sustainable agriculture

today the whole class - 30 or so - bussed out about an hour out of nairobi to look at sustainable agriculture farms in rural kenya. we went under the auspices of sustainable agriculture community development program, which provides training for small farmers in kenya in sustainable ag practices. as a side note, a huge portion of the farming in kenya is done on plots of land that are really, really small, and it is only recently that many of the farms started growing enough to move beyond subsistence farming

we met with a couple of farm cooperatives - about eight families or so - who would come together to cooperate on pricing and fuding small biogas facilities that use the manure of their three or four cows to give them gas and - small amounts - of electricity. very interesting stuff, and there was an obvious increase in quality of life for the farmers, though it seems like a whole lot of work went into a project that ultimately benefitted only a few families. small steps, i suppose.

bus ride back involved a lot of slipping and sliding into ditches that we then had to get out and push our way out of.

ok i snuck into this computer lab and now i have to sneak out.