Let it Grow

For some reason I always think it's cool when the bloggers I read regularly post while traveling. I like to imagine them sitting in an airport bar typing a something for the blog before jumping on a plane. So this is my own attempt at blogging from the road.
The photo above is a pretty typical of the landscapes in the Maradi region where I've spent the last few days. Millet fields as far as the eye can see, although there's other stuff in there too: especially sorghum and cowpea. What's remarkable about this view if you spend a lot of time looking at millet fields--which I do these days--is how many trees there are dotting the landscape. Over the past 20 years or so farmers in this region of Niger have begun managing the native trees on their farmland (primarily for fuelwood production) rather than clearing them off the land as was customary. The most obvious benefit of this practice is that farmers gain an additional and renewable source of income by selling firewood, but as I described in a previous post, there are a number of additional benefits to keeping trees on farmland. Encouragingly, this appears to be a growing trend in this country and it's attracting a lot of attention. See, for example, this article from the New York Times last February for a pretty good description.

Off to Maradi

I got a last-minute invitation to tag along on a trip to the Maradi region for a week. I'm expecting to do a fair amount of work there during the next year or so, so I'm glad I'll finally get a chance to check it out for a few days. Anyway, if this blog is quiet for the next week or so, that's why.

Because 23 Would Have Been Too Many

ESPN Headline: "Blue Devils build lead, hold on to stop 22-game slide"

The sad thing about this is that the game was at Northwestern, so the Duke fans didn't even get a chance to tear down the goalposts. Still, a win is a win. Aaron and Mark, our names may not actually appear on the Duke roster but nobody could deny that we contributed to this victory.

My Research Excursion

Agroforestry is sort of the generic term for agricultural practices that involve the use of trees. In a country like Niger, people typically clear all the trees and shrubs off of a plot of land before planting their crops, but trees can be beneficial to agricultural production in a number of ways. They protect against both wind and water erosion, their leaves and roots contribute organic matter to the soil, and some trees enrich the soil by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Additionally, trees can provide other valuable products such as firewood, fruits, edible leaves, and traditional medicines.

When I talk about an “agroforestry system” I’m describing something more specific. Agricultural scientists have developed many different models for how best to combine certain trees and certain crops to achieve the greatest possible benefit. This project of mine involves studying three such systems, which range from loosely defined and flexible (fostering and managing the trees that sprout naturally in a field instead of clearing them) to quite prescriptive (planting measured rows of exotic species including grafted fruit trees at ten meter intervals to be managed according to an specific calendar).

As I mentioned below, I spent last week touring around some rural areas of southwestern Niger. The point was to visit and interview a bunch of the “pilot farmers” for one of these agroforestry systems. These guys are the first stab at taking a system developed at the research center and putting it in the hands (and on the land) of farmers who could potentially benefit from it.

As far as my research project goes, the trip went really well. It was extremely valuable for me to be able to sit down with these farmers in their fields and talk with them about their impressions of the new systems, their challenges in carrying it out, the likelihood of other community members trying to adopt this system, and other topics. What’s really affecting about these kinds of visits, though, is the personal interaction you have with these people. They share their stories with you. They tell you about the founding of the village or the history of their family. With a combined total of maybe five words in common you manage to exchange a few jokes. And although this is kind of a boilerplate observation for anybody who’s spent time in rural Africa, but it’s hard not to be struck by the kind of generosity they show to visitors. One chief gave me two chickens. Another farmer gave me 30 guinea fowl eggs. These are valuable gifts, and you feel guilty accepting them from such truly poor people but there’s absolutely no way you can refuse.

I tried uploading a bunch of photos from my trip but the internet is not cooperating today. Maybe next week.

Direct Trade Coffee

One of the links over on this blog's sidebar is to a company called Intelligentsia Coffee. I used to regularly order coffee from them (I still would if I could get it here) because (a) it's REALLY good coffee and (b) I liked their practice of working directly with individual coffee growers to produce a more valuable, more profitable crop. This practice is becoming increasingly recognized by the name of "direct trade", and there's a good article about it in yesterday's New York Times. Intelligentsia is one of the companies mentioned. I recommend the whole article, but the the main point in terms of how direct trade is different than other efforts to help coffee farmers is this:

[Direct trade] also represents, at least for many in the specialty coffee world, an improvement on labels like Fair Trade, bird-friendly or organic. Such labels relate to how the coffee is grown and may persuade consumers to pay a little extra for their beans, but offer no assurance about flavor or quality. Direct-trade coffee companies, on the other hand, see ecologically sound agriculture and prices above even the Fair Trade premium both as sound business practices and as a route to better-tasting coffee.

Ramadan Begins

On the map above you'll notice there's a small town in the far East of the country called Diffa. Last night somebody in Diffa reported to have caught a glimpse of the crescent of the new moon, meaning the whole country begins to observe the month of Ramadan today, a day earlier than expected this year. The cafeteria here at the research station where I'm based, which is usually pretty lively, was a graveyard today. Just me and a few co-workers from Burkina Faso.

Since I have the map up there already, I'll also point out that I spent all of last week on a trip visiting and interviewing farmers around the towns of Dosso and Gaya. I even took an illegal trip across the border into Benin for an afternoon. The trip went really well and I learned a ton. I'll try and post some photos and more details about the trip sometime soon.

L'Arbre du Ténéré

I guess there aren't that many famous trees in the world. This Wikipedia page lists only four in Africa, so maybe I should count myself as lucky that I can wander on down to Niger's National Museum for a glimpse of the famous Arbre du Ténéré just about any time I feel like it. I checked it out on Saturday, along with the rest of the Museum.

L'Arbre du Ténéré was famous for being a solitary, isolated tree in the middle of the Sahara desert. This highly visible, revered landmark seems to have the curious problem of being repeatedly struck by passing trucks, one of which finished the job in 1973. Seeing the tree today, hundreds of miles from where it once grew, is a little bit like visiting a mausoleum. It's a weathered old piece of wood rooted in a concrete block and enclosed in a metal cage, mercifully inaccessible to motor vehicles.