that like it when they operate in the black.


The problem is, the message that they're using to sell more burritos impacts lives far beyond those that grace their corrugated tin doors. Leaders of developing nations are listening, to our advertising, our talk shows (cough...Oprah), to our legislators and to us. American voices can be LOUD and we demand to be heard, without always thinking about who is listening.


This issue has always been an important one to me, but never more so than since we started farming in Rwanda. When you can look into the very faces of mothers who are breaking their backs in fields planting open-pollinated seed that is sure to dry up if there is no rain, knowing that drought-tolerant seed is available but illegal in their country, nothing is more heart-breaking.


Our choices abound in this country, from what food we buy, to what seed we plant, and where we go to church. Not so in much of the rest of the world. And the voice in which we speak about these freedoms carries great distances.


No one is speaking about or supporting this message better than Bill Gates. In a recent speech given to the UN Rural Poverty agency IFAD, he is quoted as saying, "If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture. We believe that it's possible for small farmers to double and in some cases even triple their yields in the next 20 years while preserving the land." A fact that we are seeing first hand on our model farm in Mpanga just by introducing mechanized methods and better seed bed preparation.


He goes on to defend the case of GMO's (genetically modified organisms), a highly controversial issue in developing nations, by saying "You should go out and talk to people growing rice and say do they mind that it was created in a laboratory when their child has enough to eat?"


And that, my friends, is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Somehow when Bill Gates says it, it carries a little more weight. Weird, I know.

The Eagle has landed.

They made it!

And by "they", I mean ALL of the disc blades. Can I get a woot woot?!

Oh, and the guys made it too. And were greeted by a dozen delicious African Bagel Company donuts from one of our favorite Muzungus, Rich. More on him and his wonderful wife and their awesome ministry later...

Ok, I know it seems cold and uncaring to worry more about the blades than the arrival of my own dear sweet husband, but if you only knew how valuable those silly blades are. How much care was taken to package them perfectly, and weigh them out to measure precisely how many we could fit in each bag. Only to watch as the TSA tear through our tape and jumble them all up to see if they were explosive I presume? We stood with jaws dropped as if the box of blades were our firstborn.

Alas, the blades and the men and the sippy cups have all arrived, so let the fun begin.

First order of business, finish up with harvest at the Mpanga farm. Here's a glimpse of what that looks like.

Corn pickers have been purchased and are in the process of being shipped,

but for now, harvest is done by hand.

Since Justin's last trip, new housing has gone up! So, this is where the guys will be staying this trip which is a nice break from the tents they'll be enduring at the other farm sites. There is no electricity or running water here yet, but having a real roof over head is a big improvement.

And this is the view! Hard to beat.

Here's a nice shot of the second corn crop before harvest.

 Is this Rwanda or Illinois?

I'm working on a post that has a nice progression of pictures from the very beginning of our work at the Mpanga site and will hopefully get that posted soon. You'll be amazed to see how far this site has come from when we first layed eyes on it.

Thanks for reading!

World's Worst Blogger

I keep telling myself, I should be good at this. I read people's blogs and think, I should really start blogging again. I have an AgComm degree from the University of Illinois for heaven's sake. But, like flossing, and eating more leafy greens, I just haven't managed to make it a regular part of my routine. For now, I'll blame the tiny twin boys, one of which is chewing on my computer chord, the other drooling on my tab key which I'm sure will render it useless. How important is the tab key really?

Alas, I have committed, at least for today, to give it another whirl. So, be gracious with my inconsistency, my misspellings, my poorly placed pictures, and my paragraphs that aren't properly indented for lack of a tab key.

The sudden inspiration for another stab at blogging came as a result of my husband making another voyage to the farm in Rwanda, this time taking my 62 year old father and another guy that has been working with us at our stateside farm, Collin. They are flying out of Washington as we speak with 400 lbs of luggage including disc blades (weighing in at around 12 lbs each), tractor parts, 2 tents, lots of bug spray, some deer sausage, and most importantly, 6 Nuby sippy cups, for a certain baby friend who is learning to drink like a big guy.  

A lot of exciting things have happened since my last post. We are mid-way though our second harvest at the Mpanga farm and early estimations have us at double what we produced last season. We've added some acreage at that site, so with the improved numbers (which were already about double what the farmers were producing before) we hope to continue to establish ourselves are reliable producers in the country and expand our opportunities even more.

We are in the process of preparing an additional 150 acres in the northeastern-most corner of Rwanda in an area called Nyagatare. Land prep is underway there and Justin's focus when he gets there will be to get this land planted in corn.

Justin's goal will also be to plant beans at the Mpanga farm (where the bumper corn crop is being harvested) and another farm in Muhazi where there is a reported 2400 acres being set aside for the production of beans. Evidently a huge soybean processing plant has been built in Rwanda but, at present, has no soybeans to process as there are none growing in the country. Such is life in Africa it seems, cart before the horse in the most extreme ways.

We are also shipping more equipment which I think is my husband's favorite part and which he is great at. He is constantly in search of a good deal on smaller used equipment that can be refurbished and shipped for use in Rwanda. Right now we are in the process of preparing 2 seed drills, 2 combines, 2 corn pickers, 2 eight row planters, and assorted seed conditioning equipment for shipment. Pictures to come as the process of disassembling and packing this stuff into a container always provides a great source of entertainment for me....and lots of cussing from my husband.

So I will leave you with this brief update with the promise of more to come as the guys land in country and the stories start rolling in of their adventures there. At this rate, I may even find a way to work in kale chips to my diet.

Equipment

When we tell people that we are working on an ag project in Rwanda, we know we're talking to a true farmer when their first question is, "what kind of equipment are you using?" We've had a lot of questions about the equipment side of things so we thought we would devote a whole post to machinery: what we're using and how we got it there.

After 4 years of talking about farming in Rwanda, taking scouting trips to look at possible sites, meeting with local leaders and a gazillion different business plans and project proposals, we decided to take a giant leap of faith and just start buying and shipping equipment. Justin spent countless hours researching machinery and watching online auctions for good deals. Last July, one month after our twin boys were born, we pulled home our first piece of Africa-bound equipment, a 21 foot disc. It was a painful 10 hours from Streator to Alhambra with 3 children under the age of 2 and a crabby wife all in the same vehicle. Needless to say, this was the last time the kids and I were invited on equipment fetching trips.

By the end of July we had collected a 10 foot chisel plow, a 21 foot disc, 2 field cultivators, 1 cultimulcher, 2 John Deere 7000 planters (8-row narrow), a pull behind sprayer, a Suzuki Samauri and countless tools and accessories. Any part that we thought might break, we bought 2 of.

In order to make all of this equipment work for Africa, almost all of the pieces had to be altered which made for a very long and hot summer for two faithful helpers, Eli and Dalton. In order to accomodate narrow African roads and small field size, the disc was cut down to 14 foot, the cultivators to 12 foot, the planters cut from 8 to 4 rows. In addition, many off-road accessories, including off-road tires and suspension lift, were added to the Samauri which we would later be very very thankful for.

At the beginning of August, we started the adventure of packing a container. The above list doesn't seem like a lot of equipment, but attempting to pack it all into a 40 foot container is a real challenge. One that could not be accomplished without the help of some very wise (cough...old...cough) men, namely Berry, Bruce, Don, Donny, Jerry and Dwight. We still owe you guys a steak dinner.



Lunch break with Ada as the entertainment





Just enough room for the Suzuki



Clears with inches to spare

 

If we thought packing a container was an adventure, we would later find out that unpacking and putting together the contents of a container after it has been out to sea for months, is an adventure in a different class all together.

One of our favorite and most gratifying moments came in the weeks when Justin was working with some local men who were hired to help put the machinery back together. He and the men had worked all day to put one of the two cultivators together and at the end of the day, Bernard asked if he and Stephen could try to put the second one together by themselves. Justin handed over the key to the toolbox and hoped for the best. When he arrived the next day at 11:00am, Bernard and Stephen already had the second machine put together. These two men have proven to be among our best workers. They are eager to learn new skills and so appreciative to be given the opportunity to work.

Two of our favorite Rwandans, Bernard and Stephen

This is exactly the kind of impact we hope to make with the farm. In addition to simply adding to their commodity chain in order to drive down the price of food and seed, we hope to impact lives by teaching skills and investing in communities by starting businesses.

What are you guys doing over there?

For the last 4, almost 5 years, Justin and I have been involved with agricultural development in Rwanda. Recently Justin spent over a month in Africa as all of the plans and proposals of the last few years finally started to come together. A lot of you have asked what in the world we're doing there so I thought I would start a blog to explain in a little more detail what it is we're working on, how it all came to be, and what we're hoping will be the result.

Let me start by giving you a brief history of Rwanda and current agricultural climate. When most people think of Rwanda, all that comes to mind is the 1994 genocide, civil unrest and violence, which may have been a fair assessment 15-20 years ago. However, the people of Rwanda and the current government are working tirelessly to reverse this image in the eyes of the world. They recognize that as long as people think of machetes first when they think about Rwanda, the country will never be a major player in the global market.  

Since the genocide, Rwanda has become a country of hand-outs, largely fueled by guilt for turning a blind eye to a country in tragedy. These donations and contributions served the country well in the immediate aftermath of the genocide, but have since developed a dangerous mindset in which donations are no longer seen as gifts, but are expected and depended upon for survival.

The agricultural climate is nearly as grim. Almost 90% of Rwandans are involved in farming and yet much of the country still falls well below the extreme poverty line. Rwanda imports a large portion of it's food supply and seed from neighboring countries even though, from what we've seen, the soil is fairly fertile and weather couldn't be more favorable for agriculture. In our minds, that equation doesn't make sense.

In the summer of 2006, a group of Rwandan business leaders, government officials, and farmers came to the States to tour the country and get some ideas for how to develop agriculture in their country. They were interested in our Extension system and wanted to tour local farms which is what brought the group to File Family Farms. Justin and my dad gave them a tour of the farm and explained that because of modern farming practices and mechanization, we were able to farm over 2000 acres with only 2 men. We had no idea at the time how that little visit and tour of our farm would impact our lives.

In November of 2008, Justin and I traveled to Rwanda for the first time, just 3 months after Ada, our oldest child was born. Our very first impression of Rwanda was it's beautiful hills. Every one of her 1000 hillsides is covered by tiny plots of ground, carefully worked by hand, mostly by women, with meticulous care.

Finally, after years of negotiations with different districts within Rwanda, one local leader has decided to partner with us. The area we are working in is called Mpanga in the Kirehe district, which is about 3 hours southeast of the capital city of Kigali, very near the border of Tanzania. We have been given a 110 acre parcel of ground on which we hope to develop a model farm. The goal of the farm is two-fold:


The immediate need of the Rwandan people is better and more seed. Currently Rwanda imports two thirds of it's seed from other countries which still doesn't meet the needs of the local farmers. A division of the Ministry of Agriculture has commissioned us to multiply seed for distribution. As of today, we have roughly 100 acres planted in corn for the purpose of seed multiplication. In addition, we have on our team the Lead Corn Breeder for Beck's Hybrids, Ben Orebaugh working on developing a white corn seed more suitable for Rwandan soil and growing conditions. He has developed a demonstration plot on this parcel of ground with over 80 different varieties of seed being tested. So far, the results look very promising: emergence is consistent and early vigor is exceeding expectations.

The second goal of the farm is to become a learning center for all of Rwanda, starting with the district of Kirehe. What we've learned about the Rwandan farmers (which is largely true of farmers in general) is that they are a "show me" kind of people. They rarely will accept a new practice until they are able to see favorable results. So, instead of going to their farms and telling them how to change their operations, we hope to bring them to our site and display how we were able to improve our yields through modern techniques and quality seed.

This gives you a very broad view of our history with and hope for the future of Rwandan agriculture. Check back as we add more details on the equipment we're using, the land preparation, and updates on the site as our crop continues to grow.