Category: Travels for Crop Trust

  • GOOD TO BE ORGANISED

    For three days, my Crop Trust colleague, Beri, and I have been visiting farmers in Zimbabwe. As we arrive to each destination, we find a group ranging from 25 to 200 of farmers awaiting us under the shade of a tree or two. Without fail we are greeted with song and dance, which continue throughout […]

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    GOOD TO BE ORGANISED
  • A SUNDAY STROLL IN HARARE

    Jet lag got the best of me so instead of sleeping in on my first day in Zimbabwe, I woke up at dawn. It looked like a beautiful spring day in Harare so I put on my walking shoes to explore. There’s always one destination I aim for when I arrive to a new place: […]

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    A SUNDAY STROLL IN HARARE
  • ASK THE WOMEN

    A long time ago a client asked me to document a forestry project in the rural town of Hojancha in northern Costa Rica. I took photos of proud men standing by amazing stands of introduced eucalypts, Gmelina and teak. The trees were grown for both timber and firewood. But I learned the women weren’t too […]

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    ASK THE WOMEN
  • A POTATO JOURNEY FROM WISCONSIN TO KENYA

    I started out begrudgingly planting potatoes for a merit badge in Wisconsin. Decades later, I found myself in Kenya, watching advanced potato breeding at work. From garden patches to in vitro labs, I’ve come to appreciate the science behind every spud, and the people shaping its future.

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    A POTATO JOURNEY FROM WISCONSIN TO KENYA
  • THEY’RE HARVESTING POTATOES IN KENYA

    Potato harvesting in Kenya is being transformed through improved farming practices, including better seed selection, soil management, and access to agricultural support. These changes are helping smallholder farmers increase yields, strengthen food security, and build more resilient livelihoods in the face of climate and economic challenges across the region.

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    THEY’RE HARVESTING POTATOES IN KENYA
  • THE STIGMA OF GRASSPEA

    The ancient Greeks, notably Hippocrates, were pretty wary of grasspea (Lathyrus sativa). They figured if they ate too much they’d get some neurological disorders. The stigma of grasspea still persists today in many parts of the world.Last month I joined a team from the Crop Trust‘s BOLD Project to visit researchers and farmers in India […]

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    THE STIGMA OF GRASSPEA
  • CROSSING THE BRAHMAPUTRA

    The Brahmaputra is one of the mightiest rivers in the world. From its source on the Angsi Glacier in Tibet it flows nearly 4,000 kilometres to its mouth in the Bay of Bengal. Our hosts at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute wanted to take us to a char on the river. A char is a […]

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    CROSSING THE BRAHMAPUTRA
  • THE PEA OF THE CHAR

    As I jumped off the horse cart and landed on the sandy soil of Charbongram, an island in the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh, I kicked what appeared to be a weed. It was a scraggly, prostrate plant somehow surviving where no other plants could. ‘That’s grasspea,’ said ICARDA pulses breeder Shiv Agrawal proudly as if […]

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    THE PEA OF THE CHAR
  • GRASSPEA IS A GRACIOUS GIFT OF GOD GLOBALLY (5G)

    As I stood in the middle of a 28-acre community managed grasspea field in West Bengal, India, I asked how the villagers divided the tasks of managing the field. There were puzzled looks on the farmers’ faces. ‘There is no labour with grasspea … only sowing. God does the rest.’ Former ICARDA pulse breed Ashuthosh […]

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    GRASSPEA IS A GRACIOUS GIFT OF GOD GLOBALLY (5G)
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