Voluntary Milking

I just heard about the DeLaval voluntary milking system

video

Bananas

Bananas
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

As far as i can remember I believe this is my first banana tree. I have never seen one in real life but they come a dime a dozen here. Everyone eats bananas for lunch breakfast and dinner but most often as a snack. I was disappointed to find out that Kenyans were not as creative with bananas as the Thais (in Thailand i would gorge on fried bananas on a daily basis... my waistline was probably happy that they didn't have that delicacy here)

Papayas

Papayas
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a papaya tree. While I saw many papaya trees they seemed to be alot like cabbages in that i saw them around but never saw anyone eating them.

Napier Grass: Harvested & Fertilized

Napier Grass: Harvested & Fertilized
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here you can see the freshly fertilized "stumps" of Napier grass. Yep, the cut the grass then scoop a pile of fresh manure on to the stump. I don't know much about horticulture but somehow putting fresh manure on a plant didn't seem like the best idea to me.

In another area (at which time i did not have my camera) a family had an orchard(?) of banana trees and they actually dug trenches in between their rows of banana trees and filled the trenches with fresh manure and once they were halfway filled they would cover the trench up, again the idea of putting fresh manure on plants didn't seem like a great idea to me but i guess its better than nothing?

Napier Grass

Napier Grass
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a whole field of napier grass. They normally just take a sythe (actually machetes seem to be the tool of choice here) and cut the grass then take it and shred it.

Kenyan Cuisinart (different angle shot)

Kenyan Cuisinart (different angle shot)
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

The same contraption but from a different angle. You can see the blade and if you look at the lower right side of the wheel (lower left side of the picture above) you can see the handle, yep, they crank that thing every day and chop up enough grass for up to 4 cattle (i guess could be more but i never saw any families that had more than 4 head of cattle).

Kenyan Cuisinart

Kenyan Cuisinart
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This contraption is a Kenyan Cuisinart for livestock fodder. They feed mainly Napier grass (but I saw them also feeding cornstalks and banana leaves) into the long end and spin the fan like blade to chop up the fodder. I was impressed that they understood the value of increasing the surface area of the fodder for the animals, now if they would only look into turning their corn into silage instead of drying it out (fortunately they feed the grass and banana leaves fresh so comparatively little nutrition is lost)

Napier Grass

Napier Grass
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

So this is the Kenyan equivalent to Fescue (for South Eastern farmers in the US at least). Its called Napier grass and is comparatively large and woody. I have no idea what the nutritional content of this grass is but its the main fodder for ruminants (especially cattle) here in this part of Kenya.

Tea Truck

Tea Truck
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

I was curious as to how they picked up the tea but when we got to the tea factory I figured it out. They have trucks that are designed to carry those large tea bags (they bags hang on the side and inside of the truck, kind of like a coat closet) and transport them to the factory where the leaves are washed, dried, and something else (can't remember).

Weighed tea bags

Weighed tea bags
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here the tea is wieghed and the amout/weight is recorded by the agent. I did not ask what the payout timeframe is but I would suspect that it is either weekly, or bi-monthly, or monthly.

Tea bags

Tea bags
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Ok, i didn't get in all the shots i should have but at this stage of tea processing the following happens.

#1 The people (usually the women) wear the above baskets on thier backs (kinda, there is a strap that is usually balanced on thier heads, not sure how to explain it) and pick the younger tea leaves from the tea bushes in their tea fields.

#2 They bring thier baskets of tea to the nearest collection point.

#3 At the collection point they dump thier tea in a pile and an agent (inspector?) comes by to see if the tea is acceptable (mainly to see if there are any stems with one or more leaves on it)

#4 Once inspected they re-gather the leaves into these canvas bags (which is not really canvas but a fiber from a large aloe looking plant whose name escapes me)

Tea

Tea
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This was my first "Tea Collection Point". About once a week people go out to thier tea fields and pick a tea leaves, put them into baskets, and then carry them to the closest cooperative collection point.

Tea Factory/Co-Operative Environmental Program

Tea Factory/Co-Operative Environmental Program, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

On my excursions around Kirinyaga I was taken to a local tea factory (which i late found out was part of one of the largest tea cooperatives in Kenya). In the front they had this sign "Environment Conservation Programme". I was pretty impressed that they would even post something like that up there. I can't vouch for much of what is written on the sign but I did see a few tree plantings.

Kenyan Well

Kenyan Well, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Amusingly enough i don't remember seeing many wells around (though i don't remember seeing that many wells in Asia either). I guess i am just accustomed to the beautifully ornamented wells in Eastern Europe (Moldova) where they are mean to be a thing of beauty as well as useful.

Farm House

Farm House, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

The gentleman ahead of me was the Chairmen of the cooperative I was brought to help. Today he was taking me around to different farmers houses. I am not sure if the building to the right was a house or some sort of storage. I certainly saw houses more squalid than this building so it could have been. It is surrounded by corn which seems to be a staple here but they grow it about as well as Moldovans grow corn, not very well (though keep in mind I am accustomed to either GMO/heavily fertilized/sprayed or heavily pampered organic crops in the US so either way the stuff in the US has more resources thrown into it.

Flying Cow?

Flying Cow?, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a crow. I have seen crows like this in Eastern Europe as well but never in the USA. They kinda remind me of mini-airborne belted galloways (cattle breed). Anyway, other than that fact that its "belted" there was nothing special about this little guy.

Old Vehicle?

Old Vehicle?, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This was a picture that a friend of mine took. I am not sure what it was, my guess is a tractor (narrow wheelbase) or else a really skinny car.

Unused Spring

Unused Spring, originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a spring of sorts that was outside town. Honestly there were very few people that *did*not* warn me about drinking water in Kenya so I stayed away from it (especially considering my weak stomach) but this town was kind of the exception, they were fiercely proud of thier water as it came from Mount Kenya. Anyway, this spring basin seemed to have been built for kicks because there were few to no signs that it was being used by people or animals but the surrounding vegitation was certianly making the most of it (even greener than usual area). Note: This Picture was not taken by me

Pork Balls

I just finished watching a travel documentary about Iceland and Greenland and they had a segment about food. Now I have heard quite a bit about Scandinavian food and even more about Icelandic food but when they started talking about sucking down raw sheep testicles I flinched a bit. While i could probably eat it i am almost positive it would take some coaxing. It reminded me of "pork balls" (which is really just pork Surimi), no not testicles but the first thing that probably comes to mind for many Asians is ground pork molded into balls and eaten in soups and on skewers (both pretty good). I knew about pork balls thanks to my Thai friend and his family but I never had them outside of an Asian household/restaurant. To the average American it would probably sound like a thinly veiled euphemism for testicles, something like rocky mountain oysters

Bush’s unwitting friendliness towards foreigners

Bush is a shmoe, my own heavily bias opinion of course (as a NC Aggie, almost an oxymoron I realize). He cares little to nothing about what other countries think of him or the US, regardless of the consequences, but he is buddies with big business and in many ways that makes him a buddy with many foreign exporters. Because of this, in many cases he is for less regulation and protection against imports, while I really doubt we agree for the same reasons I do think that protectionism for most western countries is wrong, for more on the catfish refer to this article

Indeed, "the fate of Vietnamese catfish offers a warning to poorer nations short on leverage in the world trading system: beware of what may happen if you actually succeed at playing by the big boys' rules", said a New York Times editorial on July 22. Apparently Bush's apathy wasn't enough, the catfish farming lobby was enough to shut out the Vietnamese catfish; and yes, these Vietnamese ones are technically catfish. Saying cheese that came from France isn't cheese because it didn't come from an "American cow" (which in and of itself is a misnomer because almost all American milking cattle are of European ancestry)

Vitagoat, 3rd world food processing

Yeah, I though it was some sort of transgenic uber-goat too... oh well. No this is a gizmo, pedal powered, that processes food. It was designed to work in 3rd world environments like without electricity. This could be pretty handy, many parts of the world barely have a concept of food preservation (or any other kind of preservation for that matter) so, assuming they can be taught the benefits of processing their foods with one of the benefits of the food lasting longer this could be great.

American Farmers Find Partners in Brazil

An interesting bit on how American farmer are spreading out thier risk, and essentially taking advantage of globalization instead of fighting it by investing/working in Brazil.