Well, we’re back from a summer trip to Congo, and I can tell you it was a busy one. The farm is enormous! Despite the dry season, crop production is through the roof, and it looks like we’ll be harvesting even more than we had previously estimated. With about 250 acres now under cultivation, we are currently harvesting around 40 metric tons of rice each month, and expect to harvest 100 metric tons of corn in August. The warehouses are bursting at the seams, and I can personally testify to the sheer legwork it takes to manage so much production. Fiston, our project manager, showed us around the farm, leading us through endless fields of tall green stalks separated only by long irrigation canals. After walking for what seemed like hours, he turned and shouted back, "Don’t worry, we’re almost halfway to the middle!"
We’ve also begun cultivating new crops, including palm trees for oil and a new parasite-resistant strain of cassava. Our massive output has made us now the largest food producers in Eastern Congo, an area half the size of Western Europe. Our crop production has become a stabilizing force in the region, allowing people to eat even in times of turmoil.
This trip was also particularly productive in terms of technology. Some of our friends at Cal Poly Tech sent us the blueprint to make a cooking stove that can burn rice hulls, which we were able to build and start using while we were in Ruzizi. Rice hulls are generally a worthless byproduct, being inedible and not good for compost. Ordinary cooking stoves are not hot enough to burn them, but the stove we built has a special design that creates enough heat and vacuum to burn rice hulls. This puts a previously worthless resource to use, and will propel our reforestation projects by reducing the need for firewood in the valley.
The other technological progress we made was in ox yoke training. Two of our workers, Toiye and Live, have been working with a team of oxen for the past year, and have a strong rapport with the animals. They were masterful in their ability to calm the oxen as the two young animals adapted to their first time in a yoke. By the end of the session, it was clear that the oxen could be trained to plough within a few weeks. This will significantly reduce the amount of labor it takes to plant and harvest the abundant crops of the Ruzizi Valley.
It was also clear, while we were there, that the incredible amount of agricultural produce is a responsibility as well as a blessing. Our storage space is overflowing, and some of our harvest has already spoiled because we don’t have the means to transport it, or appropriate facilities to keep it in. The vast quantities of rice and corn require a scaling up of transportation and storage infrastructure, but barns and trucks are expensive. Our goal is to raise money for these things over the rest of the summer and fall.
Since we left Congo, things haven’t exactly slowed down. Alex gave his talk at TEDGlobal, and had a great time alongside such speakers as Gordon Brown and Stephen Fry, and then came right back to speak at the greaterthan > conference here in Portland, Maine. For those of you in Maine, you can come see him give a presentation at the Georgetown Historical Society on Thursday, August 13th at 7 p.m. The Georgetown Historical Society is at 20 Bay Point Road in Georgetown. Alex’s sister will be making her famous cookies, so we hope to see you there!