Ever Ag Project Needs Alittle...

Ok first thing that comes to mind is luv, but we all need alittle luv'in (sorry, brain fart). But what I was thinking of is:

1. A Monitoring and Evaluation person (M&E)
2. A Lawyer

Of course there are other things, the obvious like administrator, agronomist (duh), veterinarian (assuming the project has a livestock component which most of mine do), and a few others I that I am sure I am forgetting but the two afore mentioned positions are things that seem to be missing all to often from projects, and even when they are available they are misused.

Lawyers are needed because to be able to navigate the laws (or catch the caveats) of developing countries is truly a mind boggling task and is almost impossible for non-lawyer nationals but they are really quite essential. Even if the laws are not enforced you will be safer complying with them than ignoring them (international organizations are seen as limitless bags of money ripe for extortion etc so if you aren't following the rules then you become an even-easier target for corrupt officials or well connected individuals).

M&E people are important because you have to show the donor results, and it is of course lots of numbers and stats etc (and we all know about statistics) but if you have an obviously defunct (or worse, non-existent) monitoring plan in place and no data coming into the project you will have nothing to show the donor (or nothing to back up your claims). Not only that but for a non-math-minded type like myself creating a M&E plan is a bear and keeping up with it, crunching the numbers, and trying to take into account external factors is more than my wee brain can do (maybe if that was my only job but it would be a miserable job for me and at this stage of my professional life [such as it is] I am usually in positions where i have to follow many things and can't devote significant time to M&E).

My previous project didn't have a budget line for a lawyer and I tried to get my staff to contract one on a per job basis but it was towards the end of the project, they were lazy, and I was getting really tired of the project but I can think of a few instances where a lawyer would/should have  caught errors in contracts, could have helped us in intervening in some areas (irrigation and government roles), etc. My previous project did kind of have a M&E person but they ended up just being computer guys that could input data and graph out what i needed but were worthless for analysis or following the project in anyway.

Oh well, my two cents for the day.

Dried Mulberries?

I have been thinking about the mulberry tree in my front yard and dreading the time when it starts producing fruit. I have found mulberries to be kinda a sweet but tasteless fruit, that isn't great by itself but is wonderful as a base (like frozen for fruit smoothies). Problem is i won't be able to eat them all and am really not looking forward the two months of sticky shoes and tip toeing through the mulberry mush (there is one directly in front of my gate and another in front of my front door). Since this is a rental house chopping them down isn't really an option, actually don't see an option but it did get me thinking about mulberries...

I've seen lots of dried fruits, especially at the western health food stores but they have always been a moist super sweet type thing. I remember in Afghanistan they would dry mulberries out (not hard there, the driest places I have ever lived) to the point they were crunchy and i gotta admit, they were pretty good. In retrospect i think i remember something like "apple chips" or something but that is about the only dried/crispy fruit product i can recall having seen/tried in the US. I am just surprised that more dried/crunchy berries aren't sold in the US (low weight, high storability, palatable, no-so-exotic-and-idea-as-to-repel-potential-customers)