Just to give you All a BIG THANK YOU!

"Lack of gratitude is as the sin of witchcraft" -

(My Translation of a common Shona Proverb)

Sometime back I asked for your support in the YoBloCo , Young Agriculture Blogger Competition.

I would really like to thank all those who voted for this blog, and all those who found time just to look at my blog and read the posts. I know time is expensive for you all to make detailed comments on each posts, BUT I also know that you read my blog, because the number of views has kept on increasing to over a 1,500 views now!

I am very pleased to share with you that even though the Barefoot E-ssue did not make it into the top 12 Blogs, we sure did get a special mention from CTA! Check out the News item here!

In the same regard, I would also like to extend my warm gratitude to the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) for organizing the Web 2.0 Training that introduced me to blogging and birthed the Barefoot E-ssue.

By the way, I started the Barefoot E-ssue as part of a class assignment in the Web 2.0 for Development Training and have just loved blogging since then.

All your support and encouragement (to everyone of you) is greatly appreciated from me and my writing "imaginative" partners in my mind here at the Barefoot E-ssue!

Lastly, meet us at the Fin4Ag International Conference in Nairobi from 14-18 July 2014! See you there!

ciao!

Comments

And they lived dairy ever after...

The Story of Kiambaa Rural Dairy Cooperative The Fin4ag International Conference held in Nairobi from the 14th to the 18th of July 2014 set in motion a number of evolutionary processes, especially among young people whose impact on agriculture in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific is going to be revolutionary. A recent news article by the main organizers of the conference, the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) supports this. As a young African agriculture enthusiast, one of my encounters with destiny at the Fin4ag conference was during the field trips when we visited Kiambaa Rural Dairy Cooperative and met two happy couples that are living "dairy ever after" in rural Kenya, Mr and Mrs Nyaka and Mr and Mrs Njeka. The two couples shared their life stories and how dairy farming through the network of a Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) is impacting positively on their families and communities. I was astonished by how these hum...

My best 2 minute lecture on Agricultural Development so far...

"When we invest together, good things grow" IFAD, 2014 I have never heard it expressed in a simpler and more powerful way before. I happened to bump into one of IFAD’s videos on the Year of family farming, and I must say, this short video is one of the best lectures I have had on agricultural investment and development so far. You can watch the video here (right click to open it in a new tab or new window). A screen shot from the video Below, I share with you three main insights from the video and my short homework exercises on “what I learnt.” Insight Number 1: One third of the global population have their livelihoods dependent on small farms, that’s approximately 2.3 billion people and they work extremely hard for long hours every day, struggling to feed their families and educate their children. What I learnt: I realized just how important productivity and profitability increasing technologies are to helping change the world. The need for more...

Zimbabwe’s limited fiscal space is constraining agricultural growth and development

Photo Credit: M. Granados - CIMMYT Defining fiscal space Fiscal space is defined by the balance between government revenue (i.e. tax), denoted by T and government expenditure, denoted by G, through time. For instance, if G < T, then there is a fiscal surplus, but if G > T, then there is a fiscal deficit. A sustained or perpetual deficit through time results in build-up of annual deficits, leading to an unsustainable high debt. With a high level of debt, the government cannot borrow on the international market, and its ability to finance future deficits, i.e. the fiscal space is limited. Zimbabwe currently endures very limited fiscal space since debt distress is undermining the capacity of the country to service its debt obligations. Accumulation of external payment arrears since 2000 (including interest charges) has resulted in public and publicly guaranteed debt reaching 51% of GDP and was projected to reach US$7.2 billion by December 2014 (Chinamasa, 2014). F...

Sustainable Development Perspectives

Search This Blog