Over the next few months we will be phasing in the improved microbe specifications for MycoGold. As 90% of plants are compatible with Endomycorrhizae we have increased these counts and decreased the Ectomycorrhizae counts to give a better balance to the product. Laccaria laccata, Trichoderma harianum and Trichoderma viride have been removed due to their difficulty with quality assurance but we have increased the beneficial bacteria counts. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Old Specifications

• 4 species of Endomycorrhizae (Glomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae, Glomus aggregatum and Claroideoglomus etunicatum) – 160 thousand propagules/spores per kilogram minimum.
• 4 species of Ectomycorrhizae (Pisolithus arhizus, Scleroderma cepa, Rhizopogon roseolus and Laccaria laccata) – 240 million propagules/spores per kilogram minimum.
• 2 species of Trichoderma (Trichoderma harzianum and Trichoderma viride).
• 2 species of Beneficial Bacillus (Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis).
• 5 species of Beneficial Bacteria (Azospirillum brasilense, Azospirillum lipoferum, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Pseudomonas putida and Streptomyces cellulosae). – 5 billion cfu per kilogram minimum (Trichoderma, Bacillus and Bacteria total count).
• Also contains humic acid / vitamins and other selected natural ingredients to enhance growth/survival.

New Specifications

• 4 species of Endomycorrhizae (Glomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae, Glomus aggregatum and Claroideoglomus etunicatum) – 200 thousand propagules/spores per kilogram.
• 3 species of Ectomycorrhizae (Pisolithus arhizus, Scleroderma cepa, and Rhizopogon roseolus) – 20 million propagules/spores per kilogram.
• 7 species of Beneficial Bacteria (Azospirillum brasilense, Azotobacter chroococcum, Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas fluorescens) – 100 billion cfu per kilogram.
• Also contains humic acid / vitamins and other selected natural ingredients to enhance growth/survival.

 

The Forest Invasive Species Network for Africa (FISNA) was created in 2004 to coordinate the collation and dissemination of information relating to forest invasive species in sub-Saharan Africa for sustainable forest management and conservation of biodiversity. Invasive species are defined as biotic agents, not native to a specific forest ecosystem, whose introduction does, or is likely, to cause harm to the forest ecosystem. The Network is open to all countries in sub-Saharan Africa that wish to participate. There is no distinction by language or forest type.

 

Objectives of the network

• To facilitate exchange of information and provide a link for communication about forest invasive species
• To alert and provide policy advice on transboundary movement, phytosanitary measures and other relevant information
• To raise regional awareness on forest invasive species issues
• To encourage the publication and sharing of research results, management and monitoring strategies
• To facilitate taxonomic support
• To act as a link between and among experts, institutions, networks and other stakeholders concerned with forest invasive species
• To facilitate the mobilization of resources for critical activities in management of invasive species
• To provide technical guides on research and control of invasives for sustainable forest protection and health issues in Africa

For endorsement or participation of the network, please send your request to the Secretariat:

Clement Z. Chilima

Forestry Research Institute of Malawi (FRIM)

Kufa Road

P.O. Box 270

Zomba

Malawi

E-mail: [email protected]

 

 

The Kivu region is one of the most dangerous places in the world. In this region the Ugandan organisation Gourmet Gardens set up a vanilla and cocoa production chain that is fair trade (Fair for Life) and organic certified in 2005. Le Jardin Bio-Equitable is a local producer organisation that is created especially to meet the certification requirements and to manage the production. 

TDC finances a project of Gourmet Gardens that aims to set up a fair trade and organic chain with added value that will provide a sustainable income for some 1500 producers.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the third most populous country of Africa and counts hundreds of ethnic groups. It is considered a treasury trove for its diamonds, valuable raw materials and rare metals… Its many
natural resources have aroused the appetites of armed groups and covert powers, which do not hesitate to resort to violence and corruption.Moreover, because of its size and central position at the heart of the continent, theDemocratic Republic of Congo has to deal with major influxes of refugees that destabilise the fragile ethnic and local balances.

The civil war, which killed more than four million and displaced another two million, officially ended in 2003, but the agony still remains. The Democratic Republic of Congo, probably even more than its neighbours, must transform
from a colonially modelled multi-ethnic format to a nation state with a shared identity.

Under such conditions, fair and sustainable trade offers interesting perspectives as it brings together communities and enriches the populations. A challenge for the hearth of Africa.

SURVIVE
In the east of the country, North Kivu is one of the regions that suffered
most from violence and the influx of refugees. Production infrastructure,
particularly in the coffee sector, has been very badly affected and the
populations of this border region have had a hard time surviving on subsistence farming and small trade.

Since a few years, the country is trying to come back as well as it can,
but the economy is not improving and the outlook remains bleak for
the local populations, as thousands of displaced persons are living in
makeshift camps. Investments remain negligible, the agricultural potential is greatly underused and local field hands are often condemned to emigrate or to plunder forestry resources, in particular in the Virunga National Park, the oldest and the
richest wildlife and flora national park in Africa.

MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON
Between the savannahs of eastern Africa and the large forests of the Great Lakes rise the Mountains of the Moon, whose slopes offer perfect conditions for a variety of agricultural activities. Here, in North Kivu, Gourmet Gardens, a Kampala-based Ugandan company, started up a fair(Fair for Life) and organic certified vanilla and cocoa production chain in 2005. “Le Jardin Bio-Equitable”, a local producers association, was established to meet the certification requirements and to manage production, which is then purchased by Gourmet Gardens and commercialised under the Mountains of the Moon brand.

AND NOW, QUALITY PLEASE
Certifying products of smallholder
members of the “Le Jardin Bio-Equitable” organisation helped implementing a first series of social programmes, to the benefit of farmers and their families. But commercialisation of their products suffered from the distance from Europe-bound export infrastructure (the port of Mombassa in Kenya and the airport of Entebbe in Uganda).

To further help the producers, Gourmet Gardens set up a new project that
aims at positioning the production of the “Le Jardin Bio-Equitable” farmers on
niche markets with high added value. The key idea of this programme is to
produce a “Single Origin” cocoa which is fair, organic and of the best quality,
and which can meet the requirements of the greatest European chocolate
makers.

To get there, the Ugandan company has implemented a three-point action
programme. The first part was launched in 2010 and aimed at improving quality
and at enhancing fair and organic cocoa volumes. To do so, a network of extension farms was set up and training was given to farmers who, for the larger
part, had had very few training because of the years of civil war. A second
series of actions aim at improving the harvest-processing infrastructure, especially through the installation of solar-powered fermentation stations, as well
as the setting up of a cocoa bean drying and weather and parasite proof storage
station. Thirdly, resources are mobilised to provide the farmers’ association
with solid decision-making and management bodies.

A TOP-OF-THE-RANGE FAIR
AND ORGANIC COCOA VALUE
CHAIN

The Gourmet Gardens project is supported by the Trade for Development
Centre of BTC, the Belgian development agency. It aims at setting up a
fair and organic cocoa production chain of high quality, which should
generate a sustainable income for some 1,500 producers involved in
the project. The resources made available should strengthen the North Kivu farmers association, increase the profitability of the farms and in the end provide the cocoa growers of the region with decent incomes.

With the insecurity that still prevails in the region, the cost of certification and the deplorable state of infrastructure, there are still many obstacles to achieving these results. These obstacles should not be underestimated but the stakes are equally important.

 

The sisal plant has a 7-10 year life-span (longer in Mexico where growth is slower) and is usually cut first after 2-3 years and then at 6-12 month intervals. A typical plant will produce 200-250 commercially usable leaves in its life-time (hybrid varieties up to 400-450 leaves) and each leaf contains an average of around 1000 fibres.

The fibre element, which accounts for only about 4% of the plant by weight, is extracted by a process known as decortication.

In East Africa, where sisal is produced on an estate basis, the leaves are in the main transported to a central decortication plant after which the fibre is dried, brushed and baled – for export or for use in the domestic mills. In Brazil it is mainly grown by small-holders and the fibre is extracted by teams using portable raspadors.

East African sisal, being washed and decorticated, is considered to be superior in quality to Brazilian sisal (although the latter is more than adequate for the manufacture of agricultural twines and general cordage and is used domestically in craft paper production) and, in normal times, commands a significant price premium on the world market.

Sisal is the coarsest vegetable “hard” fibre. There are many varieties of the plant spread throughout the tropical and sub-tropical world, especially in Central America, but the most important on a commercial basis are AGAVE SISALANA (and its hybrids, the most common of which is known as 11648) and AGAVE FOURCROYDES (better known as henequen).

The East African sisal plant originated in the Yucatan, Mexico (and received its common name from the first port of export) and arrived in what is now Tanzania via Hamburg in 1893. A little later sisal bulbils sent from Kew Gardens were planted in Kenya.

After a difficult start sisal production in East Africa prospered and by the 1960’s Tanzania production alone totalled some 230,000 tons. Production in East Africa has contracted materially over the past three decades in response to the continuing movement in end products away from the low value agricultural twine market into considerably higher value more specialised end products, such as carpets, wire rope cores, dartboards, speciality pulps, plaster reinforcement and handicrafts.

Production is now approximately 20,000 tons per annum in Tanzania, 20,000 tons in Kenya and 12,000 tons in Madagascar. There is also production in Southern China of around 40,000 tons (very largely for domestic consumption) and smaller quantities in South Africa, Mozambique, Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba.

In Mexico henequen production (largely in the Yucatan peninsular) has fallen from a peak of about 160,000 tons in the 1960’s to about 15,000 tons today, all of which is converted into product locally.

The first commercial plantings in Brazil were not made until the late 1930’s and the first sisal fibre exports from there were made in 1948. It was not, however, until the 1960’s that Brazilian production really accelerated and the first of many spinning mills, largely devoted to the manufacture of agricultural twines, were established. Today Brazil is the major world producer of sisal at some 125,000 tons.

Traditionally sisal was the leading material for agricultural twine (“binder” and “baler” twine) but the importance of this is now tending to diminish (with competition from polypropylene and other techniques) although there is still a major business between Brazil and the United States.

Apart from ropes, twines and general cordage sisal is used in both low-cost and speciality paper, dartboards, buffing cloth, filters, geotextiles, mattresses, carpets and wall coverings, handicrafts, wire rope cores and macramé.

In recent years sisal has been utilised as a strengthening agent to replace asbestos and fibreglass and is increasingly a component used in the automobile industry, where its “naturalness” and environmentally friendly characteristics are greatly appreciated.

Sisal for export has for long been “graded” for length, decortication characteristics and colour. The main specifications are:-

No 1
No 2
No 3L
No 3
UG
Tow 1

Type 2
Type 3
Refugo
Bucha

Detailed specifications may be obtained by reference to the Company.