Cast Down Your Buckets Where You Are!
Booker T. Washington's speech on race relations in the United States of America relates this story:
"A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water, water. We die of thirst.†The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: “Cast down your bucket where you are.†A second time, the signal, “Water, send us water!†went up from the distressed vessel. And was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.â€
This went on for sometime until the distressed ship recognized that it had fresh water right below it! This was about race relations and how friends do exist across the board. How does this fit with the quest to feed the world?
An Ethiopian scientist Dr. Awegechew Teshome found out that Ethiopian farmers had nearly 60 different varieties of sorghum in one 500 acre area! In the 1980s, he found out that the amount of food grown by local farmers dwarfed the amount of food aid provided by humanitarian organizations. The Kenya government recently released indigenous food crops seeds targeting 25,000 farmers (Govt to dish out indigenous seeds worth Sh650m 06 March, Reuters) as part of its strategy to fight hunger. Farmers from food scarcity areas ought to consider the Booker T. Washington's advice and “cast down their buckets where they are†and study existing seed varieties and improve them for greater yields!
James Shikwati
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