Raipur and some chickens at last.

Raipur,capital of the state of Chattisgarh somewhere in the middle of India, nowhere in my guide book, but from the adverts at the airport a very important place for concrete and steel. India seems to be built of concrete, all successful businesses seem to have a cement division (along with power station and hotels) and much of India seems to be in the process of being built or falling down. We were here to travel about one and half hours north (how far I don't know, could have been 20 miles with the hair raising traffic) to visit Mr Bahadur Ali and his impressive ABIS group. This business started with a broiler unit of 10,000 birds in 1985 and now rears 2.5 million broilers per cycle with 7 cycles a year, 0.1 million layers and a 250,000 breeder flock. A fully integrated business ABIS includes a large feed mill producing feeds for poultry, cattle, pet food and fish feed as well as soya oil extraction plant.
We looked around the mill which surprisingly meets ISO 9000 standards and then looked at yet another large intensive dairy. This one was a remarkable in the fact the cows were the cleanest we saw with teams of people cleaning up constantly with a broom and shovel and very little mechanisation. It also boasted one of only three rotary palours in India.
95% of the chickens produced by ABIS are sold in the wet market, that is they are transported live to the shop and then killed as the customer buys them. Apparently the costs would be 4 rupees to process in a abattoir and just 1 rupee to kill in the shop (with an exchange rate of around 70 rupees:£). This processing also gets round the unreliable electricity supply and the lack of investment in any sort of refrigerated distribution chain. ABIS group has 160 retail units selling just chicken and eggs and also distributes milk and ghee to small shops.
We had tea with Mr Ali and heard nuggets like 'luck, it is all' and about 'sustaining power' as well as hearing how they plan to keep expanding as the market for both poultry meat and milk increases. He is very aware of new market opportunities and is looking at building an abattoir in 2015/2016 to be able to supply the likes of KFC and Freshgo supermarket.
An impressive business, but one i found quite scary for the disregard of safety and hygiene. With the cheap labour availability, cheap building materials and the Indian 'anything is possible attitude,' a large abattoir would have processing costs way below the biggest UK plants. Inexpensive protein from an unsubsidised poultry industry helped transform the post war diet in the UK, this is happening in India and the appetite in a previously vegetarian society is huge. I came away thinking about when they had fed the 1.2 billion Indians would they turn to exports, maybe another reason not to eat at fast food chicken outlets.
So that's Raipur, cement, steel and chickens....

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.

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.