Solar Power and Regenerative Agriculture in Burma

In February, when Coronavirus hit and it became clear that I should choose my next destination carefully, I was already scheduled to go to Bangladesh and the Rohingya refugee camps. Although there were no documented cases of Covid 19 in Bangladesh at the time, I decided, given the existing level of health care and the possible overwhelming of that system when the outbreak did arrive, that I should postpone my visit to a later date.

            Next on the itinerary were Sri Lanka and the Philippines, both island nations, which seemed like safer bets in a spreading epidemic. Finally, I decided on Sri Lanka, as it offered relative isolation, political stability, a generous visa, and I thought that I should be able to conduct classes there, even as the disease spread worldwide. That was not to be, as we will see later.

            I arrived in Sri Lanka in mid-February with a list of contacts from a friend from Burma days, who was well-connected to the organic, sustainable living community there. Very soon, I was in touch with a variety of people who I hoped would hook me up with participants for my classes. But what to teach – solar or vermiculture – what was the need - what did people want? That question was quickly answered when I discovered that 95% of the homes in Sri Lanka are already connected to reliable grid power. It has been a priority of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to extend education, utility and health services to the entire population and they have been very successful in this endeavor. Although a geographically small country, a considerable portion of the population lives in mountainous areas where the installation and maintenance of electrical lines is a real challenge. I did see grid-connected solar systems in urban areas, but these were mainly on institutional sized structures, such as government buildings, universities or hotels, being installed by competent local solar firms. So, there was no need for solar trainings for farmers in remote areas.

            The second string to my bow is vermiculture – harnessing the power of composting worms to provide organic fertilizer and soil-building amendment, while disposing of (perhaps) unwanted organic material. As my contact list expanded, I discovered that although vermiculture was known in Sri Lanka, it was being practiced in mistaken way, yielding poor results.

            Please look out for the next Report, where I will reveal all about the vermiculture errors committed and how I proposed to correct them.

            Please continue to donate to GlobalGiving and especially to organizations fighting Covid 19 on the front lines.

Stay safe and follow health authority guidelines (they really do work!).

Best wishes,

Bruce

            The world is a very different place now, compared to 3 months ago, when I wrote Part 1 of the Ethiopian visit. Our brothers and sisters in less developed countries, are in dire need of help to defend themselves against this recent Coronavirus epidemic. It is natural for us to focus on our own situation, our own family and our own health, but I would like to encourage our generous donors to think about others, who are even more vulnerable to the scourge of this virus, than we are. Please consider making a donation to one of the many organizations listed on GlobalGiving who are in a position to respond immediately to this threat.

As I mentioned in Part 1, Y. and I were best friends in Yemen in the 1970s, but lost touch until 2019. I include two photographs which illustrate the passage of time, and note that we are still best friends.

            Ethiopia is a unique country, with a diverse population, a wide range of landscapes and climates and the best coffee I have ever tasted! Reputed to be the birthplace of the original coffee plant, Ethiopia retains perhaps the greatest variety of elegant and complex coffee flavors, to be found anywhere on the planet. And this holds the key to the successes and failures of the coffee industry and indeed, of the country itself.

            Although some of the most astonishing coffee flavors come from wild plants, the production is low and the quality, highly variable. Most coffee beans are produced by smallholders, who, unable to market the product themselves, join together with other farmers into co-operatives. Although this system offers the growers help regarding technical support, transportation and marketing, it removes the quality control and traceability that is required for the international marketing of specialist coffees. In the cut-throat world of boutique coffees, consistency is everything.

            And this is the conundrum that Ethiopia has labored under for decades. Emerging violently from the feudal rule of Haile Selassie in 1974, the country was plunged into thirteen years of Marxist-Leninist excesses including land reform, nationalization, resettlement and the elimination

of all political opponents. This instability was further compounded by a series of droughts and famines in the 1980s. Add to this a civil war between the major ethnic groups and a couple of wars with neighboring Somalia and Eritrea and it is easy to see why Ethiopia became the poster child for failed states. The subsequent pro-US regime encouraged the liberalization and internationalization of the Ethiopian economy,(code for “sold to the highest foreign bidder”), but at the same time led the country into a descent towards ethnicity-based politics, which is where it finds itself today.

            The roads in Ethiopia were all built as foreign aid projects by America, Russia and China, during the different periods that each one was the donor of choice. Now, many of them are dilapidated, some with potholes the size of a Jacuzzi. China is now the donor of the month, but Ethiopians have little enthusiasm for the union.

            I was there in December, about two months after the last downpour of the rainy season and the landscape was just beginning to turn brown from lack of water. It was easy to imagine how less rain than usual, or worse, no rain at all, would have a devastating effect on this parched land.

            Another debilitating holdover from the former regimes are the onerous taxes to be paid at almost every turn. The statist authoritarian governments of the past were not able increase the GNP of the country or put a chicken in every pot, but they certainly enumerated the whole population and instituted a system of taxation that really puts a crimp on initiative and entrepreneurship. Vehicle importation taxes run around 300%, making a $30,000 Toyota pick up cost nearly $100,000. Then there is VAT (sales tax), income tax, property tax and business tax (about 35%). That would acceptable in a Scandinavian democratic socialist paradise, where cradle-to-the-grave social services are given in return for such high taxation. But in Ethiopia, where health care is poor and many remote areas have few schools and scant infrastructure, heavy taxation holds back development, rather than promotes it.

            My first impressions of Ethiopia are of a country with many resources and great potential, but it is being held back by ethnic rivalries, a recent gory past, and a potentially catastrophic exposure to drought. It’s a landlocked giant, “the Tibet of Africa”, with a well-educated, bi-lingual, urban workforce – but can she shake off the shackles of the past and mitigate the disadvantages that geography has dealt her?. My first impressions lean towards a vote of confidence, but only time will tell.

            I am now safely returned to my home in northern California, having just bailed out of Sri Lanka in time to avoid being stranded in a foreign country, at a time when xenophobia is raising its ugly head everywhere. I crave the indulgence of our donors to be permitted to write reports with more background content, as I am not in the field at the moment, and who knows when I will be able to return.

            Once again, I ask you to make a donation to GlobalGiving, but this time, please consider making it to an organization directly involved with mitigating the Coronavirus epidemic. As we proudly say in the Solar Roots mission statement, “We are all in this together”.

Be safe, be well and stay at home.

Thank you,

Bruce