JUNE 27, 2009
A Buffett Turns to Farming in Africa
After a meeting with farmers in Fufuo, Ghana, Howard Buffett stood up to shake hands, African style. He extended his right arm, marked with a faint scar from a cheetah bite, and then launched into a rapid combination of finger snapping and palm slapping.
The middle child of Warren Buffett is an unassuming Illinois soybean and corn farmer. But for the past four years, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in the global war against hunger. Given a small portion of his father’s fortune for philanthropy, he spends much of the year traveling through Africa, experimenting with ideas for helping poor farmers produce enough crops to feed their families and so lessen the continent’s food shortage. As the global economic downturn sets back decades of work to end world hunger, Warren Buffett's son, Howard Buffett, takes on a surprising, little-known role on the front lines. Mr. Buffett travels from Ghana to Togo to Benin, trying to spread approaches to farming that he's found successful.
Howard Buffett teaches farmers in a Burundi cornfield. Agriculture is the main livelihood for citizens of the country, one of the world’s poorest.
Mr. Buffett is looking for ways to help African farmers increase their harvests without increasing their costs.
It’s hard to measure the impact of Howard Buffett’s foundation, something Mr. Buffett himself acknowledges. He does most of the work finding and visiting projects. He employs eight people, mostly in administrative roles.
In February 2007, his SUV pulled into Fufuo, a village in central Ghana. Accompanied by Ghanaian agronomist Kofi Boa, he hurried into a large cinder-block building where 30 farmers had been waiting.
Back home, Mr. Buffett owned 800 acres of corn and soybeans and a fleet of the most modern John Deere implements. Now, he hoped to learn something from farmers who scratched the dirt with sticks and machetes. Mr. Boa, the agronomist, had been coaching them to replace slash-and-burn farming with a practice he called “no-till.”
In many African villages, poor farmers—who are often women—had traditionally made room for their crops by chopping down the brush and trees on a few acres of tribal land. It is hard on the farmer and the environment. The land is laid bare to erosion. As the soil deteriorates, farmers work harder and harder to produce food until they have to move on to another spot, repeating the cycle.
Mr. Boa told Fufuo’s farmers to disturb the ground as little as possible. Other than poking holes in the dirt to plant their seeds, the ground was not to be hoed or vegetation burned. Organic residue—such as leaves, stalks, and roots—was valuable, not trash.
The village quickly discovered that no-till plots yielded bigger crops with far less labor. The mulch acts as a sponge when it rains, banking water for crops, and then breaks down into plant food. The time the farmers saved by no longer hoeing weeds and cutting brush was time for money-making endeavors. Some started to raise cocoa trees, a crop prized by Ghana’s government for its export earnings; others began to raise chickens, feeding them with their surplus grain.
Further convinced he should support no-till training of farmers, Mr. Buffett left.
—Adapted from “ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve In an Age of Plenty” by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Copyright 2009 by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
The first one I saw was in 1960 in Guatemala on a large dairy farm. It was down by the stream and pumped water up to the dairy. Remember that the inlet pipe is far upsteam from where the pump is located. Worked great 24 hours a day. The Ram can get the water to where it is needed. How you use the water is another story. It would save a lot of work of getting the water to the field to put in the buckets rather than having to carry it a great distance. Remember men MUST carry water as well as the women.
I took my time listening to Heart to Heart CD but the volume on other videos are so feint apart from the Jesus Film which is very clear.We love the CD as a family.
I have no idea why the problem. 100% of the time when I hear of a problem it is the equipment being used. May not be in your case since the others play well.
JUNE 27, 2009
A Buffett Turns to Farming in Africa
After a meeting with farmers in Fufuo, Ghana, Howard Buffett stood up to shake hands, African style. He extended his right arm, marked with a faint scar from a cheetah bite, and then launched into a rapid combination of finger snapping and palm slapping.
The middle child of Warren Buffett is an unassuming Illinois soybean and corn farmer. But for the past four years, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in the global war against hunger. Given a small portion of his father’s fortune for philanthropy, he spends much of the year traveling through Africa, experimenting with ideas for helping poor farmers produce enough crops to feed their families and so lessen the continent’s food shortage. As the global economic downturn sets back decades of work to end world hunger, Warren Buffett's son, Howard Buffett, takes on a surprising, little-known role on the front lines. Mr. Buffett travels from Ghana to Togo to Benin, trying to spread approaches to farming that he's found successful.
Howard Buffett teaches farmers in a Burundi cornfield. Agriculture is the main livelihood for citizens of the country, one of the world’s poorest.
Mr. Buffett is looking for ways to help African farmers increase their harvests without increasing their costs.
It’s hard to measure the impact of Howard Buffett’s foundation, something Mr. Buffett himself acknowledges. He does most of the work finding and visiting projects. He employs eight people, mostly in administrative roles.
In February 2007, his SUV pulled into Fufuo, a village in central Ghana. Accompanied by Ghanaian agronomist Kofi Boa, he hurried into a large cinder-block building where 30 farmers had been waiting.
Back home, Mr. Buffett owned 800 acres of corn and soybeans and a fleet of the most modern John Deere implements. Now, he hoped to learn something from farmers who scratched the dirt with sticks and machetes. Mr. Boa, the agronomist, had been coaching them to replace slash-and-burn farming with a practice he called “no-till.”
In many African villages, poor farmers—who are often women—had traditionally made room for their crops by chopping down the brush and trees on a few acres of tribal land. It is hard on the farmer and the environment. The land is laid bare to erosion. As the soil deteriorates, farmers work harder and harder to produce food until they have to move on to another spot, repeating the cycle.
Mr. Boa told Fufuo’s farmers to disturb the ground as little as possible. Other than poking holes in the dirt to plant their seeds, the ground was not to be hoed or vegetation burned. Organic residue—such as leaves, stalks, and roots—was valuable, not trash.
The village quickly discovered that no-till plots yielded bigger crops with far less labor. The mulch acts as a sponge when it rains, banking water for crops, and then breaks down into plant food. The time the farmers saved by no longer hoeing weeds and cutting brush was time for money-making endeavors. Some started to raise cocoa trees, a crop prized by Ghana’s government for its export earnings; others began to raise chickens, feeding them with their surplus grain.
Further convinced he should support no-till training of farmers, Mr. Buffett left.
—Adapted from “ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve In an Age of Plenty” by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Copyright 2009 by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Hi Ken Discuss how effective is a an hydraulic ram(pump). I though it could be a good idea if we combine a bucket drip irrigation and an hydraulic ram
The first one I saw was in 1960 in Guatemala on a large dairy farm. It was down by the stream and pumped water up to the dairy. Remember that the inlet pipe is far upsteam from where the pump is located. Worked great 24 hours a day. The Ram can get the water to where it is needed. How you use the water is another story. It would save a lot of work of getting the water to the field to put in the buckets rather than having to carry it a great distance. Remember men MUST carry water as well as the women.
I took my time listening to Heart to Heart CD but the volume on other videos are so feint apart from the Jesus Film which is very clear.We love the CD as a family.
I have no idea why the problem. 100% of the time when I hear of a problem it is the equipment being used. May not be in your case since the others play well.