The irrigation system that was installed last year has undergone a lot stress "in the bush." It seems that it has become a valued meal for bush animals - grasscutters, antelopes, and rats. Here are some pictures of the mayhem:

A chewed pipe along the lateral.

The lateral line coming off the main line.

Chewed pipe.

Chewed pipe along the pipe reducer (2" to 1 3/4")

The well has filled with sediment and is currently around 9 feet deep.

Progress at Three Different Plots

I want to share some pictures that display the nature and progress of the different plots I am cultivating. The first plot is on the road to Guaman-Odumase and is a three and a half acre cocoa, plantain, banana, and palm oil agroforestry plot. This plot is convenient because of the road access, and will be great for harvesting and transporting:

The main road between Atakrom and Guaman-Odumase bisects this plot.

This is a shooting plantain corm.

There are also about 150 oil palms that are about 1 1/2 years old and were purchased with the plot

The second plot is at Guaman-Odumase and is four acres. It is part of a larger eight acre purchase but I will post pictures of that plot once it is weeded. This plot is intercropped with cocoa, plantains, bananas, some oil palms, and some taro root.

The plantains and cocoa saplings were alternately planted every five feet. The plantains will grow to form a canopy by the end this rainy season.

This part of the farm is already developing a healthy canopy.

It is difficult to capture the vastness of four acres of land in a photograph, but this is a photo from the hill-top (bordering the forest reserve) and continuing to the other boundary of the farm. The plot has been weeded up to the cottage but the entire four acres is planted.

This is a healthy cocoa sapling and plantain. The plantain will grow four or five feet within the next month.

This photograph gives you a better idea of how the rows look. Plantain, cocoa, plantain, cocoa, etc.

The third plot shown here was recently purchased and contains a matured palm oil plantation. There are about 300 palm trees. The rest has been planted with plantains and will be planted with cocoa in the next two weeks:

Plantain trees

This plot is also bisected by an access road.

This is the boundary of the palm plantation. These trees are probably four or five years old and are producing substantial amounts of palm nuts.

This is the inside of the palm plantation. Cocoa seedlings will be planted between the trees and, once they reach maturity, the palms will be uprooted and tapped for palm liquor.

These trees were recently harvested, but this tree is producing palm nuts and will be harvested soon.

Cocoa Saplings and Ammonia Sulfate

I've been regularly supplementing the soil on my plots with NPK, but I'm also giving my cocoa saplings a good growth spurt through the application of ammonia sulfate.

This seedling was given a half matchbox of ammonia sulfate and photographed for the first time on 5/3/2012 (Figure 1) and the second picture was taken on 5/12/2012 (Figure 2). Note that two different cameras were used, and that explains the color difference:

Figure 1

Figure 2

This seedling was given a full matchbox of ammonia sulfate for the first time on 5/3/2012 (Figure 3) and the second picture was taken on 5/12/2012 (Figure 4):

Figure 3

Figure 4

If you compare the two, it is quite easy to see that the full matchbox of ammonia sulfate has a far more substantial impact than the half matchbox. This experiment was necessary, though, because ammonia sulfate can kill saplings if it is not given in the correct amounts. From here on out, its matchboxes all the way down!

multi-storey farming (agroforestry) and La Rose Cocoa Farm

In my design of La Rose Cocoa Farm, I synthesized a combination of Western agricultural techniques and indigenous agroforestry (multi-storey farming) practices. Western techniques, such as irrigation from a hand-dug well and the use of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) inputs, are employed to push the farm into a scenario where indigenous agroforestry practices can completely replace Western techniques. This is necessary to rehabilitate degraded agro-ecosystems that have been excessively cultivated with monocropping techniques and/or logged for timber. Fortunately, most of these lands are only mildly degraded and are patched with clusters of trees that provide valuable lead litter.

Figure 1: Multi-Storey farm with oil palms, young plantains and bananas, and cocoa. This farm is in the same area where I farm, but is likely around 6 or 7 years old. 

Though the terms “agroforestry” and “multi-storey farming” are used interchangeably, the latter is much more effective at describing what are typically pictured as indigenous agroforestry cultivation methods. “Agroforestry” is derived from ager (fields) and forestry, and is rooted in European ways of thinking about domesticated food production. Unfortunately, the term does not encapsulate essential features of most indigenous “agroforestry” systems. These features include cultivating and harvesting foods at different levels in terms of height, as well as combining endemic species with introduced and locally domesticated species. An indigenous agroforestry system is likened to an anthropogenic ecosystem that is simultaneously a farm. For example, the ground cover can be planted with leguminous plants such as peanuts, have a three or four foot subsequent level of cassava or maize, a shade-tree such as coffee or cocoa on the third level, a larger tree such as a plantain or banana, and then tall timber species or citrus species that close the canopy.

The benefits of multi-storey farming are plentiful. Multi-storey farming methods involve mixed cropping of ground crops, tree crops, fruit crops, and cash crops. This provides farmers with economic security in the sense that a glut in the market for one crop can be absorbed by the presence of other crops. Plants are chosen that have symbiotic relationships – for example, a Ceiba pentadara tree can provide shade for coffee or cocoa while enriching the top soil with decomposing leaf litter – and thus help with a more efficient nutrient cycle. Multi-storey farming systems create environments with cool air and that protect the soil from solar radiation. Multi-storey farming systems retain moisture and are more resilient during drought periods.

In some ways, this makes the label “La Rose Cocoa Farm” seem inappropriate. This project involves, in addition to cocoa: plantains, bananas, papayas, pineapples, cassava, taro root (coco-yam), palm nuts, maize, avocado, and peanuts. The plan still allows the ideal 435 cocoa tree/acre plan to move forward. Eventually, the cocoa trees will grow large enough to create a self-sustaining canopy under which other crops can benefit from the nutrient-rich leaf litter of the cocoa trees.

Figure 2: A picture of my mutli-storey farm at Guaman-Odumase. From left to right: oil palm, taro root, cocoa, plantains, bananas.

Thus, the benefits of multi-storey farming can be summarized as mimicking a non-anthropogenic ecosystem, requiring minimum amounts of maintenance, and providing a year round source of sustenance and income. This is why “agroforestry” systems of agriculture are being promoted in tropical environments that were once exploited through mono-cropped cash crop systems that were sanctioned by international markets.

Biodiversity through multi-storey farming is the future of agriculture, and it is rather ironically inspired by the cultivation methods of indigenous peoples that were displaced decades ago. I have been inspired by it, and La Rose Cocoa Farm has modeled its cultivation methods upon it.

how saplings respond to water

Even while Oqui Kator is being prepared for a large-scale irrigation system composed of 1,750 feet of pipe, a 25 foot well, and a gas-powered water pump, La Rose Cocoa Farms is still getting water to the eight acres of cocoa seedlings in Guaman-Odumase. We are accomplishing this by hand-fetching barrels of water and using watering cans and knapsacks to deliver about 1 liter of water to each seedling (all 3,500) every 4 days.

Here is some evidence of the positive impacts that the watering is having on the cocoa seedlings:

Image 1: A cocoa seedling that has generated new growth since watering started two weeks ago (yet almost two months into the dry season).

Image 2: This doesn't look like much, but it is a veritable Lazarus in the scheme of the cocoa farm. This was just a dry twig in the ground two weeks ago, but is now spurting new growth from the base.


P.S: I realize that I haven't done community profiles yet, and that many of the activities described here would be more meaningful with an idea of the communities in which they took place. I'll work on those early next week.

irrigation: ready, set, wait...

The irrigation project at Oqui Kator is nearing the green light stage, much to the pleasure of the 3,600+ plantains that are thirsty in the dry, fiery harmattan (dry) season. I am currently managing a well-digging crew, a plumbing crew, and my own farm laborers. It has become something of a fiasco, with me running up and down the hill tripping over roots and sweating in the West African heat. I think these pictures summarize the scale of the project:

"the crazy white man who waters his cocoa in the dry season"

That's how I was introduced to someone today, as "the crazy white man who waters his cocoa in the dry season."

"And my plantains," I added. "And well, I'm not really crazy. Well, not as a result of using irrigation in a rainforest, anyway."

And then today, after weeks of almost returning to church to petition God with prayer, one of my wells finally hit water. It was quite impressive. We had dug for about 15 feet and then suddenly water came rushing in and filled the well to the surface. Then we bailed the water, dug another 10 feet, and then let it fill up.

Well, as one might guess, digging a 20 foot hole that continually fills up with water is quite difficult. But what will be even more difficult is pumping water from said well at a 45 degree angle uphill where it will connect with a t-shaped irrigation system with 12 taps at strategic points. These 12 points will service a 54 yard hose that will in turn supply water to 3,262 plantain trees and 3,262 cocoa seedlings (alternating every five feet). I thought this sounded like a tedious plan, and I was right. But luckily, I found people willing to help me do it. What I didn't imagine was the extraordinary cost of doing it - 1,300 cedis for the PCV pipes, joiners ("t's"), taps, and hoses, and 600 cedis for a 3 inch superpowered water pump. But when those 6,500+ trees start pumping giant heads of plantain and metric tons of cocoa it will be all worth it.

So that is success on one front. Getting all these materials to the middle of the rainforest was another task altogether, so here are some pictures of the poor guy who agreed to do the job (for 120 cedis, mind you):

The other plots of land are still waiting for water (and this one too, until the irrigation system is set up), but we are making progress on those wells too. In the meantime, I have less than two weeks to bring in a plumber, help him and learn from him, and then get my workers trained on how to water the trees before I visit the U.S.