Afromusing

Early monday morning I was among a group of TEDsters for the DATA morning field trip before the conference. DATA is the organization founded by Bono of U2 to raise awareness about the issues facing Africa, namely Debt, Aids, Trade and Africa. DATA is mostly associated with the lobbying for debt forgiveness for the developing countries such as Tanzania. It was an incredible day, started out at the Artemisia farm of Mr. and Mrs Loshie of Sambasha in Arumeru district.

Artemisia is a plant with a sweet smell that provides raw material for malaria treatment drugs like cotexcin (also marketed in french countries as cotexa). It is a plant that is indigenous to china but grows very well in East Africa. I had not heard of Artemisia before but had seen the cotexin drugs at the pharmacies in kenya. The tour was very informative and eye opening. We began with visiting the nursery which was in the valley. It had rich dark loam soil that is perfect for Artemisia growth The small plant pictured here is an artemisia seedling, the leaves look like those of carrots or cilantro.

Mr and Mrs Loshie told us about how they irrigate the seed beds and ensure that the seedlings get enough water by having pipes utilize gravity to get the water close to the seedbeds. Mr. Loshie pointed out that he had to hire some manual labour to do the work as he and his wife cannot do it all themselves. In April they had about 400,000 seedlings. They supply the seedlings to other farmers in the area who pay after selling their leaves. As you can already tell, cultivation of this crop generates employment in the community and other farmers also intercrop it into their fields (planting artemisia between other plants like bananas and coffee)

Mr Loshie was asked about the benefit of planting Artemisia vs Maize, he said that he makes 4X more by planting artemisia, and can earn Tsh 15000 from 5 bags. It does take alot of manual labor to harvest, dry and bag the leaves. Once the leaves are bagged and ready, they are bought at he price of 750 Tsh per kilo and transported to Athi River processing plant in Kenya where the ingredient arteminisin is extracted into a crystal form.It takes 1 tonne of artemisia leaves to extract 10kg of crystals. This goes to Novartis in Switzerland where the final product of Cotexcin tabs are made. The TZ country director Tom Lennox explained that the arteminisin content of leaves from EA is very high, and EA can compete with China and Vietnam which have approx 70% of market share processing artemisia. The EA region currently commands 20% of that market. I asked Bruce McNamer the CEO of Technoserve (The company that set up this business in East Africa) if there are any plans to have the tablets made in Kenya or TZ instead of switzerland, especially since the tabs are used in Africa for malaria treatment. He said that the process for certification from the WHO in order to make this a reality is a stumbling block to making this happen. It takes a really long time to get the certification for drug processing.

Artemisia cultivation is a real market opportunity with room for growth and better yet, a platform for EA to compete with China on a cash crop.

More Pics posted here…[Bono was there. He is a sweetheart, a rock star one at that]

I am sitting next to Jen Brea, she blogs about China’s involvement in Africa.

Ndesanjo is liveblogging TED in swahili here.

Treachery afoot: Chinois - Kenyan edition 2

October last year, I posted my reaction to the gifting of oil to china by the Kenyan president and his officials at the energy ministry, there was a bit of discussion, consternation and a comment implying that this was somehow o.k for kenya. You can read more here.

Story via Sociolingo and link to the story on Allafrica. (original appeared in The East African)
Now, it emerges that the very generous and *unprecedented! gift of oil to china from Kenya is being ‘regifted’ in the form of a possible sale on the open market. Just how rude is that?

There was outrage among European oil exploration companies interested in Kenya when it emerged last week that the state-owned National Oil Corporation of China - CNOOC - has quietly put out notices offering to farm out to third parties some of the oil exploration blocks granted to it by President Mwai Kibaki in April last year. The EastAfrican has seen a brochure the Chinese company distributed at the London Africa and Mediterranean Scout Check meeting recently. In an *unprecedented act of generosity, the government of Kenya last April gave the Chinese exclusive rights over a total of six out of 11 available blocks, including the hotly contested Blocks 9 and 10A in the Mandera area.

Now now now, there is an interesting, pertinent and unanswered question in that article, same question we had last year:

“What does the Kenya government gain in this transaction?” asked a representative of a European oil-prospecting firm that has put an application for exploration acreage.

The answer I reckon would be the good fuzzy gooey touchy feely collective altruistic feelings that will wash over us when we realise that China will get… “cash”. How does that make you feel? huh? does it affirm your belief that nations have an underlying sense of caring and exhibit random acts of extreme kindness, preferably dispensing with oil exploration rights to later be sold off? Makes you feel all nice and happy doesn’t it.

In the brochure, CNOOC announced that it is interested in farming out a portion of its working interests in Kenya for “cash,” future cost or a combination of the two; “alternatively, a proposed swap of acreage will also be considered,” it adds.

Well, attempts at snide remarks aside, this stuff is not adding up. Some roads in Kenya have been built and are continuing to be built by Chinese companies, so why wasn’t it clear from the ‘gifting’ of the oil that the roads are what we get in exchange for giving away oil blocks? What else are we getting or not getting? Oh well… i write to Prudie.

Dear Prudence,

My president gave a very nice gift of oil to China last year, my friends thought it was an early christmas gift and all…now china is selling those oil rights and is poised make a killing. I have several conflicting feelings about this ofcourse, as i cant help thinking that I am is getting the short end of the stick. Please include your thoughts on re-gifting (i know regifting exists since i saw it on Seinfeld), un-gifting if there is such a thing, and any guidance on the morality of gifts between differently endowed countries (I am talking natural resources). Thank you!
-A very kind kenyan.

AkalaNote1:I am shamelessly borrowing the title of this post from Stephen Colbert.