jake lyell photography (blog)

I never knew the significance behind breeding seeds, or that it could even be done to produce beneficial results. Without understanding the exact science behind it, I can emphasize that it’s very important – important enough to be able to lift lives out of poverty.

My most recent assignment was here in Tanzania with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation photographing agricultural projects. (If you frequent my blog, you’ll know this subject is familiar territory.) Since 2006, the Gates Foundation has supported an organization headed by Kofi Annan called Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The grantee’s goal is to spark the same agricultural revolution that led to India’s self-sufficiency in grain foods beginning in the mid 1960’s. This is done partially through the Gates PASS (Program for Africa’s Seed Systems) initiative, whose projects I photographed in recent days.

In the 1990’s, an epidemic called Cassava Brown Streak Disease began terrorizing farmers throughout the Zanzibar Archipelago, a series of islands off Tanzania’s eastern coast. Cassava was grown by over 90% of rural households until production all but came to a halt in the early part of this decade. AGRA quickly noticed the devastating consequences of the loss of the staple crop and began empowering local scientists to breed new varieties of cassava that were resistant to the disease. Today, farmers successfully cultivate the crop throughout the archipelago.

Breeding new, disease resistant varieties of crops takes years of educated trial and error. Researchers use their knowledge of dominant and recessive genes combined with expertise in cultivation and crop varieties to make newer, stronger versions, gradually breeding out the unhealthy qualities and leaving in the good. The bulk of this is done in the field amid crop rows, where researchers get their hands dirty – not behind a microscope.

Better, stronger cassava varieties don’t just mean that a family has ample food for the table. Increased crop yields equate to sales at the market after nutritional needs at home have been met. Income generated from market sales can be quite significant. Farmers not only now make a business of selling cassava root, but also the cassava cuttings: small branches placed in the ground that take root, becoming new trees. The sales of his disease resistant cuttings also help to disseminate these better varieties throughout the islands.

More and more, the global development community is realizing that agriculture must be a key concentration in poverty reduction. The majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas after all, where if income is earned, it is usually through farming and animal husbandry. The Gates Foundation, known more for its emphasis on health care and education, has taken broad action in providing top quality seeds to farmers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abundant corn, sesame, and sunflower grow in a Tanseed International demonstration field on Tanzania’s mainland. Like a car dealership showplace, these fields stand gleaming on roadsides throughout the region telling farmers, “This could be you.”

Educating the public by demonstrating the product of good seeds is necessary. The majority of Africa’s farmers do not buy their seeds in stores but instead use what has been saved from the previous year’s harvest. Unwilling, or unable, to make a small financial investment that could double production in a given harvest, most farmers scrape by with smaller yields.

Tanseed is the only company in the region focused on providing quality, locally produced seeds. Other companies selling seeds in the area’s shops have bred their products hundreds or even a thousand miles away in Kenya or Zambia. This company is familiar with the nuances of the local breeds of crops, and the results show.

Even though Tanseed is a private, for-profit institution, its impact was recognized by AGRA in the last three years. Through the Gates Foundation, and AGRA, Tanseed is able to continually breed better kinds of seeds, produce them in large quantities, and sell them to small farmers at an affordable price.

A better seed is a great start, but it can only get you so far. Proper agricultural techniques must be implemented to insure abundant yields. Having a genuine interest in seeing the surrounding community flourish, Tanseed works with local government agricultural extension workers (like social workers for small farmers) to insure that best practices are carried out from planting to harvest.

Concrete results are sometimes actually concrete. Above, a farmer attributes her family’s new house, habitable though still under construction, to last year’s increased crop yields.

The PASS seed project has particular impact because it addresses challenges that are experienced at a local level. However, the same process is implemented in localities throughout 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though in existence for just three years now, it has already begun to have an impact, and will continue to change lives as more farmers have access to higher quality seeds.

All photographs Copyright 2009

Education is neither universal nor compulsory. Most people have no choice but the out-of-pocket health care plan. Tanzania is anything but the land of opportunity. At least the kids at Light in Africa have a chance at a fruitful, prosperous life. Often times it is a better chance than those living outside the walls of these children’s homes in the Kilimanjaro Region.

The Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania’s most populous outside of Dar es Salaam, is home to some 20,000 orphaned children. The idea of immediate family in Sub-Saharan Africa extends beyond the borders of mother, father, son and daughter; the majority of those without surviving parents stay with aunts and uncles, cousins or grandparents. Where this is not financially feasible, where home life has been deemed unsuitable, or where the child has no surviving relatives, they enter life in a children’s home.

The region, like many other populous areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, is still suffering the effects of the AIDS crisis that began to spread here in the mid-1980s. Around a third of the 150 children in Light in Africa’s care are HIV positive. Thanks to the strict antiretroviral treatment made possible by the Global Fund and PEPFAR, most are living normal lives and on the surface seem oblivious to the virus in their bodies.

Nevertheless, life can be a struggle here. HIV positive at ten years of age, Abraham has been through more troubles than one person should see in a lifetime, yet still manages to constantly wear an engaging smile. His parents died of AIDS related illness when Abraham was very young. After being shuffled around between various family members he came to live at a children’s home in the town of Boma Ng’ombe. It folded due to financial difficulty, and he, along with 24 other children living there, came to LIA. At school Abraham’s eyes grew too tired to carry on reading or studying after 45 minutes at a time. It was soon discovered he has cancer of the eyes (though he himself is unaware, thinking it is only allergies). Unable to continue in school but eager to learn, Abraham carries out an independent study program with volunteers at LIA.

There was a thunderstorm and a power outage last week. I thought it would be Abraham’s last night – sweat pouring off him, heart beating like a racehorse. He was visibly in pain. After nursing malaria during the day, his fever climbed to 40 degrees during the night. At this point Mama Lynn drove him to hospital where his condition stabilized.

Things aren’t quite so dramatic in Yohannas’ life (pictured above). At age 11, he’s learning to count and make sense of numbers. Getting from one to five is not a problem. However, if you ask him to count to ten he has trouble even getting to four. Still street savvy, he spent the last two years sleeping on the streets of Moshi and knows how to spend a fifty or hundred shilling piece, making change when necessary. However, since the 50 shilling coin is the smallest unit of currency, it’s difficult for him to get his mind around the fact that the numbers don’t start at 50 or that a 50 shilling piece actually stands for 50 smaller units. When I counted out a pile of 50 small stones, he didn’t believe what 50 looked like and had to get another child to confirm the quantity. Progress is slow.

At Amani Farm, a large 6 acre plot of land owned by Light in Africa in Boma Ng’ombe, things are moving more swiftly. Construction is nearing completion on cement post making facilities. Cement posts, each 9 feet tall, are used to fence property around here, as wooden posts are quickly consumed by termites. LIA currently has a need for 3,000 of them to fence compounds in Boma Ng’ombe and Mererani. Two older boys, Frank (17, above) and Eliazor (19) are the first to learn the trade and have been putting in long hours helping the hired builder, Joshua (below), with the prep work.

The workforce is the only option for these boys. Both of them HIV positive, Frank never took much to education and Eliazor spent much of the last four years ailing at home in his grandmother’s bed without proper nutrition or access to needed ARV drugs. Eliazor came to LIA with a t-cell count of just 0.6, a level so close to death’s door that it’s a miracle he’s now shoveling dirt two years later.

I’ve been spending my days as a foreman and laborer on the cement post project at Amani Farm, at times feeling like a post myself, baking below the scorching sun. The boys will be paid a wage for each post they make. LIA will buy the cement posts for less than they can be purchased in town, but at a price where the boys will still make a healthy profit. Sales and profits will be put into a bank account to buy supplies to make additional posts.

Depending on how many they make in the next year, the boys should have a small trust fund each left over in the bank with which they can set out on their own, no longer dependent on LIA’s help. This is just the first stage of the Amani farm project, a project that is meant to wean these young men off dependency and prepare them for the real world. While most children here will continue on to secondary school and hopefully university, LIA is planning other projects, such as goat and pig farming at Amani Farm, for those that don’t.

Light in Africa is now entering its ninth year of service to orphans in the Kilimanjaro region. As the influx of new and younger children continues, some of the children who began living here during LIA’s infancy are soon approaching the time when they must leave and set out on their own. While preparing these children for self-sufficiency is mostly uncharted territory, it is a challenge that is being met head on today.

Visit Light in Africa’s website to help in the work being done there. The names of the children mentioned in this entry have been changed for the sake of confidentiality and protection.