Camel Poo Paper, Wool and Ice Cream

The trips to see sheep and camels were hosted by Ilse Koehler-Rollefson, and Hanwant Singh Rathore of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Developement

The LPP'S (for short) believes in helping from within the community and much work is done to improve the welfare and health of the livestock as well as helping the communities fight for their rights to maintain their traditional ways of life. In a country that has huge potential and ability for intensive production and with a government that sees food production as a priority the traditional livestock farmers are struggling to survive. LPP's is working on developing new markets for novel products such as camel milk ice cream, camel wool and camel poo paper. These added value products also creates jobs for the local women, especially widows in isolated villages.

Ilsa and Hanwant not only gave up their time to show us around but also cooked us a wonderful meal. I felt honoured to meet two people that cared for the pastoral people enough to try and improve their lives.
The following video, more professionally done than my efforts, gives a really good overview of what their project is achieving.

Breakfast with Camel Herders

For me this was a really special part of our trip. After an early start and a bumpy ride across the hills we collected a vet from an isolated village and met up with some more Raika herders. This group herded camels, traditionally much valued in this area for their ability to survive the harsh desert conditions. Camel herding has been in sharp decline lately with 50% of the national herd disappearing in the last few years. Pressure from an increase in irrigated agriculture (which is government supported), development and creation of wildlife reserves has meant that traditional grazing land is being lost. The herders are away from their villages for months at a time and move from farm to farm, grazing the sparse vegetation and the trees. The farmers give them food and water and in return they get their field fertilized. The camel milk is good stuff, slightly salty tasting and it's meant to be healthy as well as TB free. Each year there are great camel fairs where surplus stock are sold. A hard life and one that the young Raiki boys do not want to follow, but to me a travel dream of sipping hot sweet tea and camel milk, as the sun rose in a setting that felt it hadn't changed in a thousand years.

Here's another wonky video to give you an idea how noisy those camels were, apparently they were hungry and ready to move on. Each one was hobbled in a different way to stop them wandering off and had a brand mark on their faces or neck to identify them.

New friends in Rajasthan.

This is Selina, my new friend, with her sister. Selina I guess is around the same age as Elsa and is great at carrying water on her head. She is part of the Raika people near Ranakapur in the Aravalli hills in central Rajasthan, one of a Hindu caste that are livestock grazers. We were lucky to be invited along to their sheep shearing party when everyone gets together to shear, chat and make the work go quicker. Sheep grazing here is very extensive and the men herd the sheep on 'the forest' during the day bringing them back to stone and brushwood yards during the evenings. There doesn't seem to be any grass at this time of the year but they cut branches which the sheep seem happy with. Flock size is small, lambing is about 80% and the native breed is Boti. This traditional way of life is under threat from development on the land and locally the creation of a wildlife reserve, but sheep prices are good ( the lambs are sold onto Muslim traders). Housing is basic and the water is fetched from the village pump, although most villagers seemed to have electricity. The sari's were colourful and the women although shy seemed happy. Local projects encouraging the women out of their homes to meet and play games has helped to educate and empower the women who traditionally have led secluded lifes in isolated villages. These changes has meant that more young girls are educated and the future looks to have more opportunity for my new friend, but it is still a slow change and when I think of the aspirations of my girls at home and that of a Raika girl I realise how important equality is.

Here is a special video taken of the sheep shearing by one of my many new friends, anywhere I go the children love to take the pictures and then look at them.

Retreating to the Punjab

After a day of traveling we arrive in India. India being such a vast country means to see as much as possible we need to take lots of internal flights which have required a great deal of organising (not mine but thanks to Michael and Tony). First stop is the Punjab, staying in the garden city of Chandigarh, which was designed in kilometre blocks with green spaces and trees, but now was very overcrowded. Leaving the city we travelled to Deep Roots Rural Retreat, another type of B&B with the enterprising owner. The history of Punjab region is troubled, the partioning of India and the land capping policies in 1947 means that farms are small. With a growing population the pressure on land for development and agriculture means the land price is huge. Small blocks of land to remain viable are often farmed in family groups. Punjab has an enviable climate with a hot wet summer and a warm dry winter, with irrigation the main crops are rice in the wet season followed by wheat in the dry. The state produces over 50% of India's cereal crops on only just 2% of the agricultural land. Many Innovative farmers are recognising that irrigation is going to become difficult with wells needing to dug deeper. Mr Harinder Signh is such a farmer and is investing in expanding his dairy cows to 400 cows. He is part of a group called Progressive Dairy Farmers Association that have the aim of 5 dairy farms per village. The Cows are kept in open yards and fed fresh fodder that comes from his surronding fields, this included 3 crops of maize a year, but no grass.

On the second day we drove north to Ludhiana to meet Dr Sidhu who Manages Macro Dairy Ventures Private Ltd who produce and market Tru Milk a premium milk poduct that selling point is that it is only milked by machine. Here they had HAACP's and were making a big effort to ensure a safe product. The Company is owned by a local legislator and has iniated a project to empower local women to earn money. Around 1000 ladies purchase 5 cows each, these are kept in the companies herd and milk in the companies palour. 5 ladies are in each self help group and work a 4 hour shift a day looking after 100 cows and 1 day off per week. They are then paid the raw milk price with deductions for feed, insurance and pay back the loans for the cows. The minimum payment they will earn is a guaranteed 2400 rupees, the average lactations should be 4 with 4000l per lactation. They also have the profit from the sale of cull cow and the calf. These ladies would not have the opportunity of a job, certainly would not be able to access a loan or banking facilities and definitely have no land.

After a hair raising ride back to Deep Roots we looked round their potential solution to water shortage. This was growing vegtables, but not just on a small scale but looking to use a cooperative of small growers and put in a pack house that washes with chlorinated water. Building a modern refrigerated supply chain and selling into small shops they look set for a great business. India has no dominant supermarket and the supply chain for veg still uses ox cart and like the dairy industry there seems to be an exciting opportunity to modernise food production and to help smaller farmers to move their businesses forward.

Deep Roots was perfect hospitality with fantastic food as well as fascinating farming information.

Night In Bangkok

Another bus trip, this time a bit more civilised from the border upto Bangkok a city of 10 millon people. Having our view of Thailand coloured by Lane the taxi driver saying that they call the Cambodians dogs, we drove through large sugar cane fields, rice fields and Rubber plantations. Field size was much larger, there was mechanisation, cars and lorries. Farming seemed modern and there has been a 22% increase in the export value of agricultural products in the last year.
Could this be the future for Cambodia? Similar land, weather and positioning, if the infrastructure was mended, when large farms are created by the Chinese it may be create a wealthy farming economy. Is that a bad thing industralising those subsistance farms? It would create cheap food, jobs and allow the country to grow. The sad reality seems to be that it will happen, although the Cambodians seem to have a strong sense of identity that they are trying to preserve. Idealistically I would like to see the country be allowed to grow and mend itself, but too much interest is being shown from the developed world and although Cambodia has very little in the way of minerals it has a rich source of timber and soils.
We learnt of the great poverty of the countryside that is being ignored, the need for education in a country where a school teacher earns less than a factory worker ($60/month for the teacher $80 for the factory) and the ability of a people to survive the most horrific things and be grateful that they have a second life. Most of all I left remembering the smiles and happines of the children that have so little but are the future of this fantastic country.

Crab Shack

This post is solely to make you all jealous that I am working so hard. Especially you Henry when I tell you about the prawns and squid on the beach BBQ and the warm sea. No surf but great swimming, just my type of day out.

Up the Jungle

Lonely Planet describes Krong Koh Kong as a wild west frontier town, full of smugglers and dodgy hotels. Fortunately with Malcolm, the Welsh owner of 'Fat Sams bar' to guide us,we found a charming town full of entrepreneurs. As with everywhere else there was moto and tuk tuk chaos, a strip of tarmac for road and dubious drainage. Not being able to avoid farm visits any longer, we took a boat and had a trip up river into the mangrove forest on the southern edge of the Cardamon mountains. Taking a random selection of Malcolm's friends and guided by Noy we followed the jungle paths and saw small farms producing fruit, sugar cane, lemon grass (50 cents/kg) and Sandlewood. One progressive farmer was growing 4 ha of water melons, all without irrigation just relying on the heavy forest dews. We saw a lot of hammocks and mosquitoes but not much bird life, rumour has it that all the birds have been eaten and after trying the local spider delicacies at Skoun i can quite believe it.

The forest seemed a good place to farm, far from the noise of tuk tuks and moto's and with plenty of fruit and nuts to harvest. In the Pol Pot era the jungle was a place that Khmer Rouge didn't go and many Cambodian's fled to the jungle to hide. Taking produce to market was a slow boat trip, Noy told us how the village we visited was innovative and good at their marketing.

Noy farms 5 ha's and told us how

he made sure he had 'hard papers' to prove ownership, he was proud to tell us that since buying the land 4 years ago he had improved the land and his yields of rice had increased. He was positive that farming had a future in Cambodia, but was worried about the misuse of sprays and fertilizers in a ecosystem that he was passionate about. When pressed why he farmed he eloquently explained the need to belong after spending his first 12 years in a refugee camp eating rice and dried fish. Owning and farming a piece of his homeland gave respect, security and freedom. Innovative, young and positive but realistic that he was only just starting to make a success of the farm. Facing the familiar problems of lack of capital, he seemed to have the resilience that we saw in the Cambodian people to survive and enjoy live as it happens.

After such thirsty farm visits the rest of the day revolved round paddy's bar where the toilets are unmentionable but the food is excellent (try the noodles they are amazing), I began to think that Cambodian farming may be more fun than we first thought.

Cambodian B&B

This is Kheang who, with her young family and American husband Don, runs Rama Home stay, a bit like a Farm house B&B but with a special Cambodian twist. After spending the day on the bus, I missed the 3 hour walk around the local farms and villages, but after an excellent meal of tomato salad, steamed rice and a Cambodian curry We spent some time talking with her mother who grows rice and lotus. The life of a rice farmer on 4 ha is incredibly hard, with back breaking work and long hours for only a subsistance living. If she was lucky, when yield and price was on her side, she could pay back the loan taken out at the beginning of the season, feed herself and have enough to save a little. This scenario was similar to our own small family farms in the UK, but we don't starve if our crops fail, subsidies and tax credits mean that nobody needs to go hungary. So similar to farmers everywhere but so different as conversation turned to the Pol Pot era. I found it quite overwhelming to talk to a lovely educated women that was the same age to myself but at the age of 9 had been taken from her family to work on dam building by the Khmer Rouge and grew up in the years of war and famine. She believes that the only hope for Cambodia is education, but in the countryside where most still have no electricity, education and healthcare is poor. Hygiene practices are non existent and excess to good healthcare is unaffordable. A traditional midwife can be paid in rice, but until recently there was no transport to get to the NGO funded medical centres that allows a women a clean and safe childbirth. The women want to improve their lives but until they have the right facilitators on the ground not much changes, with the provision of money to pay to get to and from the hospital complications at childbirth have improved, while still allowing the women to return home and carry out the traditional customs.

Talk also centred on the worry about the land Concessions, excitement about affording a hand tractor to make live easier and the price of chickens (it's 1500 riel per kg and that was because it was just before chinese new year but the chicken are only around 1kg). Much interest was shown in how you could keep sheep with fences and not needing to herd them daily and amazement over the green fields in my pictures of Devon.

After a night in a shed on stilts and a wash with a bucket, we breakfasted on traditional rice porridge and cambodian pastries before a long taxi drive to Koh Kong. A great stay with a lovely family and if anyone is passing I left my phone there and with no reliable postal service it may need to wait until some one returns.

On the Buses.

On my list of things to do to be a traveller is a train ride across India, but as my travelling companions are not so keen and time is short it looks like I won't tick the box this time. To make up for this, although the taxi's are very cheap I opted to take the bus from Siem Reape to our next desination near Kampong Cham. Asking around came up with a time of everything from 3 hours to 6 hours and a lot of shaking heads about where it was and if it was worth going to. Always keen to please the bus was defiantely booked, you can have a 7.30am, 8.30am or 9.30am. Being on holiday it seemed a good idea to book the 9.30 and after a bit of confusion as the hotel had run out of tickets the bus arrived at 9.30. After a trip round Siem Reape we then arrived at the bus station where the 9.30 bus became the 10.30 bus that left at 11.10, loaded with sacks of fertilizer (I think), furniture and many children. After a stop for diesal we were off and I was congratulating myself on taking the scenic route, after many stops for water for the engine, the driver to buy sunglasses and dropping of sacks of various produce we stopped for lunch. This was possibly the dirtiest lunch stop with plastic everywhere. In the 'scare the tourist silly so they think it's a lonely planet' guide book it suggests that if you get took short don't leave the grass verge in case there are landmines and the cambodians certainly take this seriously. Even I declined to try any lunch. We finally banged and bumped into Kampong Cham around 4pm and gratefully relaxed in the comfort of a tuk tuk, that if driven flat out is better than any air conditioning. Too late to have the farm visit planned but having seen a snapshot of rural cambodia with a karyoke soundtrack all for $8. (To find out about cambodian rice farming see the Farming Ladder blog).

So what about the rubbish, it was everywhere. Plastic and glass bottles have a value to collect, they use very little tins, paper can be used for compost but plastic bags seem to be the favourite way of wrapping anything from cooked rice porridge (breakfast) to juices drunk with a straw. It would certainly improve the enviroment if a value could be found for carrier bags or if the plastic would compost.

For a second time I was amazed by the patience of the people that sat without complaining on the bus and still managed to keep smiling, i'm not sure that I was.

The orphan band

Angkor and Siem Reape are full of children, they are filthy dirty ( so is everything with a layer of red dust) but generally a happy bunch. In a country where 50% of the population is under 25 the mothers are only children to an old lady like me. Visiting a traditional Cambodian silk weaving workshop the children were with the mothers as they worked the little ones asleep in hammocks, the older ones playing on the floor, perfect childcare. There are many orphans and street children and these sell postcards, books, scarves and water around the entrance to the temples. This could be quite unnerving but they are so happy and love to practice their English that you can't help buying everything. When a 9 year old can tell you the population of London and the last 6 Prime ministers you just have to admire their sales technique. Since then we have found that the children just love to talk even if they have nothing to sell and today i have realised that if you keep saying hello enough you just can't help smiling. Maybe that is why Cambodia has survived such terrible atrocities without.
The Orphans and land mine victims also have some great bands around the Temples and here due to the wonders of technology is a brief sample.

Angkor Temples

Angkor is the earthly representation of Mt Meru, the mt Olympus of the Hindu faith and home of ancient gods. The Cambodian God kings for 600 years between AD802 to 1432, each tried to better there ancestors in the size, scale and symmetry of their temples, culminating in Angkor Wat the biggest religous building in the world. When London boasted 30,000 people Angkor had population of 1 millon. A civilization that traded rice and built huge irrigation systems that created wealth. It is an amazing sight, not just the number and size of temples but all the walls have intricate carvings recording the legends of first the Hindu then later the Buddist faiths. Carvings of the struggles of the Khmer people against their neighbours give a idea of the history, but Angkor still holds its secrets as their are no written records as it was thought palm leaf would have been used and this disintigrates with age.
Angkor is a great inspiration and pride for the people of Cambodia a nation that was once so great, has suffered so much and now has so little.
Not much farming but certainly a sight worth seeing.