Congo Update 21 Feb 2013

Greetings from the Congo,

I've been here for a bit longer than a week now and am starting to not feel so hot.  In Brazzaville, the capital, I have a apartment that is pretty comfortable within walking distance of the office. 

The view from my apartment  window.  Its raining in this picture.  It has rained twice since I've been here.  Both times it just poured for three hours.  I've seen more rain here in one week as I've seen in 4 years in teh SLV.

I made one trip to the new farm site in Lekana.  Its a 6 hour drive from Brazzaville.  I'll have a second house up there to live.  On the way there we drove by just miles and miles as far as you can see on both sides of the road flat land with a few trees and 6 ft tall grass lands.  The soil here and on the farm is about 20 inches a deep black loam soil with so much organic matter you can just smell it.  I'm sending off some soil samples to really know.  There ae just a few small plots of manioc here and there, mostly around the occasional villages.  Its probably like what the early settlers found in the grassland of Iowa when they first arrived.  the agricultural potential is hug.  If you have enough rain for 6 ft grass you cave enough rain for 6 ft corn.
 
Grasslands around Ngo.

At the Lekana farm site there are tow tractors trying to disk and plow in this 6 ft grass to plant the 90 Ha of (220 acres) of potatoes to be planted.  It will take a few passes and the US potato seed is starting to arrive at the port in Pointe Noire.  

Black soil plowed up at the Lekana farm

In the capital there is french, Lebanese and Chinese food.  There a lot of Chinese here as well as other African countries building roads and other infrastructure.  The US is missing out on this work.  In Lekana the food was more typical.  Meals were some Bushmeat which is something they hunt in the wild (sometimes its best not to know), some local boiled greens and lots of Manioc.  A root crop easy to grow - you plant a stick and wait.  Manioc is very starchy and gooey texture I'll need some getting used to.  We brought some extra canned food along.

First campo meal

Lekana is in the Plateaux region - a high falt area 800 meter up (2,600 ft) so its a lot cooler than Brazzaville on the Congo river.  The evening are cool which will be goo for the potatoes.  There is no rivers or water there.  Everyone has these big underground cisterns to catch rainwater.  Not sure what they do in the dry season.  The villages are pretty rural.  House either mud brick or raffia.  People mostly dressed in rags.  A lot of room for improvement.

Raffia house

Local school

My French is a battle.  Some Spanish words are similar, but most are too different.  My Quiche keeps popping into my head when I'm searching for words.  

Local Market

I'm heading off now to visit the two southern farms and then meet the first tow custom cleared containers of US potato seed.  Probably start planting potatoes early March for the 2nd rainy season in April/May.  The soils are plenty wet now for a start.

Potatoes in the San Luis Valley of Colorado

Colorado Potatoes

Farmers began growing potatoes in Colorado's San Luis Valley about 1875, making it one of the oldest potato growing areas in the country.  The snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains jut up 14,000 feet to surround the fertile plateau of the San Luis Valley. Here, in the highest and largest alpine valley in the world where irrigated crops are grown in teh sandy soils, the potato flourishes.  The San Luis Valley is also has the highest concentration of center pivot irrigation in the world.

Agriculture has long been the basis of the economy in the San Luis Valley. Unique in world topography, the elevation of the valley floor is 7600 feet above sea level. The San Luis Valley is a large, flat intermountain valley that varies from 20 to 50 miles in width and is about 100 miles north to south. All crops are grown with irrigation water whose source is the abundant snow in the surrounding mountains. Crops are irrigated by some surface flooding or mainly by center pivot sprinklers.

The principal crops grown here are potatoes, alfalfa, native hay, barley, wheat and vegetables like lettuce, spinach and carrots. The San Luis Valley produces 92% of Colorado's potatoes, 81% of the state's spring wheat, 73% of the barley, 30% of the oats, 76% of the spinach, 73% of the lettuce and 46% of the carrots. The San Luis Valley is ranked in the top five potato producing areas in the United States, both in acres planted and production. Nature helps ensure that the 65,000 acres planted in the Valley each year are of a high quality.

The Valley's spring and summer are filled with warm, sunny days and cool nights, the combination for a perfect growing season. The cool weather also contributes to the smoothness of the skin and reduces second-growth roughness. This, highest in the world, isolated alpine desert with its cold winters helps eliminate or reduce pest and disease problems, reducing our need for some pesticides. The harvest begins in September with about 98 percent of the crop going into storage before being shipped. A integrated pest program funded by the area growers reduces Green Peach aphid populations dramatically as well as the disease leafroll that this aphid transmits.

The soil in the Valley is a fertile, loose-packed loam. This quality is necessary because potatoes grow in the ground and the soil must be able to shift easily to allow for the potato's growth. Because the Valley receives less than seven inches of rain a year, it qualifies as a desert and must be irrigated. A natural underground water aquifer, recharged from runoff from heavy snowfall in the nearby mountains, offers a plentiful irrigation source. The modern center pivot sprinkler, used by almost all growers in the San Luis Valley, allows the grower to control the irrigation.

The valey produces potatoes for the fresh market and certified Seed potaoes.  There are over 80 varieties grown in the valley each year for the staple russet, Reds, Yellows and specialties including purples and fingerlings.  The Colorado State Research center has a breeding program that has produced many successful varieties like the Russt Nugget, Rio Grande Russet, Chipeta, Purple Majesty, and many more.

About 28 major potato warehouses pack and ship potatoes in the Valley, one of which is Mountain Valley Produce. Using ultra-modern equipment, potatoes can go from storage to warehouse to truck any day during the shipping season without taking the potatoes outdoors. About 95 percent of the crop is shipped to the nation's fresh market.

Planting potatoes

Harvesting the potatoes

Sizing and sorting of the potato crop

Loading a bulk potato load right onto a semi at the farm out of the climate controlled cellars.

Before any shipment leaves the Valley, it is inspected by a U.S.D.A. representative. In 1941, a federal marketing order for potatoes grown in Colorado as well as a state marketing order was established. These orders, after several amendments, are still in effect, making Colorado one of four states under federal regulation and the only one with state control.

Disease free minitubers

The certified seed crop is a limited generation program that starts from clean tissue culture stock that is grown then in greenhouses to produce mintubers.  These minitubers are then planted in the field to start generation 1.  This breeding stock is increased each year to be sold off as certified seed usually the 4th generation.  In Colorado the field year is the generation year.  Each seed lot is inspected 3 times during the growing season to certify its low disease levels.  Leaf samples tested in tthe lab are laso used.  A winter grow-out sample is taken at harvest and these are grown in a warm area during the winter to again test the disease levels before the next season.

Egyptian Potato Market

Egyptian Potato Market

 

Egypt with 82 million people is the most populist country in the area.  The thin irrigated Nile river valley has been a prime agricultural area for millennium.  Potatoes are grown in the Nile delta in smaller plots and also in large irrigated fields in the western desert. Egypt produces basically two potato markets - small, beautiful potatoes for export to the EU countries and larger potatoes for the local market and other countries like Russia.  They import around 20,000 tons of potato seed a year so it is a big market to penetrate.  The European market is mostly a circular market with EU countries sending their varieties down as seed and then buying the fresh market potatoes for the winter market in Europe.  Our varieties would fit well with the local the Russian demand as well as processing demand for fries and chips. 

There are two main growing areas in Egypt - the Nile delta area and the new irrigated western desert.  The Nile delta has been farmed for a millennium and is comprised of mostly small plots irrigated with surface irrigation on sandy to somewhat heavy soils.  The land values in the Nile delta are incredibly high, but mostly owned by old family holdings and non-farmers as an investment and owning land is seen to be important for anyone with money.  This land is then farmed by tenants.  These tenants either use their own seed or buy it from the few big importers of seed. 

Nile delta farms

The western desert is vast and is being developed for agricultural use under center pivot and solid set  irrigation. 

Potatoes do well in the sandy soils under irrigation
Water is obtained from canals from the Nile or deep wells. 

The soils are very sandy and wind erosion is a serious problem. 

Wind breaks will be necessary to cut down on the wind damage to the potatoes.  The farms are large and grow multiple crops like oranges and sugar beets, It never rains there - an indication of this is that they store fertilizer and cement outside without tarps.  When asked where the well water comes from they said the Nile, but who knows.  There was once a forest in this desert as indicated by fact that the farmers there have big piles of old petrified wood piled at the edges of the fields that they hauled out.  If this water is ancient trapped water it would be a finite amount like the Ogallala aquifer in the US.  With enough water and fertilizer these fields produce very nice potato crops with exceptional quality in the sandy soil.

These large Western desert farmers are vertically integrated and all seam to own a seed import business with exclusive contracts with a European seed source.  These grower/seed importer/exporter groups are used to PVP contracts and would be easy to work with. 

They would all want an exclusive contract with a grower or state or they wouldn’t consider doing business with us.  We’ll have to chose carefully at first who to work with and be careful what we sign when doing trials.  They are motivated to sign a exclusive with US growers.  All these grower/seed importers/exporters do variety trials every year and we could send new material as well for evaluation once a market has been established. 

Variety Trials


These large growers have modern operations that separate the potato crop at harvest into the smaller ones for the European export market and the bigger ones for export to the region or other places like Russia.  They benefit producing potatoes for the winter market in these export markets and growing them during the cooler time of the year in Egypt. 

Hand sorting potatoes at harvest

Bagging up the different sizes and qualities

Bulk bag ready for export

Packing facility

Refrigerated Storages

In Egypt potato varieties need to be approved after trials.  The approval process seams a little opaque and difficult.  The local growers/seed importers also reported problems getting varieties they liked approved.  The institutions doing the trials often do a poor job of growing the trial materials.  The trials of US varieties have been poorly done up to this point resulting in low data and I was warned this poor data will be used against the varieties.  The main problem was the trials were planted too late and the trial became a heat stress trial. 

It may be hard to beat the European growers on price, but not impossible as the monopolies some enjoy encourage overpricing.  I’m not sure the seed importers are using us as a price bargaining ploy.  We definitely have to promote our own protected US varieties rather than trying to grow European varieties.  If one works like the Calwhite the exclusive will give us the market. 

The chipstock market seams wide open.  There is a large FritoLay chip factory in Cairo and they were very interested in obtaining US chip varieties.  You would need to go though the FritoLay internal policies first, but the chip plant seams very interested.

In summary, the market potential is large to export US potato seed to Egypt.  This will allow multiple container orders increasing efficiency.  The timing of the seed deliveries also correspond well for deliveries from the bigger fall seed crop enabling more growers to participate in this export market.  There are professional importers to work with that can protect our varieties and assist in evaluating new material in Egypt.  Market access and variety approval will be a little slow and may be difficult, but not impossible.  Both fresh (mostly white and yellows)   and chip varieties are possible.  The market will be competitive, but with the right exclusive variety still profitable.  Yes there is some political instability at the moment, but it doesn’t seam to be affecting the business community.

 The citadel

Alexandria

Potatoes in Nicaragua

Nicaragua is a small central American country with a population of 6 million.  They grow potatoes in the highlands.  The area where they grow potatoes is the same area where the best coffee is grown so the two crops are competing for land.  The market potatoes in Nicaragua largely used to come from Guatemala, but after the problems in Guatemala with brown rot (ralstonia sp.) the border was closed creating a high price option of potato production in the country.  Potatoes are grown on mountain tops or steep hillsides.  It has a wet and dry season.  There is some irrigation mainly from hoses plumbed to water sources.

Nicaraguan countryside

Potato cultivation is a bit basic in Nicaragua with most work done by hand.  Potato harvest is done by hand.  The potatoes are dug out of the gound using small hooked sticks and then bagged by hand and carted out to the road on muleback.  On flater ground a oxen is used to dig the potatoes.  The potatoes are then carted to town in small trucks.

Digging the potatoes by hand or oxen

Carrying the potatoes out to the road on muleback

Carting them off to town where they may get an additional sorting

The US potato board has been conducting variety trials to introduce and prove the effectiveness of US varieties in Nicaragua.  Many have done well including Calwhite, Marcy, Keuka Gold and others.  Nicaragua may be a small market for US seed, but it is close and a steady market.

Field of Calwhites

Digging up some Keuka Golds

Nicaraguan farmer with some Calwhites grown from cut seed.  Cutting seed works well here if the seed is stored for at least three days after cutting before its planted to allow the wounds to heal.  Cutting seed locally allows the farmer to buy bigger cheaper seed.

Potatoes in the Dominican Republic

Potatoes in the Domincan Republic


The Dominican Republic was one of the first countries targeted by the USPB for the certified potato seed export promotion program.  Variety trials have been conducted for various years and now it is being considered a mature market.  Commercial seed sales although limited have occurred.  The potential market for seed is in fresh market potatoes and chip varieties - both chip stock and seed of chipping varieties.  Market access opened up after the CAFTA-DR trade agreement.  The Dominican Republic imports all its potato seed with the exception of seed being saved back by individual farmers for one year.  Seed sources are mainly the Netherlands and Canada and now the US.  The seed market is around 3,000 MT per year or a total value around USD 1 million.  Acceptance of US seed is very positive on the whole and now we just need to solidify this market and expand the variety and exporter opportunities.


In the Dominican Republic (DR) there are two steps in getting an import permit.  One step is concerning the phytopathological issues.  This is handled by the people in the offices os Sanidad Vegetal National.  Their main worry seams to be the Golden Nematode and Potato Wart.  The Golden nematode is only found in an officially controlled area in New York that is mentioned on the import permit and potato wart is not found in the US.  They have other areas of worry but they are easy to manage within a  normal seed operation and are justified except the soft rot (Pectobacterium) and pink rot (Phytophthora erythrsetica).  They consider these diseases exotic when they are ubiquitous and have established tolerances in every area of the US (and the world I think).  Soft rot is found in the DR and in other crops in the DR.   Pink Rot is not found in the DR and weather conditions may inhibit it. Chip stock has few phytosanitary issues since they are imported washed. When you ship market potatoes in the US, a USDA inspector inspects them. 

The next stage in getting a import permit to the DR is though the production office.  The office limits supplies to keep the price high.  They use data on demand and supply to control the market.  This may work well for fresh market potatoes and chip stock, but because of the lag time on seed between planting and harvest when their production will hit the market this office can get it wrong.  Local growers mentioned this problem.  This office decides total volumes and not varieties and sources of suppliers.  They mentioned with the Golden nematode problem in the EU they would like to see more US seed imports.

The first area visited was San Juan Ocoa.  This is a dry mountainous area that needs irrigation to raise potatoes.   In the area 95% of the production is to supply the local FritoLay plant in Santo Domingo.  Atlantic is the dominant variety grown in this area.  Trials have been conducted by the USPB. 

There were two varieties we saw on this trip midway though the season.  W2324 had a big plant but much smaller tubers than the Atlantic.  Megachip had a smaller plant than the Atlantic and seamed a bit later maturity and set tubers far from the plant.  Considering how they harvest potatoes in the DR this could be a problem.  The method is to pull an iron coated stick though the potato hill with horses or oxen and the potatoes are sorted and bagged by hand right in the field by migrant labor mostly from Haiti. 

Potatoes in Ocoa

The potatoes are dug up by a team of oxen or a horse pulling a small plow

Then the potatoes are sorted and bagged by hand

Then the bags are sealed up after putting a few nice big ones on top
A video of this can be found at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-_eNxbuAtU 

The other big area for potato production is in the Constanza Valley.

 Constanza is located at a height of 1220 meters (4000 feet) in the middle of the Cordillera Central.  This is a beautiful high cool valley with good irrigation facilities and knowledgeable farmers.  There is also a lot of onion, garlic and other vegetable grown in this valley.  It regularly gets light rains and mists and cool weather which is good for potato production and also very favorable for some serious potato diseases like late blight and brown rot (Ralstonia).  They supply the country with fresh market potatoes.  They harvest the year around and move the potatoes to markets in Santo Domingo and Santiago where they are sold in these two biggest cities and moved to other areas.  In the DR they want big tubers with smooth clear skin and cream to yellow flesh.  Big tubers can make the difference between a profit and loss.  Prices between big and small potatoes can vary by D$4/kilo.  This price difference can influence seed buying as potato seed is the major expense in potato production.  We learned that if potato prices fall below D$15/kilo, farmers tend to replant their seed. And buy seed when prices are D$18-20/kilo. The problem with most varieties with big tubers is they also tend to have more rot problems.  We saw this during harvest visits.  They also want varieties with early maturity and fast-growing plants that can outgrow diseases like late blight.  Disease resistance is also a major consideration in variety selection.  Granola which is the main US export variety is like since it has excellent disease remittances especially against brown rot (Ralstonia).  Calwhite is also a big US export variety and is liked for its high yield and big tubers.  It has disease problems and is mostly grown August though November to avoid these problems.  Marauca was another variety seen from Agrico that looks really good.  Some of these Dutch varieties do really well for a while until Ralstonia sweeps though and wipes them out.  The growers in Contanza were very interested in US seed and had very positive results in the past.  Seed prices will always be an issue and their desire for very small one drop seed will be hard to produce for the big tuber varieties they want.  Teaching and installing a local seed cutting process can open up more seed for export and lower seed prices.  As a seed grower that small 30 - 60 mm seed is the hardest to produce and the priciest.

Cutting potato seed in the Dominican Republic.  It has worked well if the seed is stored for three days before planting to the wound to heal.  Cutting seed will allow a variety like Calwhite that produces big tubers to be shipped with bigger seed size increasing the quantity of seed abe to be shipped and decreasing the seed costs to DR growers.

Growers in a field of Calwhites

In conclusion, the Dominican Republic can be a steady seed market.  We have some good varieties, market access issues are manageable and its location is good for US exports.