Tag: Togo
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SMILES FROM THE POOREST OF THE POOR
I travelled to four countries in West Africa … four which are listed among the 20 ‘poorest’ nations in the world by various economic indicies. I have travelled to many ‘poor’ countries in my life but never this poor. I saw major cities that had not been electrified. I saw towns without mains water or sewage. I saw shacks serving as homes. I saw city roads that were nearly impassable. But I didn’t see malnourished people and I did not see misery. I didn’t see beggars. At least I didn’t in…
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BIOCHAR FOR TOGO
The soils around the village of Atti-Apedokoe in Togo no longer produce yields like they used to. They’ve become degraded and are gradually becoming more saline. But the villagers generate lots of organic waste. So, the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique and the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture taught the locals how to make biochar. The villagers make biochar by adding their green waste such as rice husks, maize stalks, husks and grasses to a cylinder and seal the lid so no oxygen can get in. They then put the small…
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A SWEETER ABLO
Ablo is a traditional Togolese corn cake. It’s made by steaming some paste and comes out as as kind of a dumpling like cake. The farmers of Atti-Apedokoe grow plenty of maize but they don’t always get great yields these days. So they attended a training session offered by staff at the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique (ITRA) and learned how to make ablo out of sorghum. It’s not just a matter of substituting maize flour for sorghum flour. The farmers of that part of Togo don’t traditionally grown sorghum so…
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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 folks in the village of Atti-Apedokoe how to use flour made out of cassava. Farmers in Togo grow a lot of cassava so its a crop they know. ITRA suggested they try some improved varieties of…
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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 efforts to create a community seedbank and took some lovely photos of the villagers with their seeds. But then I had some free time so I just wandered around snapping pics of the locals as well…
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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 suggested the villagers try making their couscous with sorghum. They weren’t familiar with the crop but they were game to give it a go. After all, sorghum is a pretty tough crop and can tolerate the…
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