August 12, 2008

The Foundation is preparing to launch a plan to build its headquarters on a plot of land a short distance outside Monrovia, Liberia. The headquarters will consist of a small cluster of structures built with the same techniques and aesthetic standards as future Foundation communities. The headquarters will serve a dual purpose, both as a platform for research, experimentation, and training in the agricultural, health, and educational components of the Foundation's plan, and as a physical model of what the Foundation's design and philosophy can accomplish in future communities.

Staff architect Jon Carleen has developed detailed drawings of the headquarters buildings and delivered these drawings to Moladi, a South African company that specializes in pour-in-place concrete housing. Moladi has indicated that molds and a build kit based on Carleen's design could be prepared in 3-5 weeks.

July 29, 2008

Agricultural geneticist Manish Raizada delivered his proposal for a Sustainable Agriculture Kit (SAK) to seed the beginnings of Foundation communities. Raizada's SAK consists of a literal sack filled with 100 seed packs, post-harvest bags that absorb ethanol to prevent over-ripening, and an educational pictographic book that explains all the agricultural, nutritional, and business components that make up the SAK philosophy. The outer sack itself is a hermetically sealable bag that protects seeds from insects and other pests. The SAK is that it is locally developed, produced, and sold. The seeds included span several important categories: carbohydrate sources, nitrogen-fixing protein sources, bio-control agents that can replace dangerous pesticides, drought-resistant famine crops, trees and shrubs to reduce erosion and desertification, and more. Over several years of experimentation, farmers and researchers in Ghana, as well as s few pilot programs (possibly in Liberia) will choose the five best varieties of 20 different crops, and these will be packaged in SAKs for the tropical west African ecological region.

In the hands of an individual farmer, the fate of a SAK is not predetermined. The kits encourage farmers to tinker. They can plant whichever seeds they choose, incorporate their own knowledge with the provided tips, mix and match and interbreed, and try to come up with the best combinations. "The whole purpose of this is to really empower farmers to take control of their lives again as our ancestors once did," Raizada explains. "Our modern structures both here and in Africa have taken that control or incentive away from them."

The Foundation is extremely excited about the prospect of including Raizada's program in our plans for Liberia and the west of Africa.

July 14, 2007

The Foundation conference in Toronto was an extremely educational experience for our staff. Many experts presented ideas for the Foundation to take into consideration in its plan, and the merits of these and other ideas were debated at length over the course of the day. The major conclusions that Duff and the Foundation gathered from the conference included a decision that initial building plans should be less ambitious, involve cheaper cement-mixing machinery and less capital investment. Agricultural geneticist Manish Raizada delivered a particularly compelling presentation on sustainable agriculture techniques that created consensus among the entire Foundation staff of the importance of the agricultural sector in any plan to establish communities in Africa. The Foundation plans to continue working with Raizada to develop a sustainable farming plan, and soliciting the advice of the assembled and other experts as it perfects its plan in preparation for an initial trip to Liberia.

July 3, 2008

The Duff Young Foundation will hold its first conference of experts on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at the Novotel Centre in Toronto. Over the day long conference, Foundation staff and experts will discuss many aspects of the Foundation plan, including design, infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, and human relations. Experts in attendance will include, among others, Robert Calderisi, author of The Trouble With Africa; Stan Pasyk, engineer at Tyson Environmental; Manish Raizada, agricultural geneticist at the University of Guelph, and Kalifala S. Donzo, Liberian citizen and environmental engineer. Duff Young and the Foundation staff will solicit constructive criticism from these and other experts as they endeavor to create a workable plan for their first project in Liberia.