Agriculture as a Business (part 2)

To date, along side AEA’s, I’ve met with about 12 farmer groups to introduce myself and the AAB program. This week we’re hoping to meet with some groups to discuss where they are at in terms of what strengths and challenges they have, and which areas should we address? I’m hoping this will be a two way street where famer groups can express their concerns and opinions about which areas they would like to work on, and the AEA’s and I can also assess where the groups could use some support. To assist with this I held a meeting with 4 AEA’s I’m working with and we discussed how we should initiate this program. We agreed to start by filling out a document I provided (but didn’t create) called the “farmer group evaluation” in order to get some baseline info about the groups. Also, the first card is about group strengths and involves questions that will help assess where the group is at.

Directly following these initial farmer group meetings coming up this week, I’m planning to sit down with each AEA afterwards and get some feedback, or in other words discuss what went well, what didn’t, and how we can improve things for next time. I’m hoping we get into the habit of feedback and I’m planning to give praise when it’s due and offer suggestions to challenges. I’m lucky to have a great group of thoughtful people to work with, and I’m getting to know them more and more. It might seem like I’m focusing a lot on AEA’s and not impoverished farmers. It’s true. I am focusing on AEA’s. The reasoning behind this is sustainability, a word that’s thrown around a lot but to me it means something that’s long term and stable on its own.

EWB works with Mofa because Mofa will more than likely be around for a long time, and they’re in a good position to assist impoverished farmers. For too many years and in too many countries, including Ghana, NGOs come in with money and resources, run a project, then leave. Many projects are quick fixes, or don’t last as long as they should, or don’t take the time to understand peoples’ realities and needs. I’m not discrediting all NGO’s or aid work, I know it’s needed and useful when appropriate. However, if I focused my time and energy mostly on famers for 3 months then what happens when I leave? If EWB gives me money to purchase fertilizer then gives it to poor farmers then what about next year? My 3 month placement would be a waste if the project was solely run by myself, it would finish as soon as I leave. In this regard, we feel the best way to help impoverished farmers is to work with the Mofa staff that directly works with farmers year in and year out. So I’m putting in time and energy to have some sort of long term impact with the Mofa staff in this district.

In development language it’s called “capacity building” or “sustainable development” in parable lingo it’s the “give a man fish – teach a man to fish” story, but to me I’m here working with AEA’s to help them improve in different ways so they can help farmers work their way out of a cycle of poverty. Farmers know how to farm and AEA’s know their jobs, I’m just offering a different approach that EWB has developed with Mofa. It has worked in other districts and we’re hoping it will work here so farmers can live better lives. We’ve had some amazing volunteers and AEA’s pour their heart and soul into working with Mofa on this program and I’m lucky and proud to be a part of it. I’ll do my best to be accountable to the money raised which sent me here as well as the chapter and everyone supporting me, but most of all I’m trying to work hard and be accountable to the people working their way through poverty. Depending on how things go in this district there might even be another 3 month volunteer replacing me when I leave.

I’ll be sure to explain more in the near future and I’d be happy to read or answer and questions or comments on the work EWB is doing with Mofa, so if you’re interested then send me an email (brianvenne@ewb.ca) or post a comment and I’ll be sure to respond. Once I’ve been to a few more farmer group meetings I’ll start to take photos and post some as well.

Stay tuned for elephants!!!

Agriculture as a Business

I spent another day of farmer group meetings with an AEA named Margret aka Maggie - the only female AEA I’m working with. On our way to meet with the group we passed the 2^nd largest man-made dam in Ghana. I never knew there was such a large body of water up here; it looks like a small lake! The first group we met was small number of younger guys who recently formed a farmer group. They have also obtained a pumping machine in order to farm hot peppers (pepe) and tomatoes during the dry season. To me it seems like this group has a lot of potential and can hopefully benefit from the AAB program.

The Agriculture as a Business (AAB) program that I’m implementing with Mofa focuses on AEA’s encouraging and supporting farmers to manage their farms as a profitable business, not just for subsistence, or farming because that’s all you know how to do, or because your parents were farmers. One of the aims of AAB is to end up with farmers who feel proud to run their profitable farming business and earning more income therefore improving their standards of living. At first I was a little skeptical of AAB with its profit and monetary focus, but at the end of the day if you ask a farmer if she or he would like to make more money, I’m positive they will say yes. And with high poverty rates around here it makes sense.

There are 8 areas we’re focusing on: group strengths, group meetings, finances, group project, business plan, record keeping, group marketing, and evaluation. They are in the format of laminated cards with pictures and sometimes stories of other farmer groups on the front and steps/directions on the back to help the AEA have discussions and ask questions with the farmers. Here’s an example from the finances card:

step1: ask the group what is the meaning of the picture? Step 2: ask the group how we can improve group finances? What is the group’s plan for their savings? Does the group keep financial records? The card also provides more questions to help the AEA facilitate a discussion on group finances. The approach is to talk with farmer groups and encourage them to make their own decisions on how they can improve, while supporting and helping them in their decisions. For instances, in this case the card also says ask the group what plan they want to make and encourages them to record it. Essentially the AAB cards are a tool to help improve the service AEA’s provide to farmers, and to discuss and encourage rather than dictate information to farmers. The more tangible aspects of AAB are encouraging farmers to keep records and make a business plan while talking with them about if they already have or have not and why. A less tangible aspect would be talking about group meetings and discussing the importance of strong meetings.

I think it’s important to note that the majority of farmers in the Upper East and all the farmers we work with are locally producing and small scale, that is, not overseas exporting and using large acreages with heavy equipment like tractors and combines (but some groups are able to contract tractor services to plow their fields, others rent bull-plow services, and many prepare their land by hand tools). Few individuals own more than 5 acres of land around here.

Field Visits and Pito

June 3

I spent the day meeting with famer groups with AEA, James. I felt kind of awkward and intimidated, and felt a little pressured to do something. I guess I thought that I was just going to introduce myself, say a few words and schedule the next meeting. But James pretty much introduced me, so I proceeded with asking the groups some questions like what did you farm, how were the yields, why did you form a group, and what are your challenges. Almost of all the groups mentioned that land preparation was an issue, especially regarding bull plows that are in short supply and expensive. The meetings were brief for they were simply an introduction, which farmers didn’t mind seeing as how they were busy sowing, tilling, and weeding their fields. On the whole the farmers were pretty friendly and thanked me for coming; we even stopped by one of the farmers homes and sat for a calabash of pito: basically a bowl of homemade sorghum beer. I thought I’d try it, my mistake. I regretted it the next morning.

On a different day, another group was very enthusiastic and wanted to show their level of motivation and dedication along with gratitude by giving Wisdom (an AEA) and I a live rooster and about 2 dozen eggs. We both felt uncomfortable about receiving the gift because we haven’t really done anything yet. Wisdom said this group has tried to give him gifts in the past and he politely refuses and hops on his moto before they give it to him, but we accepted the gifts this time after trying to refuse. I felt pretty uncomfortable about it seeing it as: a white man from a foreign NGO comes along and farmers give him gifts of gratitude for helping them. I don’t deserve this gift but what can I do? To be honest, in an area with high poverty rates – the Upper East Region has the highest in Ghana – a group of farmers during the lean season giving Wisdom and I a chicken that we could afford to buy, I felt guilty accepting it. But what if I flat out refused? I talked with a local about it later and who said it’s an insult to refuse such a gift. Well, we hung the chicken around the handle bars of the moto by its bound feet, thanked them again, and waived goodbye as we rode off to meet the next group. But not before dropping the eggs off at home, and bringing the bird to the butcher/roaster, it was a pretty tasty gift.

Back to the day with James: After James and I got back to Navrongo we went to a bar and had a couple beers and some grilled meat (goat/lamb). We sat around and talked some business, some family, and some joking. Here’s one thing that stood out. After we left the place he told me that one of the men sitting at another table was the district judge. James noticed that when we were talking about my moto helmet, and the roads and drivers in Ghana, the judge started paying attention to our conversation. You see I get many jokes and laughs directed towards me for owning a helmet but not a moto; my coworkers, friends, housemates, taxi drivers, and strangers all get a good laugh out of this, but if you witnessed the roads, traffic, speeding, and condition of vehicles here, you would understand why I don’t mind the laughter and continue to wear my helmet. The roads aren’t too bad just occasional potholes scattered in patches; the traffic is pretty hectic sometimes; speeding is common practice, same with pretty close encounter passing, but many taxis don’t have functioning speedometers so I’m not sure if there even speeding but it feels as though they are; and most of the vehicles have seen better days.

James later joked about how the judge will probably use this example in a court case: ‘a white man came to Ghana with his moto helmet without even owning or operating a moto. He brought a helmet only for the sole purpose of riding on the back of someone else’s moto!’ I guess he meant that the judge could use my example to leverage the importance of helmets and safety, while discrediting cases where people are injured from accidents without wearing helmets? Not quite sure, but after all the flak, laughter, staring and jokes about me having a helmet but no moto, I felt good that I might help set some precedence in regards to helmet use.

(I’ve begun to meet with the majority of AEA’s I’ll be working with and we’ve held introductory meetings with farmer groups. My next post(s) I’ll specifically shift the focus to my work with Mofa and farmer groups.)

Poor Man Will Never Eat Grass

This is one of the many slogans I’ve seen painted on stores and food stands (stay tuned for a whole post on these if I remember), and the other day I had the opportunity to inquire into the meaning of this saying. I was sitting and talking with some younger guys and asked them about it. They said it’s related to hospitality, people in Ghana help each other out, and if a poor man is hungry people will feed him so they will never have to eat grass. I have no doubt that this sort of hospitality is practiced, but I’m unsure about how often to what extent. I have seen both extremes: where clearly blind old man was being ushered around by a teenage girl collecting money and a couple of Ghanaians gave some money, I don’t want to share the other because I don’t understand what was happening due to language barriers but it involved someone who appeared to be mentally ill but causing a nuisance.

I relaxed with the two younger guys for quite some time discussing a wide range of topics: Barack Obama, the WWE and if it’s real or fake, special effects in movies, cocaine in Columbia and the West (the problems, the money, the demand and some moral issues around it), poverty and homelessness in Canada and Ghana, why some people in America don’t like Christopher Columbus (an anthropology can of worms), California and rap artists, Arnold Swartzenagar, English speaking skills, how Kasem is not valued or taught very much anymore, and so on. They mainly asked questions about these and I gave them my opinions, basically they had many questions about the West. It makes me realize how much access to information we have in comparison to many people in the world. 24 hours a day 7 days a week I have a world wide web of information at my finger tips, a privilege that’s simply not widely available here.

During our conversations I had the opportunity to express some thoughts about world issues with the intent of providing some different perspectives they might not hear too often - I kind of felt like a biased small encyclopedia. My perspectives, thoughts, opinions, and feelings are different, not better, worse, or enlightening, but different due to my location in the world, background, education, and so on. When I think of positive changes in my own life, what comes to mind is hearing new and different perspectives, and that’s what the three of us shared that afternoon.

Pounding/preparing a fufu feast

These aren't the guys I talk about in this blog, some of them live

in the same compound. For dessert we watched some football

Taxi Rasta

One day at the taxi station in Navrongo, one of the drivers asked me if I wanted to go to Paga just with him for 2GHC, the private chartered price instead if sharing a taxi with 3 others. I thought he was just trying to hustle me like some taxi drivers have tried to do by getting me to accept a private instead of shared cab. So with a couple bottles of Guinness in me and feeling pretty comfortable, I flat out asked him which price he would rather pay 2GHC or 50 peswas (cents)? He responded: “If I was in a hurry or if something was urgent then I would pay 2GHC”, I replied “I’m in no hurry”, and then he said in a friendly way with a smile, “Well I can’t know what you’re thinking”. We laughed and slapped/shook hands (I’ve never shaken more hands in my life here). He called me on my assumption but in a great way.

I didn’t realize that he was the driver of a different taxi than the one I tossed my (sealed) pillow in the trunk of and opened the door to, which already had 4 passengers. (I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon to cram 5 people in a taxi). He asked me if I was getting in with them, and I said with a smile and some confidence, “why not? We’re all brothers and sisters. One love (a one-liner from a Bob Marley song, an artist that you hear all the time around here)”, I can’t remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of “one people uniting”. We then exchanged this kind of handshake that I learned from some Rasta’s I was hanging out with Bolga: instead of shaking hands, with a closed fist you extend your arm and touch fists at the knuckles then bring your fist to your chest over your heart. It happened pretty fast and I didn’t even think before I spoke, it just felt natural, and so did the handshake thing, it’s like we both knew about the same thing, or felt the same way about something without even thinking about it. I left Navrongo with a great feeling: a happy heart. The feeling even returned as I exited the taxi and said goodbye to the woman I sat next to but didn’t end up talking to. It was such a flicker of time, an instant, maybe 2 seconds, but a genuine smile and goodbye from a stranger I was uncomfortably squished against in a sweaty taxi felt incredible.

Litter

The other day a woman approached me on my way home about the empty plastic water sachet in my hand. She mentioned how I carry my trash and don’t throw it on the ground and pointed to a bag on the ground to emphasize that people litter. Off the top of my head I said “I want to keep Ghana beautiful”, this might be something I read on a sign or side of a trash container here, or maybe it’s from the old Ontario license plates “Ontario. Keep it beautiful”. I remember that’s what our license plate read on my parents ’83 oldsmobile. Regardless of where the phrase came from, she took the bag from me and said she would put it into a trash can in front of her business.

I’m not patting myself on the back, because regardless of where you put the plastic it will end up either on top or underneath soil, or more likely in the atmosphere after it’s lit on fire – a common practice is burning your garbage. Yet, one of the reasons that I try not to litter is because people might notice. You don’t have to look far to see plastic bags and sachets lying around here, and it’s totally understandable without recycling infrastructure and minimal garbage disposal funds. The way I see it is that people living hand to mouth probably don’t prioritize where they toss their plastic trash. Yet, I realize that just about all my actions and inactions are observed by locals, and even I may be setting an example by not littering but what end does this serve? What changes can come about this? What’s the point? I’m not sure, but I know that people’s lives aren’t going to improve and break through the cycle of poverty if a westerner or members of the community stop littering. I just think that I wouldn’t do it in my home town in Canada so why would I do it here? Maybe if the trash was only found in one specific location then people’s perceptions of Paga might change, leading to….?

I’m just speculating from my western point of view, and outsider and foreigner’s ignorant perspective. I really don’t understand people’s lives here and I don’t pretend to comprehend what people go through on a day to day basis. Hopefully I can learn more by talking with people, and start to understand and empathize. And in the coming month I’ll be staying in a rural village for about a week to learn more about rural livelihoods. From what I’ve seen and heard so far, I don’t think garbage disposal is high on the development list above water and sanitation, food security (eliminating hunger), high unemployment, expensive education fees, infrastructure projects, and so on. At the end of the day if you’re concerned about how you can make enough money to support yourself and family’s basic needs, where you toss your trash probably isn’t an issue.