I am getting ready to leave on 22 March for Malawai on a CNFA(Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs) to Malawai in what I call Southeast AFrica.  Landlocked and with a population of around 15 million and growing.  A relatively poor country with around 70 % agriculture.  Some years theyimport food and some years they export food(tea is big).  The subsitance economy farming focuses on white maize, some soy, cassava, and other direct consumption produce. 

I am there as a grain warehouse storage specialist.  Will be visiting 3 smaller warehouses, the African Commodity Exchangewww.aceafrica.org, banks.   The ACEAFRICA website is very intersting.  This is a cash exchange, serving as a clearning house and price discovery vehicle.  My goal is to help the warehouses in management of inventory in such a manner that the whr they issue to producers are representative of a common quality specificaiton, so the banks will feel comfortable in providing loans with the whrs as collateral.  

In addition we will evaluate the feasibility of adding storage to the warehouses by looking at revenues that could be generated.  

I will try to put something on regularly, hopefully better than I did in Mozambique.   Linda is with me.    To access go to http://jamestraub.blogspot.com

This CNFA program is called Farmer to Farmer(FTF) and is named after one of the pilots who were lost in the WTC on 911.  John Ostowski(sp)was a farmer advocate for farmland preservation around the Boston area.  

CNFA gets a lot of funding from private sources but the FTF program is all from the farm bill.

Thats it for now.