The Dems are porking us just like the Republicans...

Quick gripe. President Bush asked for $100 billion for the Iraq war, I won't even get started on that (and ongoing disaster) but the while floating around in congress it grew by an extra 20 billion?!

Turns out that after all that talk by democrats about killing pork barrel spending they are tacking on ear marks for live stock producers, spinach farmers, peanut farmers, etc... business as usual... sigh.

Time to clean the stalls?

Time to clean the stalls?
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Remember the "Nice stalls" post, well these stalls were not quite as impressive. While I did approve of the setup generally speaking (chopped forage, separate stalls, etc) I think the cleaning aspect left a bit to be desired. These cows were running around in manure soup (which is not as bad as it sounds, at least for the cow) but they didn't have to. While you can't see it this stable was built on a bit of an incline (which the people here leveled) which could have been used to their advantage in terms of drainage, I don't imagine that cleaning soup out is particularly easy (I was being facetious, I know its not easy)

Big Nose Syndrome

Big Nose Syndrome
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

If any Vets are looking at this I would be curious on your opinion about what ails this bull's snout. The farmers asked me and I took a look at him, when asked they said that when he had this swelling that he had a non-mucus discharge, pus? The only guess (not even an educated guess) was an infection of some sort. This guy (the bull) got "sick" like once a month or more and would hardly eat anything when he was all swollen. Hmmmmm.

Nice stalls

Nice stalls
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Ok, I am sure some people are repulsed by pictures like these (or probably just not interested) but having worked in a bunch of operations and having seen even more I can appreciate well kept stalls. Here they used sawdust (I totally forgot to ask where they got all that sawdust) for bedding for the cattle which also makes stalls easier to clean (scooping sawdust/manure cakes is easier than plain ole manure) and clean stalls mean clean teats and happy cattle which can translate into higher productivity. I was impressed one that they did this at all but also that they did this given their location/situation which was out in the boonies (I have seen worse operations in more developed countries).

Coral

Coral
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Not sure if the title is spelled right (it’s supposed to be the fenced in area to keep cattle in one spot, not the little critters that make reefs).

I was amused by this not because I have never seen one before but because this was the only coral I saw in Kenya; most families kept their cattle in sheds.

Anyway, I was also amused by the fact that I saw lots of Holsteins in Kenya. Holsteins produce *alot* of milk so it makes sense for dairy farmers to have them but the breed is originally from the UK (not a warm place) and Kenya can get pretty warm. Now I should mention that I was in the Mount Kenya area which had wonderful weather and I was told did not get particularly hot so it is quite possible that no one had Holsteins in other parts of the country. By the way, I brought that up because the tan bovine in this picture appears to have some Brahma in it, a very heat tolerant breed.

Indian domination

Indian domination
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

The point of this photo was #1 to give you (or those that are curious) the specs on the milk cooler and #2 point out "the client" which is Ardarsh Developers LTD which is Indian. Ok, so its not domination but I was was still quite amused at how many Indians were in Kenya and how they dominated the business scene there. Many of the larger buildings/businesses were owned by Indians. I was told that they were brought over as laborers by the brits when Britain was constructing a railroad in Kenya and later other Indians came to cater to the Indians already there and the rest is history.

Milk Cooler

Milk Cooler
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

From medium sized freezer to honking huge (ok, for average Joes huge, for people in the dairy industry nothing special) milk cooler (that is idle at the moment).

This cooler was loaned to this cooperative by the milk processor that the cooperative gave its milk to. In theory the cooperative could keep its milk longer so spoilage would be less of an issue. The problem was that (amazingly) no one took into account the fact that there were constant power outages in Kenya. Well a few months before I got there was an overnight outage and they lost 6,000kg of milk, and have yet to pay the members back for the lost milk... sigh.

Refrigerators...

Refrigerators...
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Nothing much to say here, its a freezer. They used this freezer and one other freezer to store yogurt and mala for their little cafe.

Ugali processing plant...

Ugali processing plant...
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Ok, so it’s not much of a processing plant, really its just a flimsy pot with a flimsier top on a home made stove.

The thing I remember them making in this was ugali (which I think I mentioned earlier but anyway think "congealed grits") but I think they also boiled milk in this as well as made mala and yogurt in this thing (but I am less sure about those).

I was not a fan of ugali (though I do have an undying love for grits) and this ugali had a distinct smoked flavor to it (no doubt from the charcoal they were burning to cook it) which did not add to its appeal in the least.

I do have to admit that ugali had potential, a bit of salt, or cheese and perhaps fry it up ah la polenta and viola! gourmet!

Unused Equipment

Unused Equipment
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here was a room where they kept all their junk. I was told that the milk cans (to the left) were "bad" but when I asked further they said that the cans were dirty and the milk would go bad if it was left in those cans. Upon closer inspection it was just crusty nothing that couldn't be scraped off but hey.

What floored me was their older cooling equipment. Before they could cool a few thousand liters of milk a a time (albeit pretty inefficiently) and now there was a part of it was that broken. While I was there I talked them into brining a specialist by to estimate the value of it, the guy said about 1000Ksh?!?!? (That’s about $13, the cost of a ride to the airport from Nairobi). I would think the scrap metal from the equipment would be worth more than that.

Milk Cooling

Milk Cooling
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This was a first for me, this was apparently a setup the dairy cooperative used to cool the milk they received, that is they put the milk in cans and put the cans in cool water (not warm but not cold either). Actually I have seen something like this, old colonial spring houses in the US. Anyway it did cool the milk down but it can't be particularly efficient.

Side note: I used the "Exifer" freeware program to add descriptions and tags to this image and then uploaded the image to Flickr and whatdya know the tags and descriptions automatically showed up in flickr. Nice.

Mr Kecundo's Tea

Mr Kecundo's Tea
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This is Mr. Kecundo (the Treasurer of the milk cooperative I was assisting) in his tea field. This was the first time I had seen tea up close. I had guessed it grew on bushes but never knew that for a fact which is kinda shameful being a sweet-tea-slurping southerner.

Grafting

Grafting
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Ok, a post or two before I said i don't know much about horticulture but I would think most aggies would at least understand (in principle) grafting, in this case I do but the farmer insisted on explaining the whole grafting process. It would have been fine but i am fairly light skinned and had gotten a bad burn the day before and didn't have any sunscreen so listening to a topic i already knew in the mid-day sun was not in my skin's best interest.

Anyway, the purpose of grafting here was that there was one variety of coffee which was well adapted to the local soil but another variety of coffee that didn't grow as well here but brought a higher price so they grafted the higher price variety onto the grows-better variety stump and then covered the grafted stem with a plastic bag to protect it.

No hatred of trees

No hatred of trees
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

One of the most unfortunate things I see in agriculture around the world is the wholesale destruction of forests. Kenya was no exception but I was amused to see that many fields had trees in them. No one offered an explanation for why they didn't chop down all the trees and they didn't think much of it. While at the tea factory I did see examples of forestry but that was the only place. Everywhere else I saw either scrub or fields in areas that I was fairly sure should have been forests.

In many developed countries the forests were originally decimated but now have come back (i.e. the forest coverage is not at historical lows for many developed countries [that’s not to say that logging is no longer an issue in these countries, in some cases it should be more of an issue because old growth areas are continuing to be cut when private land holders, who have land that has been logged before, could easily grow enough wood to meet demand])

Sorting the beans

Sorting the beans
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This setup is how they sort the beans (the high quality from the lower quality beans). At the top of this slough they put the beans (with the hulls) and then put the wooden dividers in and fill it with water. The different quality beans settle in the slough at different places. Unfortunately I can't remember whether the higher quality beans settle first (i think that is right) or if they settle at the end (don't think that is right but am not sure).

Coffee bean "hulls"

Coffee bean "hulls"
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This trip was quite an education, I learned that pineapples grow low to the ground and not on trees (hey, I never pretended to know much about horticulture) and that coffee beans were actually seeds in berries that grow on a bush.

Here is a pile of coffee "hulls", the discarded fruit that covered the beans/seeds. I asked they guy how they separated the beans from the skin but never got a straight answer. I thought that these skins would make good compost but I didn't see anyone using it as compost and I have to admit that most of the Kenyan farmers I met seemed to have a pretty good grasp of composting so I will assume there is a good reason for not composting these skins/hulls.

Cistern

Cistern
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This part of Kenya (central, around Mount Kenya) didn't seem to have a problem with water (though i seemed to be there during the rainy season) but in some places, especially the mountainous areas, they have cisterns to collect rain water.

As far as I could tell this was not collecting rain water but i was told that it was used for processing the coffee beans (pretty inefficiently too, details in another picture).

Coffee bean drying

Coffee bean drying
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This is the coffee bean drying operation from a few feet back, nothing fancy but for some reason few farmers take this extra step.

Coffee bean drying (closeup)

Coffee bean drying (closeup)
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a closeup of the dried (not roasted, hence the lighter coloring than most people are accustomed to) beans. Doing all this is a value added feature, apparently few farmers do this but when they do they are able to get higher prices for their beans.

Coffee bean drying

Coffee bean drying
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Here is a setup used to dry out the coffee beans. They lay out plastic (yellow) and plastic mesh on long tables with open wire mesh tops and then spread the beans out and cover them up to be left in the sun.

Coffee "plantation"

Coffee "plantation"
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

Well its not exactly a “plantation” (I believe he said it was about 4 acres) but this guy (the chairman of the cooperative i was assigned to) was considered (locally) a pretty big coffee grower. He did have a (seemingly) organized setup and had the hill nicely terraced with little sign of erosion (and it had been raining cats and dogs for the past week).

I have to admit, i knew nothing about coffee (and still know little) but the politics and moral flexibility that is pervasive in the production and trade of coffee is appalling. I can't pretend to understand it all and i know that raw produce of course goes for a lot less than finished product but seeing a farmer get ~$.15/lb of coffee really makes one wonder (when i can pay as much as $5+ for a cup of coffee at a coffee shop).

Uber Trees

Uber Trees
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

It seems that those steroid trees are also used for telephone poles. I never got to handle any of the wood (like a branch or smaller pole) but i wonder how strong/dense a wood that grows that fast can be?

Silviculture

Silviculture
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

When I walked by the tea factory I had noticed that they had piles and piles of logs stacked up ready to be used for something. Apparently the factory burns wood to dry the tea leaves and they were originally getting their wood from the forest. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for Mother Nature) the Kenyan government setup Mount Kenya and the surrounding forest as a national park so the logging was reduced (though apparently not totally eliminated) so for this reason (among others) they began a program of silviculture. I do not know the name of this tree but it apparently had a phenomenal growth rate (I was told these trees were 2-3 years old) and was grown and used for burning but also for many of the houses in the more rural areas.

Avacado Tree

Avacado Tree
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

This was not my first avocado tree. When I was a kid i planted a seed and grew it to about a foot and a half tall but i don't remember what happened after that. I don't know if this is a small variety or if it just wasn’t ripe yet (do avocados change color when they get ripe? I know they get softer). Anyway, Kenya has the potential to be a guacamole Mecca since these trees are everywhere.