How to Protect Yourself From Crop Thieves *WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES*

Have an itch to crop raid? Want to steal someone's bananas or plantains? Want to profit off of someone's hard work by simply just taking their produce? Think twice.

West Africa is famous for its traditional religion and rites. Togo and Benin in particular are famous for being the "heartland" of voodoo (as it is called in the Americas) and in Africa the heartland of "juju." When I informed my farm hands and supervisors that I would be leaving for six months, right as the major plantain harvests are starting to come to fruition, they all immediately instructed me to perform the necessary rites to secure my land and scare away/punish thieves.

So at 6 A.M this morning I drove my motorcycle on a narrow and dusty path to a mud-brick house on the outskirts of Attakrom. One of my farm hands, Francis, met me on the way and told me how to get there. He had a black polythene bag with him and sat on the back of my bike pointing at diversions in the path here and there. When we pulled up in front of the house, a middle-aged man emerged from behind a curtain and asked his daughter to bring us a bench. His son and some friends explained to me in Ewe that they had heard I needed protection for my farm when I was gone. When I answered "yes," they brought out a jerry can of palm wine and poured a libation invoking the ancestors to mark the beginning of the rite.

I had been told a few days before that I would need a few "things" for the rite. The list was pretty atypical: a dog's head, a small black goat, a baby chicken, a full grown chicken, a machete that has been worked down to its stub, a bottle of gin, black cloth, red cloth, and some black and red yarn. Luckily, all of these things are easy to come across in Ghana.

I was told that the rite they were going to perform would protect my farm from thieves and people who wanted to dispute land sales. When I asked them how this protection worked, I heard various things. One example was a story about someone entering a farm and digging up some cassava. As he hurried away from the farm, his body seized and he became paralyzed - stuck on the farm and unable to move. The next morning, when the farm owner came to do some weeding, they found the man laying on the ground with a bag full of stolen cassava and panic in his eyes. In order to have the spell broken, the thief had to be carried to the jujuman and agree to pay a hefty fine before the curse was removed. Other examples were far less gentle on the thieves: getting serious diarrhea, going insane, being attacked during the night by angry spirits, or being attacked by snakes.

Yeah, think twice.

Even though I am very skeptical about such things, I decided that at least it would send a clear message to anyone who might think about stealing from my farm. But as the rite was being performed, the jujuman told me to pick up the chicken and tell the gods what I wanted to be accomplished through this ritual. So yes, at one point on this 2nd of January 2013 I could have been seen talking to a chicken. The odd thing was that the chicken seemed to be listening - looking me squarely in the eyes and not shrieking as it had been doing moments before. After I finished telling the chicken what I wanted to be done, the jujuman rang a bell and the chicken went limp and lifeless on the floor of the house. How the hell did that happen?

The follow-up was even more spectacular. The small black goat had its throat cut and its blood splattered over the sacrificial items. The dog's head was picked clean and its skull placed at the center of the house.More blood was poured on top of the dog’s skull and the old worn-out machete. The jujuman’s wife threw some cowrie shells and announced that the ritual was successful and that no crop raiders could be expected anytime soon and that tomorrow I should come and ingest the fried and ground remains of all the ritual items.

So if you’re in Ghana, think twice before entering a La Rose Agroforestry Limited plot and helping yourself to some bananas!

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: