Michael Major

A Traveller's Eye, A Thinker's Heart

Category: Travels for Crop Trust

  • A MOROCCAN ROADTRIP

    MOROCCO ROADTRIP DAY 1. WELCOME TO MY WORLD It was a coincidence and a stroke of luck that my work travels in Morocco converged with the travels of Padma, Jenni and Russ. So they were able to meet my work colleagues and we were able to spend a night in Marrakech before the three of them returned home. We all decided to make the most of our night and travelled to Jemaa el-Fnaa, the famous square in the city’s medina. We were a convoy of three vehicles which included my Crop…

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    A MOROCCAN ROADTRIP

  • THE CORIOLIS EFFECT

    ‘How’s the weather in the southern hemisphere?’ Ben asked. We crossed the Equator just north of Kisumu so we felt obliged to get the token tourist shot. A man with a bucket and some water beckoned us over for a demonstration. We knew he was just after a few shillings but let him show us what he had. ‘You see that? That’s the Equator line,’ he said and pointed to a line made of bricks. He walked a few metres north of the line and pulled out some matchsticks for us.…

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    THE CORIOLIS EFFECT

  • A TALE OF TWO MARYS

    Once upon a time a man married two Marys, which is something you can do in Kenya. The man passed away but his two wives, the Marys, lived on and prospered while growing finger millet. Finger millet is a traditional crop of Eastern Africa and once grew abundantly in the Western Kenya near the town of Kakamega. But in the 1990s farmers replaced it with maize. That was a pity as finger millet is incredibly nutritious, grows really well in these parts and can command about twice the price at market…

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    A TALE OF TWO MARYS

  • JOY IN THE FINGER MILLET FIELD

    Margaret, a progressive farmer in Kakamega County of western Kenya, suffers from diabetes. So she planted finger millet at a time when all of her neighbours planted maize. She likes the finger millet because it is high in nutritional content, is gluten free, and has a low GI. Magaret has been growing finger millet for more than a decade and reports that her diabetes is under control and she and her family are healthy thanks to regular consumption of finger millet. My colleague, Benjamin Kilian, and our finger millet pre-breeding partner,…

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    JOY IN THE FINGER MILLET FIELD

  • UGALI AKA WIMBI

    My colleague, Benjamin, and I travelled to Kenya to learn about finger millet and check up on some projects the Crop Trust is supporting. Neither of us had ever eaten finger millet so our hosts made sure we’d change that. Our hosts brought us to a small village called Ekero in Kakamega County which was supposedly famous for its barbecued goat. They ordered some goat and chicken as well as finger millet ugali. Ugali is a very stiff porridge which can be made of maize, sorghum or finger millet. You eat…

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    UGALI AKA WIMBI

  • JONAH, THE KENYAN TEA PLUCKER

    It’s an all-day journey from Nairobi to Kisimu, where my colleague, Benjamin Kilian, and I will look at some finger millet pre-breeding projects. Halfway into the journey we climbed to 2400 metres on the western side of the Riff Valley and entered prime Kenyan tea country. We stretched our legs and met Jonah, a tea plucker on a massive plantation owned by Unilever. Jonah picks only the light green recent growth leaves. With all the rain the plantation has received, he’ll be back in a couple of months to pick again…

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    JONAH, THE KENYAN TEA PLUCKER

  • MORAG, THE QUEEN OF CASSAVA

    The last time I saw Morag Ferguson I was shoving hummus into my mouth and washing it down with arak. It’s been 25 years since Morag and I worked in Syria. The times have changed, but not Morag. I caught up with Morag at her home for the past 15 years – Nairobi, Kenya. Morag now works for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and she’s doing some mighty fascinating work with cassava. Morag took my Crop Trust colleague, Benjamin Kilian, and me, out to her second home at KEPHIS, which…

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    MORAG, THE QUEEN OF CASSAVA

  • BACK AT ICARDA

    It’s taken me 25 years, but I’ve finally returned to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, the organisation I once worked for. This time it wasn’t in Syria but the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon … but Syria was just a few kilometres away beyond the mountains in this photo. The location has changed but not the work. ICARDA is doing some amazing work in regenerating seeds from crops native to the Fertile Crescent. For me, it felt like old times when I lay down in the soil…

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    BACK AT ICARDA

  • REPLENISHING THE SEED OF THE FERTILE CRESCENT

    Ahmed Amri stood in the middle of a checkerboard-patterned field. “This field sums up the diversity of wheat in the Fertile Crescent,” said Ahmed. “All the plots are wild wheat, but each one is slightly different, and any one of these could possess a beneficial trait which could help crop breeders develop wheat varieties more resilient to climate change.” Ahmed, the head of the Genetic Resources Section of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), was surveying seed regeneration plots in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, in the very…

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    REPLENISHING THE SEED OF THE FERTILE CRESCENT
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