Football

The self-styled beautiful game is incredibly popular across the continent. Yet, on the eve of the biennial Africa Cup of Nations, football discussion in East African bars and clubs is almost exclusively focused on the English Premiership. Almost every man that I meet follows one of the English “big four”, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool, and, in my experience, they are for the most part better informed than most soccer fans in England.

The Premiership’s popularity is driven by a number of factors.

· Local leagues are not televised (and, even if they were, the quality on offer would be well below European standards). No supply translates into no demand.

· Courtesy of South Africa’s Multichoice satellite TV, available throughout the continent, at least four Premiership games are televised live each week, usually more. The time difference of three hours means that English games are screened from late afternoon to late evening, when the bars and clubs, crammed with young men wearing team shirts, do brisk business.

· African players are well represented in the Premiership – almost all the teams have at least one regular African player.

· Links between the UK and anglophone Africa, in particular, remain strong due to the ambivalent nature of the colonial legacy.

In East Africa, too, the massive interest in the Premiership also reflects the fact that this part of the continent consistently under-performs in continental competitions (which are dominated by North and West Africa). Certainly, the Africa Cup of Nations is eagerly anticipated in West Africa, as a prelude to next year’s World Cup in South Africa, where it will be a surprise if at least one African side does not make it to the final stages of the competition. In North Africa, too, passions run high. The recent diplomatic tension between Egypt and Algeria, fuelled by Algeria’s defeat of Egypt in their play-off in Khartoum, is reminiscent of the famous “soccer war” between Honduras and El Salvador in the late 1960s.

But Africa’s susceptibility to external cultural influence can be detrimental. I have just finished reading a long poem by Ugandan author, Okot p’Bitek, entitled The Defence of Lawino. This epic takes the form of a lament by an Acholi woman, Lawino, for her husband Ochol's abandonment of his indigenous culture and values in favour of the ways of the colonial power. Her lament is presented in thirteen separate submissions, including for the loss of traditional clothing, cosmetics, cooking, music and dance, language, child-rearing, medical treatment and, saddest of all, the rejection of ancestral names. No-one would argue that cultural paralysis is a positive thing, but the assault on African values and traditions is corrosive. It used to be driven by colonialism, but now it is accelerated by the instruments of mass global communication - so positive in many ways - but destructive of the fragile structures of indigenous culture.

Back to the football. In the Cup of Nations, Nigeria’s Super Eagles are overdue a win and probably have the greatest depth of talent available – but in the really important competition, I’m a strong supporter of Arsenal. Could this be their year, or will they once again flatter to deceive?

Eggs

In JRR Tolkein’s first classic tale of Middle Earth, The Hobbit, there’s a riddling contest between Bilbo Baggins and the creature Gollum. Bilbo’s first riddle is

“A box without hinges, door or lid,
Yet inside golden treasure’s hid”

to which the answer is obviously an egg. Obvious, at least, to anyone brought up on a European or North American diet of large eggs containing bright yellow-orange yolks. This egg yolk pigmentation was something I had always taken for granted as normal, until I moved to Khartoum in 1992, where I was surprised to find that shop-bought Sudanese eggs had very pale grayish-yellow yolks. Since the taste was pretty much identical, I didn’t think about it much at the time, apart from the fact that it rendered the expression “sunnyside up” redundant.

One of the great pleasures of African life – even of the curious hybrid lifestyle of the long term resident – is the simplicity and freshness of the food we eat. Of course, Nairobi and even Kampala supermarkets offer the consistent year-round supply of most products that people from supermarket economies have become accustomed to – but nearly everybody buys fresh food from the market. In Khartoum, this meant that the supply of fresh produce was very seasonal: most green vegetables, for example, were only available in the short Sudanese winter – the rest of the year it was simply too hot for most temperate and sub-tropical crops to flourish. But the benign climate in highland East and Southern Africa provides almost a constant supply of most fresh fruit and vegetables – and the export horticulture business has led to widespread availability of exotics like leeks, French beans, sugar snap peas, courgettes and baby corn (among others).

Furthermore, the exacting food appearance standards so beloved by major supermarket chains lead to huge amounts of rejected produce which makes its way into local markets (or cattle feed). Despite our best efforts, mother Nature remains unable to produce uniformly straight French beans or identically-sized mangoes, and as a result our local markets overflow with stubbornly non-conformist misshapen fruits and vegetables whose taste belies their appearance.

Which brings me back to the subject of eggs. During a short consultancy assignment for Kenya’ s largest grain milling business, Unga, I learned that it was common practice to supplement commercial chicken feed with yellow dye to colour the yolk. This practice apparently began in the 1930s, when factory farming became widespread in Europe and North America, and when chickens no longer had access to fresh vegetable matter containing the xanthophylls necessary to generate the yellow colour preferred by consumers. Initially, fresh marigold petals were added to feed mixes, but for cost reasons this was quickly replaced by the synthetic dyes still used today.

The obsession with appearances (at least insofar as food is concerned) has still to make its way to Main Street, Africa, perhaps because people have more pressing needs than the colour of their eggs or the size of their tomatoes. The economy is not yet – to use a foul expression - supermarketized.

Detoothing

Over the past year, there has been a long running campaign against cross-generational sex in Uganda. This is a picture of one of the more memorable billboards adorning Kampala, highlighting the problem in stark and unambiguous terms.

In his amusing ethnography entitled "How to be a Ugandan" the writer and journalist Joachim Buwembo describes a number of stereotypical Ugandans, including "sex worker". This chapter describes the nature of cross-generational relationships between men and women as being mutually beneficial. An older man befriends a young woman (often a University student) and, in exchange for his gifts and financial support, she becomes his willing mistress. This arrangement did not prevent her from having other boyfriends, nor was it expected to last beyond her student years. However, in recent years, the social acceptance of cross-generational sex has been challenged, in particular through the spread of HIV/AIDS. There is currently a radio advertisement which uses a HIV+ man as an example of why it is so important to "get off the sexual network". Regrettably, however, it takes a great deal more than advertising to change behavioural norms, especially in a country with rampant poverty.

The fact is that many (if not most) young women are subject both to poverty, and to peer pressure to look good, to wear fashionable clothes, to make regular changes to their hairstyles, to furnish their rooms with new consumer durables....... and this requires a source of income. “Detoothing” is a term used by young Ugandan women to mean getting as much financial reward from a man while successfully eluding sex. It is an expression unique to Uganda, to the best of my knowledge. I haven’t heard it used anywhere else I have lived and worked. At least according to the newspapers, it is a fairly common occurrence, often ending badly. Some studies have apparently found that many adolescent girls believe that rape is an acceptable response by men to having been “detoothed” - which is a deeply worrying finding.

On an individual level, detoothing seems rather ridiculous, as opposed to harmful. There is always something faintly amusing (in a rather unpleasant schadenfreude way) about older men pursuing young women with gifts and being disappointed. But in reality it reflects badly on both parties and is certainly not a positive social trend.

However, when there are so many examples of similar behaviour that pervade Ugandan society, it is perhaps no wonder that detoothing is regarded as good sport. Detoothing, at a macro-level, goes by many other names: bribery, corruption, graft, but it pretty much amounts to the same thing. Getting something for nothing. A de-linking in the relationship between financial reward and hard work. To a large extent, I believe that one of the principal factors driving the detoothing culture is the influence of donor organisations, who offer financial and technical support for worthy goals, but all too often allow themselves to turn a blind eye to waste, pilferage and inefficiency in the implementation of their vision of development.

It would of course be wrong to describe donors as being detoothed. It would be more accurate to refer to the process as “milking”. But just as older men are willing accomplices in their own detoothing – in search of a new and exciting sexual partner - so too often are representatives of donor organizations willing accomplices in corruption. The problem is that it isn't really in anyone's interests (apart from the anonymous and remote tax payer, part of whose taxes go towards the aid budget) to expose inefficiency and corruption, just as it's not really in the detoother's best interests - or those of her victim's - to publicise the event.

In the words of the radio advertisement encouraging us off the sexual network, "this is not good".

Cell phone

The pace of change in Africa is astonishing. And what better example to illustrate this than the revolution in telecommunications? It is hard to think of a more transformational industry than the cellular phone. Its impact has been big elsewhere in the world but, for the most part, fixed land lines were part of the infrastructure fabric. Communication was always possible.

But this was not the case in most African countries. 17 years ago, when I first moved to Sudan, it was very difficult to make an international phone call. I remember well visiting the matchless Acropole Hotel in downtown Khartoum to use, at vast expense and inconvenience, their crackly international telephone line. All Oxfam had at the time was an antiquated telex machine. 12 years ago, in Njombe, SW Tanzania, it was almost impossible to make a land-line international telephone call, even from my employer's (Tanganyika Wattle) offices, though we did have a satellite phone in case of emergency. And nine years ago, in Zimbabwe, I bought my first basic Nokia model and plugged in to Econet. Since then, like most people, the cell phone has become an integral and essential part of my life. Increased network coverage, competition, international roaming mean that it is now unusual not to be able to communicate even from the most rural locations.

In Central and East Africa the most successful of the early communications businesses was the well-named Celtel, founded by one of Africa's most celebrated entrepreneurs, Mo Ibrahim. Over a period of about 10 years, Celtel expanded rapidly and, in 2007 was acquired by Kuwaiti investors and rebranded as Zain. Aesthetically this was a disaster. Celtel had irritating slogans with meaningless punctuation - for example "Make. New Friends." or "Change. Your World." - but its billboards were otherwise attractive. After the change in branding, Zain introduced a truly hideous shade of pink into the East African landscape along with the trite slogan "A wonderful world". Sickly pink buildings now litter Uganda's towns and villages.

Besides creating the ability to communicate, the cell phone is now, through initiatives like M-Pesa and Zap, becoming a money transfer medium. Sending airtime - and using the transfer of airtime as an unofficial currency - has been used for some time, but Safaricom's ground-breaking M-Pesa in Kenya has enabled goods and services transactions to take place through telephone transfer. This promises to have a major impact on rural communities, in particular, by accelerating the velocity of money - effectively, increasing money supply.

Taxes on airtime and on company profits have provided Governments with substantial increases in tax revenue - wth very little extra work! Service providers collect and remit duties through the sale of airtime and - due to their size and scale - are examples of good compliance with revenue requirements. In many African countries, cell phone providers top the list of annual tax payers (though collectors would be more accurate) - a remarkable feat given the fact that inefficient state-owned fixed-line monopolies collected and paid a tiny amount of tax until the dawn of the cell phone era.

Popular culture has also benefited enormously. Competition among service providers in the industry for advertising and sponsorship activities have resulted in a stream of sponsored concerts - the latest and most-hyped of which will hit Kampala in late January - the R Kelly I believe concert supported by Zain - but which also benefit the local music, dramatic, fashion and artistic scenes.

And, better still, the cost of communication - domestic and international - has fallen steadily due to competition. The transformation is complete and provides a great example to anyone who doubts the potential of the African market to adopt new technologies and offer investment opportunities.

Banana

My father was very fond of bananas. He once told me that, during his childhood in Salisbury, bananas were his greatest treat. The supply of bananas to Britain was severely interrupted by the Second World War, but the return of bananas was one of the few bright spots in post-war food-rationed Britain. At that time, of course, few people, if any, gave much consideration to contemporary food supply issues, like food-miles, fair trade, and so on, and the role of companies like the United Fruit Company in Central and South America (subsequently giving rise to the description "banana republics") was largely unknown. The important thing was the supply of yellow Cavendish bananas. Certainly, during my childhood, it was unusual for us not to have a bunch of bananas in the fruit bowl.

I first visited Uganda in 1994. On the long drive from Entebbe to Kampala, I remember being struck by the colossal number of banana plants along the side of the road. The following day, I had my first taste of matooke, steamed pulped bananas served wrapped in banana leaves, resembling a yellow mashed potato. I wasn't too impressed: it seemed bland and tasteless to me, and I was surprised to learn that many Ugandans, especially the Baganda, do not consider a meal to be complete without matooke.

Since then, as I have travelled more widely, I have become more and more aware of the cultural significance that so many people attach to their core staple food - and how difficult it is to change preferences. In retrospect, my father - along with many older British people - had a powerful preference for potatoes and bread, and he did not really consider a meal to be satisfactory without one of these. In Ethiopia, the Amhara prefer Injera, in most of East and Southern Africa, maize porridge (ugali, sadza, pap) is essential, and in West Africa rice and cassava (gari) are most popular. One of my Board of Directors, Walter Vandepitte, underscored the strength of cultural attachment to a staple by telling me that in his experience Rwanda was one of the very few countries he could think of where the core staple had changed (from bananas to potatoes). I am not sure that I agree with him - maize, potatoes and bananas have all been imported to Africa in the course of the last two millennia and must, therefore, themselves have taken the place of other indigenous staples - but certainly changes in staples are rare and take place over a long time.

Since moving to Uganda in 2005, however, I have come to appreciate matooke as a staple food: indeed, it has become unusual for me not to have matooke at least once a day. I have also come to appreciate the banana far more than as a sweet yellow treat. It is fibrous, non-allergenic and packed with potassium. It grows and reproduces rapidly. It produces fruit throughout the year (provided there is sufficient rainfall). Its leaves have many uses. And it has numerous varieties - from the starchy matooke to delicious, sweet, small "apple" bananas - unknown to consumers of bland plantation-grown Cavendish bananas.

B is for (Ugandan) Banana.

An African Alphabet

In recent years, I have rediscovered the Yaya shopping centre in Nairobi. When living in Kilimani about 13 years ago, I often used to walk from home to do some weekend shopping there, often hand-in-hand with my eldest son (who cannot have been more than 2 at the time). Since then, vast numbers of new shopping centres have sprung up: the Village Market, Adams Arcade, the Junction, and so on, but the Yaya centre remains a great place to shop.

It is blessed with what, in my opinion, is the best bookshop in East Africa: the simply-named Book Stop on the second floor. I regret that I don't know the owner's name, but it is a real pleasure to visit his shop with its great collection of fiction and Africa-related books, both new and second-hand. Yesterday, while en route back to Kampala, I came away with books by two of my favourite authors, Bamboo, by William Boyd and Waiting for the Barbarians, by JM Coetzee, plus a request that if he came across a book entitled Gordon: Misfit or Martyr he should let me know. I have no doubt that he will do so. It is how bookshops should be: owned and managed by book-lovers.

I descended to the ground floor (the Java coffee house) and immediately set about Bamboo, a miscellany of Boyd's experience, reflection and opinion. A tool that he uses in his writing is an A to Z of observations, designed to give the writer some discipline in marshaling his thoughts and the reader the opportunity to assemble his own Gestalt of the subject. There are several examples of this in Bamboo, my favourite of which amounts to a short biography of another of my favourite authors, Anton Chekhov.....

Since for some time I have been in search of a theme for this blog, I have now decided to write my own A to Z, my own African Alphabet, and this is a suitable first post: what better then this for the letter A? In the series to follow, I shall be mindful of the pointedly sarcastic advice provided by Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainaina, to non-Africans entitled How Not to Write About Africa (which can be found on fellow-blogger Holli's Ramblings). While I can't promise to follow his advice - Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces - I can undertake that this will be a personal journey through the continent which I now think of as my home.

A is for Alphabet.

That's how the life gets in

Almost 30 years ago, over lunch to a group of fellow students, my confession that I liked Leonard Cohen was met with derision. "Oh God, he's so depressing" shrieked the post-punk throng. I was silenced, lacking the confidence to argue with the popular perception. But Cohen's insights and poetry still enthrall me, whether in the magnificent rendition of Lorca's Little Viennese waltz, or the haunting Hallelujah, or in one of my favourites, Anthem, with the following refrain:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

I have just completed an extended journey to the UK, where I attended a Private Equity conference focusing on emerging market opportunities, and to Canada for a long weekend with my two sons. Normally, this would be a bad time of year to visit, but I was lucky enough that my stay coincided with clear, warm and still autumn days. The clear weather provided me with what is probably the best view I have ever had of Essex and London on the incoming flight, looking out at a landscape shaped by humanity and its inventions. Orderly, neat, organised - even the small pockets of woodland apparently planted. The contrast between this landscape and Uganda's - indeed, most of Africa's - is considerable. Red earth, green vegetation, trees apparently scattered randomly across a landscape which bears little evidence of human activity. An occasional village, a marram road, and little more.

One of the blogs that I follow, Hollis ramblings, contained a reproduction of a piece entitled How Not To Write About Africa - in which all the cliches and stereotypes of non-Africans writing about Africa are listed with brutal accuracy. These include talking about wide and empty landscapes, huge skies, sunsets and wilderness, and so on. But the fact is that humans are yet to shape the African landscape to anything like the same extent that we see in other parts of the world. This is partly a function of a lack of large-scale mechanised agriculture, but also due to the disruptive force of nature. The absence of winters, the strong sun and heavy rain create an environment where human works breakdown far more quickly than in a colder climate - and where micro-organisms and vegetative growth flourish. The beauty of the African landscape is created by the powerlessness of man to dominate and control nature.

To paraphrase Cohen, there is indeed a crack in everything. It's where the life gets in.

A liberal's dilemma

Kampala traffic is often bad. Like most cities everywhere, the hours between 7 am and 9 am, and 5 pm to 7 pm, are to be avoided if at all possible. The worst habit, beloved by minibus ("Taxi") drivers, is to drive down the wrong side of the road past an impatient line of vehicles and cut in. This infuriatingly inconsiderate behaviour (which is by no means exclusive to taxis) often results in blocking the road for oncoming traffic. Another unwelcome trend on the increase are VIP convoys, preceded by a siren-blaring police escort, which breeze down the wrong side of the road, usually with at least two or three opportunists in tow behind, compelling drivers to take rapid evasive action. The net effect of aggressive and poorly-supervised driving is that it is by no means unusual for my 11 km journey to work to take an hour or more.

Horrible though this is, it does afford me the opportunity to listen to the car radio. I have become quite attached to a Radio 1 daily morning show entitled Talkback, in which a relevant and topical issue is the subject of a phone-in debate. Recently, however, the subject matter has been profoundly depressing. Over the past two weeks, the issues discussed have exclusively centred around public sector corruption in Uganda. For example:

How can head teachers be prevented from absconding with students' examination fees? (Many children have been prevented from sitting primary examinations for at least one year and cannot therefore enter secondary school)

What should be done about officers of the National Agricultural Advisory Development Service (NAADS) who are unable to account for funds provided to them? (Vast amounts of money have apparently disappeared from regional agricultural extension offices instead of providing much-needed resources to peasant farmers)

How can the Government recover money mis-spent during the 2007 CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting) event in Kampala? (The Auditor-General has reported that many large advance payments by Government for the completion of new hotel construction before the CHOGM conference have not yet been recovered from hotel proprietors)

Will the new National Social Security Fund (NSSF) board be able to curb corruption? (The previous NSSF chief executive resigned over a scandal involving alleged political interference in the purchase of high value land)

And, most spectacular of all, the question of what exactly the Executive Director of Uganda's National Forestry Authority was doing with 900m Ugandan Shillings (getting on for US$500,000) in cash, in his house, under his mattress, before it was reportedly "stolen" by his wife. This story, which defies belief, is covered in more depth at http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/cover-story/cover-story/82-cover-story/2003-akankwasas-shs-900m-an-opener-into-huge-theft-of-nfa-forests and on other Ugandan media websites.

Generally, callers express a touching faith in the rule of law and the ability (and political will) of law enforcement agencies to prosecute offenders. The fact is, however, that cases are few and far between, and seldom result in successful prosecutions.

It was therefore interesting to hear the Talkback host last week advocating what he descibed as "the Chinese solution - shock therapy for offenders" - on the grounds that corruption had become so deeply entrenched in the public sector that public floggings and even executions were now absolutely necessary in order to change the prevailing culture. Rampant corruption is hideous: it distorts markets, steals from the people, stifles enterprise, creates a "something for nothing" culture, creates anger and discontent, especially among the youth.... the list goes on. Most liberals would recoil at such a suggestion : yet what is appropriate where the social consequences are so substantial and so damaging?

Almost at the same time, a bill has already been drafted for consideration by the Ugandan parliament that substantially increases the current penalties for homosexuality. According to a 2-page spread in last week's East African newspaper by a consortium of human rights NGOs, this bill, among other things, will introduce lengthy prison terms for doing anything that could be seen as condoning homosexuality - while in certain cases authorising the death penalty for practicing homosexuals.

Absurd, isn't it? Corruption proceeds unchecked while parliament debates homosexuality.

the bay leaf in Arusha

Last week in Arusha, I had the great pleasure of staying in the Bayleaf hotel. I can unreservedly recommend it to anyone visiting this neat and tidy city in Northern Tanzania. Beautifully designed and decorated, excellent food and service - a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

It was also good to see that the short rains have finally arrived, albeit sporadically. There is a strong expectation that rains in Kenya and Northern Tanzania will be heavy due to the El Nino effect, but apart from some localised flooding along the Kenyan coast, these are yet to materialise. After two years of low rainfall, Kenya in particular is facing a food production crisis which is likely to continue into 2010, regardless of rainfall, due to a substantial expected shortage in the availability of quality seed.

Vervet and the Big Blues

Sometimes, it's easy to forget, amid the turmoil of day-to-day working life, just how lovely our working environment is.

The AAC/Kilimo Trust office building is located high on Mbuya hill, Kampala, in a substantial and mature garden. It is cool, and removed from the bustle, noise and dust of the city. It is also endowed with a wonderful array of plant and animal life, including a substantial family troupe of Vervet monkeys (a bold member pictured, waiting for a chance to purloin any lunchtime left-overs). These monkeys are a mixed blessing: while they are a welcome reminder of nature's tenacity and adaptability to urban life, they also have the potential to cause significant damage. On two occasions I have found Vervets foraging in my car - on the second occasion the intruder successfully escaped with an apple -, and once there was a brief stand-off in my office over the sugar bowl before he fled, empty-handed, through the open window.

The real stars, though, are the birds. This morning, I was lucky enough to see a pair of crowned cranes over-flying the compound. Residents include two pairs of hornbills, numerous touracos, barbets, sunbirds and at least one pair of owls. And there are countless visitors, among which are my favourites, a pair of spectacular Big Blue Touracos,which occasionally crash through the treetops with their characteristically loud calls.

Battle of the Sexes

Next week, KADS will be staging its annual dinner theatre production at Open House Restaurant on Buganda Road. There's still an awful lot to do to get ready: programme, lights, some props and furniture and costumes - but somehow or other we will get there. And it will be very good!

The two main plays are by Chekhov: excellent, witty, 30-minute comedies belying his undeserved reputation for serious and formless drama. Both casts are extremely capable and highly motivated to do justice to the wonderful language and characterisation.

Where else could you go out and spend $15 for an evening's quality entertainment and a good Indian dinner?

Food for thought

I have just attended a conference in Bamako, Mali, sponsored by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (specifically, AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems). The conference brought together a vast number of crop scientists, plant breeders, soil specialists, seed producers and a few financiers like me in order to exchange information, build networks and devise solutions for the improvement of agricultural performance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Yesterday evening, a lengthy round table discussion took place on the thorny and perennial problem of how best to get quality seed into the hands - and fields - of smallholder farmers. The debate threw out lots of interesting points. I noted the following:

1. Plant breeders need to focus on research into use, develop links and relationships with seed companies, and increase the availability of breeder seed.

2. Large-scale seed production by competent and experienced growers was a serious constraint in most sub-Saharan African countries.

3. Greater product diversity - crops, varieties, seed pack size, etc - was essential for two reasons: first. the excessive focus on hybrid maize cultivation was threatening soil health and was unsustainable in the medium to long term; second, many farmers demand smaller seed packs.

4. Opportunities for seed companies are enormous. Global and domestic demand for food is increasing and, despite the difficulties in managing and financing business growth, new technologies and improvements in markets will stimulate increased demand for quality seed.

5. Cross-border certification and approval of new seed varieties is important. Governments also need to strengthen regulatory frameworks governing the seed industry in order to drive up quality and reduce the risk of counterfeit seed products in the marketplace.

6. The seed industry must focus on quality and look to increase the price of seed. Only by doing so will seed companies achieve profitability and sustainability - and generate income for reinvestment in growth, research and development.

This final point lies close to my heart. It is almost invariably the case that price competition - while good for the consumer in the short run - is the quickest way to create stagnation in an industry. The economics of seed purchase for the African farmer remain favourable with prices two, three or four times above current price levels. If short term price subsidies are required in order to stimulate increased demand for quality seed =- then that is fine - as long as these subsidies are paid to seed companies and the resulting profits ploughed back into expansion and growth.

Industries grow when they are profitable and their participants compete on product quality.

_________________________________________________________

Despite an element of inconvenience, I also think it was very good to hold this conference in Bamako. Far too many conferences take place in Nairobi, Johannesburg and Cape Town, (where, admittedly, airport, conference and hospitality infrastructures are much better), but it is entirely a positive thing to use facilities available in other countries. And I for one have enjoyed my short walk from the Hotel Salam to the CICB (conference venue), through a shady plant nursery with a wonderful collection of tropical trees, shrubs and succulents, with a view of the river Niger across the main road.

Carbon

Earlier today I received a lengthy essay on the crisis of responsibility, entitled "No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood". The essay deplored the tendency in modern society to shuffle off responsibility for collective action. It was primarily directed at financial regulators, politicians, economists, bankers and all those individuals whose collective actions (and inaction) plunged the global economy into recession.



It might, however, also have been directed at all of us who, through inaction, are plunging us into rapid and irreversible climate change. While numerous models of change and consequence exist, what is unarguable is that climate change is upon us, and that humanity probably still, just, has the power to curb its excesses.

There is an often-repeated wisdom that Africa will be particularly affected by climate change. I find this a little bit hard to understand – it seems to me that, just as in the recent economic turmoil, wealthier countries will bear a much higher cost, though I acknowledge that superior material and technological resources may lead to greater resilience. Having said that, one cannot but think back to the chaos caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to the droughts and fires which are destroying so much of Australia, and wonder that a movement in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from 0.03% to 0.04%, (of 100 parts in a million), could result in climate change so destructive that it threatens human life on earth. Yet this is what our scientists tell us and, in general, scientists rarely make professional statements that are unsupported by rigour, research and evidence. The climate change campaigning website http://www.350.org/ actually proposes that 350 parts per million (0.035%) is the maximum level of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere at which life – as we currently know it – can continue without major irreversible change.

To understand the carbon cycle, it is hard to think of a better introduction than the final chapter of Primo Levi’s astonishing autobiography, The Periodic Table. Levi’s spare and scientific style is shown to great effect in the 21 element-episodes which comprise this wonderful book. The final chapter is simply entitled Carbon and it charts the progress of a single atom of carbon. Critics consider this chapter heavy-handed and fanciful: it is anything but. As Levi says “It is possible to demonstrate that this completely arbitrary story is… true. I could tell innumerable other stories and they would all be true….. The number of [carbon] atoms is so great that one could always be found whose story coincides with any capriciously invented story”. The atom is present in limestone (calcium carbonate] – itself an ancient product of the continuous calcium cycle in the oceans – it is then liberated through roasting in a lime kiln as a carbon dioxide molecule; it whirls around the world in the atmosphere for 12 years before being captured through photosynthesis; it is converted into glucose, consumed, digested and released once again as carbon dioxide. The cycle continues.

In the narrative, other facts emerge. Levi remarks that carbon exists in the atmosphere in tiny quantities - 0.03% at his time of writing - and from this impurity proceeds all life on earth. He comments briefly on the miraculous nature of photosynthesis – chemistry at the minuscule atomic level in which the carbon atom is freed from its pair of oxygen atoms and converted into organic compounds which support the chain of life.

The chapter which immediately precedes Carbon is entitled Vanadium. In truth, the metal Vanadium is tangential to the story, which focuses on the subjects of responsibility and acceptance so brilliantly dealt with in If This is a Man and The Truce. In Vanadium, his search for the obscure compound Vanadium Napthenate led Levi to make contact with a German scientist who –during Levi’s imprisonment in Auschwitz – had briefly been his employer as a chemist attached to an IG Farben Buna rubber factory near the concentration camp. They exchange letters but, before they can meet, the scientist dies. Levi is therefore unable to tell him that it is not enough to be honest, unarmed and a non-participant:-

“In the real world the armed exist, they build Auschwitz, and the honest and unarmed clear the road for them: therefore every German must answer for Auschwitz, indeed, every man, and after Auschwitz it is no longer permissible to be unarmed”.

No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.

As a postcript, I am glad to report that in our own small way at African Agricultural Capital we have decided – with the support and advice of the Uganda Carbon Bureau – to become a carbon-neutral organization. This entails a detailed estimate of the carbon produced from AAC’s organizational activities, followed by the purchase of offsets through financing carbon uptake projects – either through increased energy efficiency, reforestation or other qualifying projects.

But it is not enough.

Norman Borlaug

One of the giants of the 20th century passed away this weekend. His is not a household name, but it should be. Dr Norman Borlaug's work in breeding new crop varieties was directly instrumental in creating food security for countless millions of people, especially on the Indian sub-continent. It is no exaggeration to say that without his work (and the development of the Haber process for manufacturing inorganic fertilisers using atmospheric nitrogen), crop yields would have been insufficient to feed the global population.

Among his numerous achievements, perhaps the most significant was the breeding of dwarf wheat varieties. Through selective breeding, wheat stem length was reduced and thickened, thereby enabling the stem to support higher seed yields without lodging (toppling over). These varieties massively increased crop yields - and the technology has subsequently been transferred to rice varieties with significant yield benefits. Borlaug's work was, especially in its early years, heavily supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, whose philanthropic investments through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (and, on a very small scale, through African Agricultural Capital), continue to support essential agricultural research and development in the developing world. Borlaug's contribution to food security and, indirectly, to peace was recognised with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

Inevitably, Borlaug had his critics, especially among the environmental lobby, which, inter alia, deplored the reduction in biodiversity resulting from large-scale monoculture, opposed the use of inorganic fertilisers and crop protection products, raised doubts about the impact of genetic cross-breeding, and objected to the potential destruction of wilderness to make way for crops. Borlaug responded to this criticism with a robust defence. "Some of the environmental lobbyists ... are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world ...... they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things"

And that's the truth. We can look back at the apparent idyll of traditional agriculture - through nostalgia-tinted spectacles - and lament its passing, but we must accept that that time is past, and look to the future. Our planet supports 7 billion people and that figure is expected to rise by a further 2 billion by 2050. Increased agricultural efficiency is the only way in which humankind will feed itself without the desperate consequences of deforestation, climate change and conflict. Without Borlaug's work - and that of the tens of thousands of unsung and unheralded plant breeders around the world who continue to develop new crop varieties - this will be impossible.

The great architect Christopher Wren's epitaph translates as "If you seek his monument, look around you." Norman Borlaug's legacy is much larger.

The Virtuous Burglar

I was lucky enough, while visiting Nairobi last week, to see the Phoenix Players perform Dario Fo’s farce, The Virtuous Burglar. This is a richly entertaining short farce in the best tradition of the genre: a burglar arrives at a well-appointed residence, only to be telephoned by his wife, anxious about his well-being. The burglar, having assuaged her fears, is then disturbed by the man of the house unexpectedly returning with his mistress. An absurd telephone conversation then ensues between the man and the Burglar’s wife…. and the chain of coincidences continues with the return of the man’s wife…. The humour is savage, and shows us how fragile our world of manners and polite conventions can be when we are at risk of exposure.

This farce is close to my heart, as I have twice performed it (and once directed it) in amateur productions in Harare and Kampala. Perhaps inevitably in my eyes, the Phoenix production left a lot to be desired. First, the production was one-paced. The best farce relies on the creation of a breathless pace, interspersed by sudden silences as the characters scramble for ever-more-improbable explanations of their behaviour, and this production lacked the changes in pace necessary to make the most of the intrinsic comedy of the situation. Second, the device of positioning the Burglar’s wife behind a backlit screen was poorly executed. Third, while the acting was in general, especially among the principal characters, competent, there was little warmth in the interaction between the characters on stage.

Having said that, it is wonderful that the Phoenix Theatre continues to flourish and bring quality drama to the Nairobi audience. It is almost unique in Africa to find repertory theatre, but the resilience of the Phoenix in the face of competition from TV and cinema is testament to the unalloyed pleasure still derived by audiences from live performance in the company of others. Long may it last!

Big Brother returns.....

It's back. Bigger and brasher than ever. Big Brother Africa returned to M-Net tonight with 14 new hopefuls in the running for the $200,000 prize and the promise of celebrity status. It is strangely compelling entertainment, though its launch yesterday was rather spoilt by the device of filling the house entirely with men - of whom presumably half will be evicted within the first week to make way for women.

When George Orwell, in his classic novel 1984, developed the Big Brother concept: a world in which all communication media is subordinate to the government's interpretation of reality, and where television is the principal means of thought control, could he have imagined that people would compete, voluntarily, to surrender their privacy, dignity and liberty for the pursuit of, let's be honest, a substantial (but probably not life-changing) sum of money. I doubt it very much: my guess is that he would have been deeply saddened - if not surprised - by the triumph of greed over basic human values.

In defence of shows like Big Brother, it is sometimes argued that it's fine - the participants have voluntarily surrendered themselves and that they can exercise their right to leave the house at any time - but is this really the case? These young contestants are products of a new consumer culture, where traditional values are meaningless, image is everything, and the ideals of consumerism and fame walk down the aisle together in a marriage of convenience. Any normal sense of good judgment is quickly lost in the cauldron of the house. Big Brother can ask the contestants to do anything and they comply. In so doing, they push themselves beyond the healthy limits of normal behaviour....

Entertainment? Of a sort, undoubtedly. but a deeply unpleasant, manipulative and voyeuristic sort.

A glorious victory

Only a pub quiz, it's true, but with thanks to three students of Notre-Dame University (pronounced Noder-Dayme) and a PWC consultant working for the Uganda Revenue Authority, our bizarrely-named team "She Kisses Giraffes" triumphed last night in the Bubbles O'Leary quiz. The quiz was punctuated by great excitement and cheering as Moses Kipsiro, Uganda's leading track athlete, won his 5000m heat at the World Athletic Championships.

Our prize: as usual, to set the next quiz on 3 September.

Ggaba Market

Just round the corner from my home is Ggaba Market. The market is right on the shores of Lake Victoria. It's a hive of activity from daybreak to dusk: every morning, fishermen arrive with their catches of tilapia, nile perch and mukene (a sort of freshwater whitebait). At the same time, fresh produce is ferried across the lake every morning: piles of mangoes, potatoes, pineapples, tomatoes, beans, water melons and a surprisingly wide variety of other fruits and vegetables. For anyone brought up on European or North American supermarket fare, the produce looks sub-standard, imperfect, but it is wonderfully wholesome, tasty and fresh.

Charcoal and firewood is delivered in overloaded Fuso and Canter trucks, along with fresh matooke (cooking bananas), luridly green. Old Corolla estate cars arrive, crammed with live "traditional" chickens and larger off-layer hens ready for the slaughter. And all around, ungainly marabou storks stand, stiff-legged, ready to flap and walk their way to any easy pickings.

From early, other traders set up small braziers and charcoal stoves to prepare fast food, Kampala-style. Fried fish, samosas, fresh beans, steamed matooke and the much-loved breakfast "Rolex" - a calory-packed chapati filled with fried egg and vegetables, rolled up pancake style for easy consumption.

I really enjoy my occasional visits to the market: quite apart from the unalloyed pleasure of buying fresh produce, it provides a valuable insight into real economic and business life. Yesterday I bought onions, pineapple, passion fruit, leeks, parsley, potatoes and spinach. But the drought in Uganda is pushing prices, especially of leaf vegetables and pineapples, high. Fish, too, has increased in price, with a knock-on effect on other meats. Lake fishing, like so many other activities, is poorly regulated, with the inevitable consequence of over-fishing. Uganda's fish export industry - once a source of valuable foreign exchange - is dying and catches are diminishing, and it is yet to be replaced by fish-farming on a significant scale.

In the midst of daily trading, it is hard for market stallholders to think about the long term: years of experience and intense competition ensures that only the best traders - who price competitively and estimate demand accurately - can earn a living, but there is a lot of anxiety about the future. Prices are increasing and money supply is not: these are worrying times at Ggaba Market.

Bubbles O'Leary

Why is that almost every African capital city has at least one Irish theme pub? McGinty's, O'Hagan's, Finn McCool's, O'Tooles, the list is almost endless. A friend of mine suggested that their popularity has something to do with the widespread (but mythical) belief in many African countries that drinking Guinness increases sexual potency, but I think it has more to do with the famed Irish entrepreneurial and intrepid spirit.

Kampala is no exception to the rule. O'Leary's (fondly if inexplicably nicknamed Bubbles) has become the main watering hole for Kampala's expatriate community, plus, from time to time, a sprinkling of Kampala glitterati.

I frequent O'Leary's for the quiz night, held every second Thursday. The main prize for thiis rowdy event is to set the following quiz, but an alcoholic prize is also awarded to the winners of each round. Where two or more teams are tied in each round, a "Drink-off" is staged and the round awarded to the team whose representative is able to finish a 500 ml glass of beer first. Needless to say, the combination of cheap drinks, rowdy atmosphere, lack of enforcement of alcohol limits for drivers and a relatively young set of cash-rich expatriates ensures that the pub does excellent business well into the small hours.

Sadly, our quiz team disintegrated earlier this year, so we ploughed a lone furrow last night and did, at least, have the satisfaction of winning the "Dictators" theme round and, with it, six tots of Sambucca. Needless to say, the effort and effect of consuming the Sambucca resulted in a steady decline on the quiz leaderboard.....

The Last Africans

This painting hangs on my sitting room wall. The image does not do it justice. It is beautiful: an untitled impressionistic oil painting of a nomadic group of people in Northern Kenya. I bought it about 14 years ago at a small exhibition in Nairobi entitled "The Last Africans".

My main memory of the Last Africans exhibition is a brief and impromptu introductory speech delivered by my friend and and former colleague, Matthias Schmale. Matthias was a compelling speaker, not least due to his sincerity, and he took this occasion to speak eloquently about his sadness that the era of the pastoralist and nomadic life practiced across most of the African continent was coming to an end: that the traditions and modus vivendi of the Turkana, the Karamajong, the Rendille, the Samburu and, most iconic of all African pastoralists, the Maasai, were dwindling into scattered tourist exhibits amid the farms, settlements and towns created through population growth, the march of technology and urban development. His lament was not romantic: it was for the impoverishment to us all brought about by the reduction of cultural diversity.

My reading matter over the past week has been a collection of papers selected by Nigel Halford of the Rothamsted Institute in UK, entitled Plant Biotechnology. For a non-scientist, much of this book has been extremely difficult to understand, but I was keen to try to improve my understanding of transgenics/genetic modification and its impact. Included in the anthology is a short paper published by researchers from the University of Cape Town on the potential for inserting a "water-efficiency" gene into maize, the staple crop for most of East and Southern Africa. The authors are in no doubt that this would be a positive move, as it would allow the cultivation of maize to spread into areas hitherto too dry for farming.

In this connection, recent press publications in Kenya have reported that considerable applied research in WEMA (Water Efficient Maize for Africa) is underway - with the potential to open up new low rainfall areas in Kenya for the cultivation of maize. Kenya needs it: the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, recently forecast a shortfall of about 1 million tonnes (30% of Kenya's annual consumption requirements) due to patchy rainfall. This is nothing new: 8 years out of 10 Kenya struggles to grow enough maize for its burgeoning population - mainly due to reliance on rainfall for water requirements, depleted soils, and the widespread use of poor quality planting material.

Advances in agricultural technology over the last 100 years have supported massive population growth. Through effective selection and breeding programmes, plant breeders have produced ever more productive crop varieties. The Haber-Bosch process for utilising atmospheric nitrogen has provided the necessary source of nutrition for these varieties. And now, transgenic technologies offer the potential to accelerate conventional plant breeding through the production of uber-crops capable of resistance to herbicides, drought, soil salinity and who knows what sort of adverse conditions. But these advances carry a cost. One wonders what the consequences of WEMA's introduction will be for Kenya's pastoralists and biodiversity as the area under cultivation of maize expands.

Clinging on in ever more marginal areas, the pastoralist way of life appears to be an inevitable casualty of the modern world. As Einstein, in his wonderful 1949 essay entitled "Why Socialism" observed "The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient."

Kenya Organics

For people interested in the organic movement in Kenya, here's a link to the Green Dreams blog.
http://greendreams.edublogs.org/2009/08/03/kibera-youth-reform-organic-farm-one-year-later/ It's a very interesting read.

The author, Su Kahumbu (pictured), also heads up AAC's investee, Food Network East Africa, which trades under the Green Dreams brand in Nairobi. Unfortunately, Kenya's organic certification body is not internationally recognised, which means that Green Dreams would need an internationally approved (very expensive) certifier to accredit its produce before it can gain access to high value export organic markets. Just another example of market barriers to African exporters.

The pursuit of happiness

For a change, I watched a good film on DSTV last week. Normally, there's nothing but rubbish, so it came as a pleasing and welcome surprise to see a heart-warming tale of a salesman taking care of his 5-year-old while grappling with a host of day-to-day challenges - The Pursuit of Happyness.

The film's title reminded me of the following quote: Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig. (Albert Einstein)

A thought-provoking statement from a man whose contribution to theoretical physics and, indirectly, to the creation of the atomic bomb, assures his position as one of the world's greatest scientists.

The pursuit of happiness is the overwhelming objective of modern life. To confess to unhappiness is often met with derision or, worse, moral condemnation. And yet there is a contradiction: increasing numbers of people report themselves unhappy - and happiness seems to have little correlation with material wealth (at least after basic needs of food, water and housing are fulfilled). A few years ago, in the BBC's global poll, Nigerians (to most people's surprise) reported themselves the happiest nationality on the planet, despite all the manifest difficulties and challenges of living in a developing country. For anyone living in Uganda, the main surprise was that it was Nigeria - not Uganda - which boasted the highest happiness quotient. Certainly, I am yet to live anywhere with so much joie de vivre.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Einstein provides an explanation for the malaise of unhappiness afflicting society, contained in his marvellously crafted essay in the first edition of the Monthly Review in May 1949, entitled "Why Socialism?" (which can be read in full online at http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php) I have reproduced an extract, below, which serves to demonstrate his wisdom, foresight and continuing relevance to modern times.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. ............... ...... Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

A brilliant analysis! How did we let it happen?

The Bear and The Marriage Proposal

Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society's next production will be a dinner theatre production in late October at the Open House restaurant on Buganda Road in Kampala.

In the absence of other offers, I will be directing two short Chekhov (pictured) plays - a pre- and post-prandial celebration of two of the master playwright's less distinguished but very funny plays. First is The Bear - in which a youthful and passionate widow encounters an angry and overbearing (pardon the pun) gentleman creditor, with unexpected consequences. The Bear will be followed by The Marriage Proposal - in which a hypochondriac suitor gets into furious dispute with the object of his affections. Between the two, we will have an excellent South Indian buffet dinner.

I'm looking forward to it (in theory), though it will really depend on finding a good and congenial cast. Auditions in a fortnight's time. Watch this space for more updates.

It's all about water

There is famine in the land of plenty. In parts of Eastern Uganda, crops have failed and people are now starving. In Uganda, the main problem is related to low incomes, inefficient markets and weak food storage and distribution systems. Food supplies at a country level are still more than adequate: indeed, Uganda is a net exporter of food to neighbouring countries, especially to Kenya and, increasingly, to south Sudan.

Across the border in Kenya, however, the situation is worse: the Prime Minister recently estimated a likely maize deficit of up to 1 million tonnes (about 30% of Kenya's annual demand for its core staple). Why? In short, the major factor is shortage of water. The rivers around Mt Kenya are drying up. Lake Naivasha (always vulnerable) is shrinking fast as a result of low replenishment and, critically, abstraction for irrigation for the flower farms which now encircle the lake. The main Nairobi water source near Thika is at a historically low level. And in the North, rains have failed (see picture above).


About 10 years ago when I was based at Njombe in southern Tanzania, Ronnie Cox, a CDC stalwart, told me that in his opinion access to water would be the next big problem for Africa. Ronnie had spent many years in Southern Africa (in particular Zimbabwe, where annual rainfall is concentrated in a 4-5 month burst between November and March, and where dams and irrigation schemes were a sine qua non for commercial farmers). He found East Africa's dependence on rainfed agriculture astonishing - along with the apparent disregard for basic water management systems - in particular the lack of attention to enforcement of the prohibition on stream bed cultivation. He might also have observed the lack of simple water harvesting techniques: it is still unusual to find gutters and rain water storage tanks in most houses (though this simple rainwater conservation method is now on the increase, at least for middle and high-earning households).

Mind you, East Africa, for all its problems, is for the most part blessed with healthy annual rainfall. Here's an extract from a rather bleak article by Bob Williamson entitled Peak Water:-

When will "Peak Water" hit--or has it already peaked while going mostly unnoticed? Fossil water reserves built up in ancient underground aquifers will run dry, we are being told. In fifteen of some of the world's most populous nations, it is already underway. In the United States the vast Ogallala aquifer was being overexploited. Under the North China Plain and in Saudi Arabia, unsustainable depletion is well underway. Over-pumping of aquifers is happening in Iran, Israel and Jordan, India and Pakistan, Mexico, Morocco and Spain, Tunisia and Syria, in the Yemen and South Korea.

We must ask; when will the water refugees start to migrate? When will the citizens of the cities' toilets and showers run dry? Which water domino will fall first? Is this lifeblood supply of water to be stopped for agriculture and irrigation, allowing it to wilt and die? Will our tap be turned off for the industrial model we have built our economic lives around? Will we feed ourselves or the machines of industry? Lake Chad, once viewed by astronauts from space, no longer appears in their windows, shrinking some 95 percent since 1960. Will it one day need renaming just like the "Snows of Kilimanjaro" or the Glacier National Park in the United States will? The world is incurring not only an economic, but also a water deficit. This deficit unlike an economic one is unable to be resolved by increased productivity, longer working hours, or more capital investment; this is a global threat to sustainable GDP for the developed and developing industrial economies. The economic powerhouse of the largest and strongest is in trouble.

Not just the largest and strongest. As always, the economically weaker nations will almost certainly struggle more as a result of water resource depletion.

There's an interesting (and under-reported) meeting taking place at the moment among the 10 countries covered by the Nile Basin treaty. This treaty - which was drawn up by the British in 1929 - governs Nile water consumption in the region. For obvious reasons, it is of critical importance to Sudan and Egypt - the major consumers of water originating around Lake Victoria and the Ethiopian plateau - and for which the waters of the Nile are, in effect, the source of life. Essentially this Treaty requires member nations to gain approval from Egypt prior to the utilisation of sources of Nile waters - a condition which has come under fierce debate in recent years - especially by Kenya, hardly surprising in the context of Kenya's current shrinking water supply.

One thing's for sure: water is going to become a bigger and bigger issue on the world stage. In a way this is a good thing: our leaders will need to think more and devote more attention and resource to the basic needs of water and food supply - and in turn our most critical resource - the farmer.

A forgotten crime against humanity

Counterfeits, forgeries, illegal copies, fakes are mostly associated (at least in high income countries) with prestigious brands. For some, it has become a bit of a joke. Recently returned visitors to South East Asia, in particular, return, brandishing their fake Rolexes, Lacoste shirts and pirate DVDs with a degree of pride. "Look what I got - all this for $50..." A couple of years ago, I took the editor of ACCA's members' magazine, Accounting & Business, to task about an ill-judged travel article telling readers whereabouts in Bangkok (or Phnom Penh, I can't remember) was the best place to buy pirate copies and designer fakes..... only to be informed that it wasn't intended to be taken seriously, with an implicit suggestion that I was really being a bit of a sanctimonious killjoy.

In fact, it is a massively important and serious issue, especially in developing countries, where forgeries and fakes are not restricted to high-end discretionary expenditure, but cascade down to basic essentials, like seeds, crop protection products, medicines and cement. Here in Uganda, the press report that bags of cement are opened, adulterated with sand, and repackaged for sale to the unsuspecting public. Regrettably, it's become a fairly regular occurrence to hear of new buildings collapsing in Uganda, often with considerable loss of life. Likewise, we periodically hear of chalk dust, sugar and salt being marketed as antibiotics and of children's vaccines being adulterated - all to make a fast buck heedless of the long term consequences on individuals.

One of AAC's investees - Lachlan Kenya, a distributor of crop protection products - has frequently drawn my attention to the risk of counterfeiting in the Kenyan market. Lachlan addresses this risk by using special packaging (including holograms) and trying to educate its distributors, stockists and end-customers on the risks of using counterfeit products. But it's a difficult task, staying ahead of the counterfeiters, requiring annual investment in new packaging. In a recent conversation with the business, one representative estimated - to my astonishment - that more than 50% of crop protection products in Uganda were fake. Separately, one of our seed company investees in Uganda, NASECO, has reported that considerable quantities of seed products in the Ugandan market are actually no more than grain, dyed red to appear as if it has been treated with fungicides. From a business point of view, the existence of fake product is bad enough (as it affects confidence in the industry as a whole), but when fake product is packaged and sold in fake NASECO bags, it is potentially disastrous for the individual business.

The press assures us that the Ugandan Bureau of Standards is stepping up its activities against counterfeiting. This is good news (provided it is resourced adequately to carry out its quality inspections across the country - which I very much doubt) but much more needs to be done. In particular, purveyors of fake products must be brought to justice and punished severely. My view is that counterfeiting basic products like cement and agricultural inputs (and babymilk, as in the infamous melamine scandal) is tantamount to a crime against humanity: it is (in some cases) deadly, it is indiscriminate and it requires considerable planning and preparation. Left unchecked, counterfeiting destroys businesses, markets, industries and, in its worst form, lives.

At least in this regard, I don't mind being a sanctimonious killjoy.

Boda-Boda

It's been a while since my last posting. A fortnight's holiday in England, followed by a frantic week trying to catch up with actions, correspondence, meetings and office minutiae, has taken its toll on blogging, not to mention the colossal amount of time simply spent on getting from A to B - whether from the idyll of our converted barn in Lower Loxhore to the beach at Mortehoe in North Devon - or the hellish gridlock of Nairobi rush hour traffic from Westlands to the Norfolk Hotel.

While sitting in a motionless Mitsubishi taxi in Nairobi last week, a friend texted me from Kampala. In my reply, I bemoaned the fact that motorised boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis), ubiquitous in Kampala, are absent in Nairobi. Doubtless there are excellent health and safety reasons for their absence, but the fact is that motorcycles are undoubtedly the best method for travelling short distances in over-crowded cities with poor and/or outmoded transport infrastructure. Kampala traffic, bad at the best of times, would simply grind to a halt without the boda-boda, and the same could be said of many Asian cities (Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam springs to mind) and other African destinations (Ouagaodougou in Burkina Faso) where two wheels predominate over four.

Boda-bodas are, frequently, a source of mingled amusement and wonder. It isn't unusual to see three passengers plus the driver on a boda-boda, the driver over-revving its puny engine to get up the smallest incline. Kampala ladies, out of modesty, ride side-saddle - at least when they are wearing skirts. They are often used to transport substantial objects - this morning I followed a boda-boda with a single bed frame balanced precariously between the driver and the passenger.

Boda-bodas enjoy a mixed reputation in Kampala: most residents claim to dislike them, yet their numbers increase almost daily. Every now and again the police try to regulate them - most recently through a compulsory helmet-wearing (interestingly this only applied to the driver, not the passenger) programme, or through licencing arrangements, but these initiatives tend to die out after a week or two. Further, boda-boda drivers tend to regard themselves as being above normal traffic laws. The blithe arrogance with which customary traffic rules are broken is attributed to Presidential patronage. A few years ago, President Museveni, impatient at being stuck in Kampala city traffic, and late for at least one appointment, is said to have jumped out of his presidential vehicle, hailed a boda-boda driver, and sped through the traffic. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it makes a good story and (at least in part) accounts for the high standing the Ugandan President enjoys among the boda-boda fraternity.

As I continued this idle line of thought in my still-motionless Nairobi taxi, I wondered why some cities have adopted the motorcycle and others haven't. They are unsuited to cold countries, for obvious reasons, but why, for example, has the boda-boda become so established in Kampala when it is virtually absent from Dar es Salaam and Khartoum - both cities increasingly blighted by weight of traffic. I suppose it has something to do with regulation, but I can't help agreeing with my friend at AGRA in Nairobi, Joe de Vries, that sheer volume of traffic will make four wheels the old transport paradigm in developing-country cities in the years to come. Two wheels is the future!

As a postscript, our Mitsubishi taxi did eventually make it through the Nairobi traffic, but to use another Kampala expression, even travelling by "Footsubishi" would have been a great deal quicker. Bring on the boda-boda!

Holding your tail up high

I have just returned to Kampala after a lengthy visit to 11 AAC investee businesses. Starting in Kampala and finishing in Dar es Salaam, travelling first by car to Nairobi and then by plane to Kilimanjaro and Dar, I was reminded once again of the immense privilege granted to those of us lucky enough to live and work in this wonderful environment. Mabira Forest, Mt Elgon, the Rift Valley, Kilimanjaro and the Indian Ocean were just a few of the landmarks on our journey.

Having said that, painfully slow border crossings, futile police checks and poor road surfaces do take some of the gloss off the experience.....

For the duration of the journey, I was accompanied by two UK-based consultants who are advising on AAC's strategic development. This made for lively debate during the lengthy car and plane journeys between investee visits, generally, though not exclusively, focused on the assignment. When off-subject, our wide-ranging conversation (while passing Lake Elementeita in the Rift Valley) included a discussion of the interesting habits of the African warthog. One of this esteemed beast's many endearing habits is that it raises its tail vertically when alarmed. This so amused my companions on the visit that the phrase "holding our tails high" became a catchphrase for the journey. Regrettably, my tail was lowered temporarily during an acute bout of food-poisoning contracted over the weekend in Nairobi, courtesy of (I believe) a main course of ageing crab, but recovery was swift.

Tom's bananas

On a recent visit to Kilimanjaro, I was very pleased to see that bananas are being planted at the Kifufu estate in Northern Tanzania, apparently on my recommendation. Here's a shot of a trailer carrying four planters and about 400 tissue culture sweet banana plants on the way to their planting site where they will, I am assured, be known as Tom's bananas.

The Banana plant is one of nature's wonders. The largest of all herbaceous flowering plants, it was domesticated in SE Asia (probably New Guinea) in the form of seedless cultivars. It reached Africa and Southern Europe during the Islamic expansion, and then formed one of the few beneficial "Old World" elements of the Columbian exchange. High in dietary fibre and potassium, it is one of the healthiest carbohydrate food sources, and is a staple crop in many parts of the developing world. Ugandans are reputed to be the world's largest per capita consumers of bananas - figures vary, but the average Ugandan is estimated to consume about 200 kgs of matooke (cooking bananas) every year.

Little Shop of Horrors

KADS' next production is the popular musical Little Shop of Horrors at the National Theatre in Kampala. It's an enduringly popular spoof of sci-fi 1950s and 60s movies (eg Day of the Triffids) and will be a great success. It's been a labour of love for Director James Turner, the production team and the orchestra, not to mention the youthful cast. I'm looking forward to seeing the almost-finished article at the dress rehearsal next Tuesday (before leaving for a lengthy set of investee visits in Kenya and Tanzania).

French beans to Tesco's

One of the great Kenyan success stories in recent years has been the growth of the horticulture industry, serving the European market with air-freighted fresh produce ranging from flowers to fruit and vegetables. The industry has its share of detractors - particularly from the environmental and health & safety lobbies - but its economic impact has been huge - to the extent that in the space of 30 years it has gone from zero to be Kenya's largest export industry.

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend the AGRA/ILRI-sponsored conference on the subject of making agricultural markets in Africa work more effectively and efficiently. Among many interesting papers presented was one by Miet Maertens of Leuven University on the growth in high value export markets in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper stood out because it contained hard evidence of the economic impact of the horticulture industry at a household level (something which is all too often ignored in favour of the heart-warming but meaningless anecdotes which pervade the development world).

In brief, the paper concluded that high value trade in fresh produce has a significant and substantial quantifiable impact on rural development and poverty reduction. These effects occur both at the producer level (where farmers grow for exporters) and through the creation of rural labour markets - where there is also a substantial gender bias in favour of women.

My view is that there are numerous other benefits resulting from the fresh produce industry which may be more difficult to quantify than household incomes, but which are no less important. For example, without the massive injections of cash into rural economies brought through employment and the sale of produce, a whole network of small trading and service businesses would be at risk. Access to schooling and healthcare would be restricted. Because export standards are high, significant quantities of produce do not make the grade. Export reject produce is sold in the local market or consumed at home (with attendant nutritional benefits). Farmers have learned new skills and developed new farming techniques and greater exposure to crop protection products. Employees have access to training and advancement opportunities - and the precious practical experience of learning from systematic and organised business administration, agricultural technology, food standard compliance and so on.

The standards required by importers have also thrown up business opportunities. One of AAC's first investments was in a business called Africert. Africert is accredited by a number of international standard-setters to audit producers and issue a range of certificates confirming adherence to the required quality standards. This is an essential link in the export produce value chain, ranging from tea and coffee to fresh vegetables and flowers - since without it high value markets would be closed.

Like most agribusiness, it's easy to throw stones and criticise the fresh produce industry. In comparison to the ultimate $2 dollar selling price of a 500g pack of French Beans in Tesco's, the grower's share of a few cents is tiny - but it's a share, nonetheless, that wouldn't otherwise be there, and it's a share which offers an better income-earning opportunity than alternative crops (otherwise the grower wouldn't do it). Employees don't earn much, but they create a market price for labour and generate tax revenue for local and national Government.

So don't knock it. Support it.