Mama joined Winrock in June 2014, but she has known about Winrock for many years, as she is a member of the Africa Women Leaders in Agriculture and Environment (AWLAE) network that Winrock helped form and strengthen in the 1980s. She received her Master’s in International Agriculture Education from the University of Arizona and spent many years working for the Senegalese Ministry of Agriculture and for the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mama enjoys working with volunteers because she learns from their variety of experiences and skills which she then applies on her own farm. She admires the volunteers’ dedication and motivation to share their knowledge with others. In her opinion, the F2F program addresses numerous development issues within the wider agricultural sector that benefits Senegal. On the weekends, Mama likes to go to her farm, where she keeps fruit trees, poultry, and livestock. 

Being part of the Farmer-to-Farmer team has allowed me to meet great people who have helped improve my knowledge in a variety of areas from agriculture production, income generating activity development, and management and leadership strategy.

With F2F volunteer, Erica Cummings, I learned how to make compost tea which is a very handy method of using manure without going through the whole process of making a compost pile, including the energy and time-consuming practices of watering the pile, turning it, and then spreading the compost in the field.

Erica Cummings demonstrating compost tea

This method does not require many tools. Combining it with a simple drip irrigation system gives amazing results; I have noticed a great improvement in my plants as the compost tea is introduced in the irrigation water, reducing the space and mess associated with more traditional composting.

With F2F volunteer, Julie Albrecht, I learned how to preserve and process fruits and vegetable by listening in on the two trainings she conducted with COFLEC, a local women’s group; I have learned how to process various fruits and vegetables such as tomato, mango, orange, and local fruits

What a delight to make my own mango jams and chutney using mango from my own farm! I have learned many different methods of food processing so I no longer fear the fruit and vegetable going to waste. One of the best aspects of this knowledge is that now I can propose useful activities to do with my friends and sisters when staying on our farm.

With F2F volunteer, Monica Norley, I learned how to make soap based on available agriculture products; this is another very fun and interesting activity to do on our farm with the many different ingredients available to us.

These and many other assignments have taught me a lot about other new topics I knew nothing about: beekeeping, aquaculture, and dairy product processing.

With the new program beginning, I hope to learn more about post-harvest processing, best practices, and innovative value adding techniques.

The F2F for AET program has inspired me to make my farm an informational and training site for agricultural production available to all city dwellers who are interested in agriculture or just in nature.

From all of us here at Winrock, Happy Thanksgiving! 

PRAN/PABL (PRAN Agro Business Limited), a food processor and agribusiness company decided to grow cassava crop for its industrial expansion and needed a volunteer to train the young women entrepreneurs involved in this project. This sounded familiar me, as I was introduced to the production and processing of cassava tubers into gari and tapioca by my mother’s family as a teenager. The transformation of cassava tubers was my mom’s main business for more than sixty years and had enabled her to pay my tuitions. Cassava goods were once staple foods for more than eight hundred million people in Africa, where they were processed and sold by women to make a living till the early 1980s. Thereafter, the disease prone and low yield cassava varieties that had been introduced from South America and cultivated in Africa since the fourteen century were wiped out. Therefore, the improved, disease tolerant and high yield varieties needed to be reinstated in Africa, including Benin (my country of origin). As the Director of Crop Protection Service, I had assumed this task (using multisource funding), essential for the restoration of the agricultural food chain and specifically important to the participation of Beninese women in economic development.

The aim of this assignment was to train Bangladesh women and youths to grow cassava that will be purchased by PRAN/PABL. The tuber part of the plant will be used to make gluten-free starch designated to be transformed into either glucose or flour and used in making juice or in baking industries. Furthermore, starch was vital for the clothing industry that brings in twenty percent (20%) of Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So far ninety percent (90%) of this needed starch is imported from Thailand and PRAN/PABL had decided to produce it in situ. Thus, the company installed a starch producing plant, is on its way to building the second one and is pushing to scale up the production of cassava tubers. Fallow and empty lands not suitable to grow other domestic crops, such as rice, are being gradually gradually with cassava crop.

Cassava is not a staple in Bangladesh and may not have been cultivated had not PRAN decided to use it as an industrial crop. PRAN funds the producers by providing the input (seedlings, fertilizer, pesticides and technical assistance) and thereafter purchases the cassava when the crop is mature. The tubers were transformed into starch, glucose and flour. The stems are cut and distributed to all potential producers under the control of PRAN technical staff. Waste derived from tuber peels, chaff from starch processing and leaves cut from the plant are recycled and used to either make organic fertilizer or chicken feed for their chicken farms. It could also further be used to make biogas for cooking and ethanol for cars and buses. All part of cassava plant is put to use in industrial development.

Training on Improved Cassava Production for Youth Entrepreneurship Development was held in Modhupur, Tangail from 11/17 to 11/25/2017 and for four hours on 11/28/2017, at PRAN Headquarter in Dhaka. The first training session involved 32 participants (with 3 women) made of PRAN field staffs and producers-head of cassava grower cooperatives. The Dhaka session was for PRAN/PABL personnel (forty in total) only and was part of their monthly meeting schedule. They were trained in Dhaka using one of the training modules designated to produce semi-mechanized cassava crop. Topics such as the need to use cover crops to lower the cost of weeding control and the introduction of new improved varieties of cassava had been debated after the training session.

Cassava is becoming the next best thing designated to change Bangladesh farmers’ lives by boosting their income under this special scheme implemented by PRAN. As for now, cassava farming is at low-cost and more profitable because it requires less irrigation, fertilizers and insecticides. It is also less affected by natural calamities. PRAN wants to keep it that way and had organized this training for both farmers-head of cooperative and its staff to avoid the mistake made by Thailand. Industrial production of cassava had become Thailand’s main export and domestic substance since 2009 until the invasion of cassava mealybug and spider mite in 2014. This country is actually losing more than twenty percent of tuber produced and has less suitable seedlings for subsequent production. Cassava production is so secured under PRAN watch that numerous women have decided to join the program.

My main activities were to:

1. Visit existing farms to assess the status of cassava production, agricultural practices, problems and potential pests

1. Train for four days PRAN staff involved in the cassava outreach program on improved cassava production techniques

1. Train for two days cassava producers-heads of cooperatives assisted by PRAN/PABL on improved method to produce cassava crop.

1. Underline production techniques aiming to increase the quantity and quality of tubers produced and increase the yield of extracted starch.

1. Develop training modules on improved cassava production to be used by PABL and its staff for further trainings

1. Emphasis the importance of cassava crop pests and diseases and set up a surveillance unit

I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and willingness to learn displayed by the trainees. Cassava is a cash crop that could be grown with no major problems and then easily purchased by PRAN. In addition, tuber collection from farms to the factory was ensured by PRAN. The producers take home more than 7000 Taka/acre. This earnings was predominantly used to acquire new land to increase cassava production. Their concerns about harvesting, weed control and flooding of the field were resolved by recommending: a) a semi-mechanized devise to uproot these tubers easily, b) installation of a suitable cover crop and c) plant cassava on ridges.

I am confident Bangladesh will produce the needed starch for its industry.

It was my pleasure to serve as Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer in Bangladesh from January 26 to February 11, 2018. The assignment was coordinated by Winrock International with sponsorship by USAID, United States Agency for International Aid. The host recipient, BRAC Artificial Insemination (AI) Enterprise,is one part of  Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), the largest NGO in the world. BRAC was formed in 1972 following the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and now serves more than 15 countries in Asia and around the world.

I have been to Bangladesh on two prior F2F assignments with Winrock International in 2016 for Feed the Future Bangladesh and Training of Trainers to help develop improvement in dairy cattle feeding programs aiming to increase milk production and to stimulate economic development. I found the participants who were enrolled in the training programs to be eager to learn new concepts and quick to share their experiences and to inquire how to transfer new knowledge and skills with their farmer family clientele. One of the most impressive attributes of the participants was their level of education, many had attended colleges and universities and held advanced degrees. They were quick to share customs, food and family details with me.

As one would imagine, rice is a food staple in Bangladesh and is commonly eaten at all three meals.. Many fresh vegetables are available as well as fruits like mango and banana. Chicken and fish are most commonly served for lunch and dinner but  mutton is also available. I never went away from a meal not feeling adequately fed and I even had to limit myself from overeating the many high calorie items! It was common to enjoy tea breaks with some snacks in mid-morning and again in mid-afternoon. The evening meal is typically eaten around 8:00 p.m., later than most westerners are used to eating.

The participants were quick to get involved in hands-on demonstrations and skills. Photos don’t do these activities justice, it is hard to convey how everyone wants to be involved and apart of the discussion when all I could capture is a group of heads, arms and backs. Never the less, the participants in this assignment were no less enthusiastic than previous assignment participants.

We spent lots of time in the bull sheds where bulls are housed and fed. Each barn had two managers, two bull handlers and one person is present in the barns at all times. Each of the employees know the bulls well. The bulls are kept clean and as comfortable as the facilities will allow. Bulls are taken to the collection center twice aweek for collection of semen. The semen is checked for quality and is processed and packed in quarter milliliter straws, which is stored in liquid nitrogen and is then distributed throughout the country where professionally trained inseminator technicians inseminate the cows. Successful conception rates of over 75% has been achieved.

I was pleased to observe the professional way the AI Enterprise is managed and its attention to detail, both important when gaining the trust of customers. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) for semen collection, preservation & packing were reviewed and discussions were held. Likewise SOP’s for developing and managing the bulls was addressed along with establishment of targets for rates of daily gain and nutrient requirements to keep adequate body condition and to maintain bulls without fattening.

In the training sessions we discussed requirements for daily nutritional needs, requirements for dry matter intake and other nutrients for each 100 grams of body weight gain. I had developed a spreadsheet that allows for body weight of bull and grams body weight gain/day. This is further designed to calculate nutrients provided by each feed ingredient and calculates dry matter intake provided by the diet which is then compared to the target weight gains so that evaluations can be made to see if the ration is adequate to meet the targets. This spreadsheet does the calculations that were taught in training instantly, but is important for the participants to understand how these calculations are made and why they are important.

It was fascinating to see how quickly the participants learned and implemented the new practices into their daily schedules. Following each session they would then report what changes they had made in their daily activities. Many entries were made in Facebook and the number of “selfies” taken was too numerous to count!

Each time I complete another assignment I am enriched by having had opportunity to meet new participants who are genuinely interested in learning new skills and developing ways to improve the livelihood of the citizens in their country. Understanding the culture of people around the world and sharing each other’s dreams and aspirations creates better understanding and provides opportunity for improved chances for peace in the world. What better way to do this than to walk with others, share with others and learn from one another.

My last visit to Mali was in 2013, and there has been significant change since then. In Bamako, construction has progressed rapidly, and outside Bamako, roads are now in good shape and services, along those roads, are much more available.  Use of cell phones is ubiquitous and is one of the most important factors responsible for advancing social welfare.  Medical care is much more available with clinics and hospitals in all the towns.  In the south, trypanosomiasis [disease caused by the Tsetse Fly] is no longer the primary factor restricting livestock production, and has been replaced by nutrition and internal parasites as the primary constraints.

One purpose of this project is to lay the foundations for a future value chain analysis of the marketing of small ruminants, primarily sheep.  The goal of the analysis is to augment sale of small ruminants so poor farmers’ standard of living is raised.  By determining who the various actors affecting the production and marketing of small ruminants are and what they are doing, changes can be implemented to improve efficiency.

We visited villages around Bamako and Bougouni which are in the semi humid zone.  Briefly what we found is that a major problem is mortality of animals before they reach market age.  This is a problem in all the villages we visited, but different villages with slightly different management styles appeared to be losing animals for different reasons.  In one village their lambs and kids were dying young, probably because they were actively preventing them from nursing colostrum right after birth.  In other villages death loss occurred later soon after weaning and appeared to have been due to internal parasites, primarily Haemonchus and Fasciola, although Eimeria (coccidiosis) may also be involved.

In addition to disease, nutrition is also a constraint although not as much.  Suboptimal nutrition increases the time until they reach market weight.  Small ruminants during the dry season are allowed to wander free in the bush where there is still plenty of browse [woody plants, vines, brush] although little grass.  Since the digestive physiology of goats and to a lesser extent sheep is adapted to use browse rather than grass, this is not as problematic as for cattle.

Livestock owners in the villages also cut browse for their animals on a daily basis and there is a small economic component of villagers cutting browse, transporting it on motorcycles and selling it to livestock owners in towns.  They also feed kitchen waste – millet and rice – but this is more important for poultry than small ruminants.  Some places have rock salt for their livestock, but this practice plus the use of homemade salt/mineral blocks could be expanded.  There are several women’s cooperatives in the country making and selling these blocks.

During the growing season the flocks of small ruminants go into the bush to forage, but they are controlled by herders to keep them out of the crops.  This has implications for another program, planting improved forage trees, that has a lot of interest.  There are a number of species of legume trees that are being introduced worldwide as high protein fodder.  Two being used in Mali are Leucaena and Gliciridia.  In addition Moringa, a native of India that is claimed to have excellent nutritive properties, is being introduced.  The main problem is that they are very palatable, especially Leucaena, so during the dry season when sheep and goats wander unrestricted, they eat the saplings that are planted before they grow out of reach.  The villagers commonly ask for advice on how to protect the plants.  Leucaena has been used in Mali for decades.

Something that concerns me is that the training that the villagers received in the past was not as comprehensive as it should have been.  For example, the use of colostrum is the first principle of neonatal management for transfer of maternal antibodies, but none of the villagers we visited were aware of its importance.  They were aware that urea is part of nutritional supplementation, but they did not know why nor were they knowledgeable about its toxicity.  It seems that often they were given steps to follow, but without explanation of the reasons for the steps.

The other part of the assignment, study the functioning of the marketplace, raised some contradictions.  Before going into the field, we asked about how a farmer sells his animals.  We were told that usually the farmer sells them himself at the marketplace, but there are middlemen who will buy the animal for resale and if there are problems, the middleman assumes the risk.  In the field at the cattle market in Bougouni we were told that if there is a middleman, he contracts with the farmer as to a price and then sells the animal and gives the farmer the money.  The farmer pays a percentage of the price to the middleman.  If the middleman gets more for the cow, he keeps the difference plus his percentage.  If he cannot get the price, he returns the animal to the farmer.  Usually, however, the farmer sells directly to the trucker who takes the bull to Bamako to be butchered.

In a few cases if the bulls are not sold because they are too thin, the owners will trek them to Bamako, grazing along the way and hopefully putting on weight.  We did not determine how frequent that is, but it did not seem to be an option for small ruminants.

In Bamako we were told for that for international trade the farmer sells the animal on credit and is paid when the animal is sold to the end buyer.  In Bougouni we were told that the farmer is paid on the spot.

The small ruminant market in Bougouni is strictly local with farmers trying to sell only a few animals, fewer than a dozen apiece.  With small ruminants there is a marked difference between the local animals and the improved breeds from the north – Chad, Balibalia, Sahel, Sudan.  Improved breeds are often sold for breeding rather than slaughter.  The buyer pays on the spot or if known to the seller, may offer something as collateral with an agreement to pay the rest later.

Other actors are suppliers of veterinary drugs and nutritional supplements, often the same person.  Their use does not appear to be widespread in the villages, but people in towns do purchase them.  Vaccines are available for most of the major diseases except fiebre afteuse (FMD, foot and mouth disease).  These vaccines are produced at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (LCV) and include blackleg, anthrax, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, peste de petites ruminants, and pasteurellosis.  Programs to encourage farmers to vaccinate regularly have been implemented by various agencies, but have not been notably successful.  ILRI has a program that resulted in almost doubling the vaccination rate, but it was still less than half the animals.

As for FMD, at least one village reported that it is a frequent occurrence during the rainy season.  It does not occur every year, but often enough to be a major problem.  The vaccines come from Botswana where the FMD serotypes (SAT -1, 2, 3, O, A) are different from West Africa serotypes (SAT 2, O, A) and thus are almost useless in preventing Malian FMD.  The problems of vaccinating are analogous to influenza in humans in that the vaccine has to be matched to the viral strain causing the outbreak.  For future projects the suggestion is to reduce mortality through better education and implement additional channels of sale that would result in a stable marketplace.  There are two major markets for sheep and to a much lesser extent goats, Tabaski and daily.  Tabaski comes once a year and has important requirements as to ram color and conformation with some importance placed on weight.   The rest of the year is either for butchers who are concerned primarily with dressing percentage or baptisms, birthdays, weddings or other celebrations that may have a minor interest in the color, sex and appearance of the animal.  Informing the various requirements to the producers with rewards for meeting them would help.  While Tabaski requirements are well-known, the quotidian requirements are not regarded as equally important.

Fattening animals is becoming more frequent, especially for women.  We did not encounter it much, but the few people who were fattening animals did not seem to be aware of nutritional requirements, especially for protein, minerals and roughage.

The source of animals to fatten are either the market or the producer’s own herd.  Buying on the market is riskier because the fattener is unaware of any health problems that may reoccur and a producer is not normal going to sell his best animals for fattening.  To be financially successful, the fattener should also have their own source of feed.  Buying all inputs cuts margins too thin.  Supplements such as oil seed cake or bran, mineral salt, molasses/urea can be purchased, but the main dietary components for energy and protein are better produced by the fatteners themselves.

Suggestions to be studied for their feasibility are planted pastures with inter-seeded legumes (lablab and others) and forage trees such as Leucaena, Gliciridia.  and others adapted to Malian conditions.  Small ruminant fattening as a sideline to other agricultural processing enterprises producing by-products to be used as feed has been successful in other countries and can be successful here.

Mali is a contrast of tradition and modernism.  The farmers do things very traditionally, but when there is some new appropriate technology or procedure that is within their means, they jump on it with both feet.  They don’t hold onto the notion “this is the way we’ve always done it.”  It makes my work a lot easier.

Bangladesh Field Team reflects on the successful impacts F2F has had on the Bangladesh Association for Social Advancement (BASA).

“F2F assistance helped with specialty knowledge related to beekeeping including honey, pollen and royal jelly production. It has been immensely beneficial. The benefits continue as the trained people have trained others.” – AKM Shirajul Islam, Executive Director

Pollen production can be an excellent opportunity for the beekeepers of Bangladesh to maximize profitability and obtain sustainability, however, given the lack of knowledge and skills to produce high-value bee-products including, high-quality honey, the potential benefit of beekeeping as a business has not realized.

Currently, Bangladeshi beekeepers are extracting only honey and wax from their beehives, whereas they can easily collect other high-value bee-products, like pollen. Pollen is an important high-value bee-product for its nutritional and medicinal benefit to human health and more importantly, for its use as nutritious bee feed. Bees feed on honey and pollen during the flowering seasons of nectar-bearing plants, usually eight months out of the year in Bangladesh.  The beekeepers suffer high costs to feed their bees in the flowering offseason. In that period, they use sugar syrup and pollen substitute, which do not provide good nourishment for their bees. As a result, the beekeepers lose a significant number of bees, ultimately affecting their honey production and profitability. When the bees collect nectar from flowers, they bring along pollen trapped on their legs which they use inside the hives to make their food. Pollen can be collected easily using traps at the entrance of beehives. Collection of these pollen grains using a pollen trap can help the beekeepers gain additional benefits from beekeeping which will lead to better sustainability for their business. Beekeepers can use a portion of the collected pollen to feed the bees in the offseason and sell the rest to earn additional income.

Having worked a long time to improve beekeeping and organize beekeepers in order to develop a strong apiary industry, the NGO, Bangladesh Association for Social Advancement (BASA), realized the potential of collecting and processing pollen to help strengthen beekeeping as a profitable business. As part of this initiative, and with the funding support of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), BASA worked with the Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteer, Michael Embrey, to train 64 BASA staff and their beneficiary beekeepers on the potential, collection and processing of pollen, making pollen traps, and the different uses of pollen. The volunteer brought three different types of pollen trap as samples from the US for demonstration and helped design and build pollen traps applicable for local beehives utilizing local materials and expertise. During the training, the volunteer demonstrated how to collect pollen using a locally made trap and how to process the collected pollen. In addition, the volunteer conducted training on the improved beekeeping, marketing and partnership development for enhancing beekeeping in Bangladesh.

After the F2F training, BASA built 118 pollen traps and distributed them among 118 beekeepers. BASA staff helped the beekeepers install the traps in their beehives and demonstrated the techniques of collection and processing pollen using F2F training information. Because of the endeavor, the beekeepers were able to collect 98 Kg pollen in the recent mustard flowering season from December 2017 to February 2018. The production level ranged from 0.65 to 1.5 Kg per beekeeper. This type of pollen production success is a first for the beekeepers in Bangladesh.  With this success, the beekeepers are relieved from having to pay to feed their bees in the offseason and they are planning to expand their facility of pollen collection as well as explore access to local and export markets with the assistance of BASA in the next season. Mr. Jagadish Chandra Saha, an experienced Beekeeping Expert in the country and Consultant at BASA stated, “Based on F2F training we provided pollen traps and technical support to our beneficiary beekeepers and have had tremendous results from them in producing pollen. We hope to disseminate these techniques to a wider section of beekeepers. We’re confident that this will add a new dimension and help flourish the beekeeping industry in Bangladesh.”

According to Mr. Rezaul Karim, Value Chain Facilitator, BASA, the beekeepers who observed or heard about this success are very excited to install pollen traps in their beehives to collect pollen. BASA is planning to disseminate F2F volunteer techniques of pollen production to their 314 beneficiary beekeepers with special emphasis on young men and women in collaboration with PKSF, two other beekeepers welfare associations: Bangladesh Beekeepers Foundation and Mouchashi Kallyan Samities. Meanwhile, the Government of Bangladesh has emphasized to the Department of Agriculture Extension the desire to introduce beekeeping all over the country in order to increase oilseed production through bee pollination, as well as increase honey production to help increase food security. In this current context, the noble initiative of BASA is expected to expand beekeeping as a profitable and sustainable business and help create entrepreneurial opportunities for young, unemployed, rural men and women.