Our farmers are building wicker enclosures plastered on both sides with mud and straw, about 3-feet off the ground, providing protection from moisture, rodents, and insects. Losses during storage are reduced about 25 percent. Working with the government and lending agencies, we want to do this all over the nation. Ethiopia has great irrigation potential, since some regions already contain large lakes, and almost all could build numerous small dams to capture water during the rainy season. They maintain strict quality standards and use refrigerated trucks and Ethiopian Airline to get their products to Holland within three days after harvesting.
African farmers are proud, ambitious, competent, and hard working.
They respond almost immediately to new ideas, and plow most of their new profits back into improvements of their homes and agricultural equipment. They can now produce two crops each year. We met Prime Minister Meles near Awassa the second day, and I rode back to Addis with him. I found him interested in a possible news media project with our Center and Duke University similar to those we've done among the former Soviet states. They are privatizing mines, hotels, bottling plants, and many other industries.