It rarely happens but my arrival gate in Amsterdam and my departure gate are right next to each other. Literally a 10 metre walk from where I got off the plane to where I get on again to go to Toronto. In fact I started heading deep into the airport assuming I would have a bit of a hike as one usually does. The first photo shows the plane that I was on which came from Nairobi. The second photo shows the plane I'll be getting on at the next gate over. So a very low stress situation. In fact in the second photo if you look closely, you can see the reflection of the sign for the neighbouring gate where I arrived. 

Tired of photos of plants? Here's a shot of spectacular Lake Malawi, one of Africa's Great Lakes. The mountains in the background on the other side of the lake would be Mozambique.

My now required picture of a national flag. I  got lucky since I was in an immigration line at  the airport and it was moving slowly enough that I was able to get my camera out of my luggage and ask someone to take a picture for me. Malawi by the way.

We're here in Malawi. This you could call field trip for a few staff from our Burundi, Tanzania  and US offices to learn about improved  fallows. What is an improved  fallow? This photo below illustrates pretty well. On the right you can see some trees or maybe tall shrubs called  Tephrosia which are 2.5 years old and  have grown  to  a height of about 3 metres. The are legumes so  they add nitrogen to the soil as well as organic matter. All  this means that after a time, the soil is much richer,  and then  the cut the plants down and plant corn as they have done on the left (you can see the corn stalks on the soil surface. Yields on these fields after an improved fallow are 2.4 to 2.8 metric tonnes per hectare, which is at least twice the average yield using the  traditional system. Improved  fallow systems are relatively new, maybe they have been around for 15 years or so, but Malawi is one place where they have had particular success with promoting these systems with farmers. So we're here, not just to learn about the technical aspects, but also to learn about how they have persuaded farmers to adopt these systems--not always an easy task as I think I've mentioned in the past. We're doing this for the next 3 days, so if I get internet again you  can expect more discussion  of the same. This is only one of a variety of great techniques that can help farmer  increase  yield and income  with little expense.

We are experimenting with some different techniques for sharing knowledge. One of the challenges of this work is to find ways to effectively  get new ideas and new practices out to farmers in ways that they can accept. This then leads to the same farmers actually using those practices on  their farms--at least that is the idea. One of the other challenges is accessing the knowledge that farmers already have. There is a  tendency for everyone (both farmers and traditional trainers) to assume that farmers really don't know very much, and everyone looks  to the trained technician to have all the answers. So one of the things we have just started trying is a teaching technique called farmer field schools. The concept of FFS has been around for a while, and has worked well, especially for training in pest management. We just spent this last week, working on trying to adapt the FFS system to our situation, for teaching various topics on sustainable agriculture. Pictured below is the first workshop in the field, and you can see farmers making observations on tree seedlings in a backyard nursery. The idea is that farmers observe, and learn, share with each  other, and  share with training  staff. This puts everyone on more of an equal footing,  rather than technician first, and farmer second. We have a long way to go to make this really workable for us, and we will probably experiment with other approaches besides FFS, but at least this first attempt was seen as a positive  step by those involved.

I had a chance to visit a microwatershed project being taken on by on of the community groups where we are collaborating. The group is planning, on their own initiative to reforest 10 acres of land that border the Kilimanjaro National Park. So far they have planted over 4000 seedlings on 2 acres. You can see in the photo below, the large trees in the background, which are on the other side of a stream and are actually in the park. The side where folks are standing is on private land, land owned by farmers who are part of this particular group. If you look closely you can see a few of the 4000 seedlings scattered around. People in the photo are a mixture of community members and our staff. I took this shot with a zoom lens so  I  was pretty far away, but I tell myself they were talking about about a better future.

Tracking what happens to trees after they get planted is kind of difficult. So  many things can  happen, drought,  goats, machetes. We estimate our survival rate is probably somewhere between 50  to 75  percent,  but once I tree is in the field it is pretty much  on it's  own. So it was encouraging today to return to a farm where 5 years ago, some visitors, including the director of our organization, and myself had planted seeds  in a tree nursery, which this farmer in Tanzania (in yellow) then went on to transplant on his farm and are shown below. 

Alright, apparently I have 15 minutes free courtesy of the Charles DeGaulle airport. So I will squander that time talking about the guy sitting beside me on my last flight. I think it may have been his first flight ever. Or maybe his first day ever. First he was watching an episode of Friends, the TV show, and laughing hilariously like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Then we got into a little, just a very little bit of turbulence--enough to make you careful with your drink, but not enough to stop you from drinking. Except this guy. He had a tight grip with both hands on the seat back in front of him and had his head down like it might all be over in seconds. I was actually concerned that if we did get into some real turbulence that he would have a panic attack (well, a bigger one), and how that would interfere with my dinner--chicken and pasta, with baguette, cheese and wine. Air France I guess, makes sense. The baguette I mean, I don't know about the panic attack.

Leaving 2 days between trips is clearly  not ideal. I could have used a couple more to rest and get prepared. Maybe I can sleep on  the plane.