Good Food is Everybody's Business
Frisco’s guarding surpassed my fondest hopes! One day the flock of 160 sheep and the llama were grazing the farthest pasture, next to the highway, when a passing dump truck suddenly backfired. Frisco instantly rounded up the entire flock, brought them in on the double, and herded them into a corner near the buildings where they would be safe.
Before Liberia’s civil war, Augustine Tamba’s farm had a water pump, a sprinkler system, and a reliable well. Neighbors worked for Tamba to grow rice, cassava, corn and vegetables in the lowland farm outside of the town of Johnsonville in Montserrado County, Liberia. Tamba had market outlets in Paynesville—20 kilometers away—as well as Monrovia, the country’s capital. Before starting the farm in 1982, Tamba worked as a bank manager in a small town nearby. After a brief stint, he returned to agriculture, “the soil is Liberia’s only bank…the bank of life,” as he explains. During the war, Tamba’s farm laborers either migrated to other countries or became entangled in the bloody conflict. In addition, the market for Tamaba’s produce disappeared when Liberia’s entire economic and social system came to a halt.
As the time to sell the feeder lambs neared, Sean and his friend Dennis approached me with the idea that they might buy the feeders this year. I really tried to dissuade them, as feeder prices were high at the time, and I feared that prices could drop by the time the lambs were ready for market. However, they wanted to try it. Dennis’ uncle had a nice lot near Eitzen with a covered shed for feeding and Sean could build a Hi-Tensile fence around the lot, so they bought the lambs and moved them down to the lot.
It’s clear we are now having a serious problem identifying honest players among aid givers in the 3rd World. Africa is a prime example. So how do we differentiate; how do we separate the honest helpers from the “carpetbaggers?” The trouble is, industrializing nations like China and India, and already industrialized nations like the US and Russia are going full out after the last big reservoir of remaining resources and indigenous peoples already made poor by exploitation (the Green Revolution, etc.) have no defense.
What began in 1930 as a restrained attempt to reward horticultural inventors like Luther Burbank (the self-educated, self-styled, plant genius of his day), has become a kind of free-for-none piñata hunt entrancing corporations and university IP offices for a decade. Everyone with an IP portfolio is blindly swinging over their heads, hoping they will get their reward when the prizes come raining down.
