A Traveller’s Eye, A Thinker’s Heart
I like to tell stories. I like to take photos.
And I like to share them. Enjoy.
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CASSAVA IN YOUR BREAD
The people of Togo eat a lot of bread. But to make bread you need wheat. And Togo doesn’t grow much wheat. It has to import it and Russia is one of the major suppliers. So the folks at the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique (ITRA) and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture taught the…
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THE FRIENDLY FACES OF TOGO
On my second day in Togo, the team of the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique (ITRA) took my travel companion from the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, Nhamo Nhamo, and me to a village about a hour or so from Lome. About 40 locals came from three villages to meet us. I learned of their…
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TRY SOME SORGHUM IN YOUR COUSCOUS
The villagers of Atti-Apedokoe in Togo love their couscous. For generations, they’ve made it with maize (corn). But maize isn’t terribly resilient to all the challenges that Mother Nature is throwing at our farming systems these days. So scientists at the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture – ICBA…
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TWO STANS AND ALFALFA
The glaciers of the Tien Shan mountain range in Central Asia are receding quickly. And that’s causing a lot of concern amongst the farmers of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The glacial meltwaters which allowed them to irrigate their crops are no longer abundant. And without adequate water, yields plummet. I joined a group of scientists brought…
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THE WRITER’S DEN
I had a good job in 1984 at an agricultural research center called CATIE in Costa Rica. I was tasked with writing a complete textbook on agroforestry. It would have taken a year, maybe two. It was a secure job at a very reputable international center. I quit the job after about five months. I…
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SIEBENGENBIRGSWEG REUNION
It took Padma and me two and a half years to build our new family home on a beach south of Perth. But it only took two weeks after we received the keys before we welcomed our first overseas visitors. For three years, we lived next door to Markus, Claudia and Carla in a little…
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JOSEPH NEWCOMB (1785-1867)
My third great grandfather Joseph Newcomb was born on 11 September 1785, in Fairton, New Jersey. At his birth, Joseph’s father, Joseph Newcomb, was 26 and his mother, Phebe Sheppard, was 23. Joseph had only one sibling. Mary died at 10 years old. Joseph was born four years after the Revolutionary War ended. At the…
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A DAY IN THE RICE PADDIES OF CAO PHONG
Timing is so important in photography. And I seem to get it wrong so often. I stayed an extra day in Vietnam so I could see rice being harvested in terraced paddies. But it soon appeared that my timing was wrong. Turns out most of the rice in northern Vietnam had already been harvested. Nothing…
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A TWILIGHT STROLL THROUGH HANOI’S OLD QUARTER
I came to Vietnam as part of a Crop Trust-supported genebank review team and after five days here I thought I’d only see a slice of Vietnam between our hotel and the plant resource center. But the team was able to wrap up its work by mid-afternoon on Friday so we all travelled to Hanoi’s…
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