Production Training and Resource Research

PRODUCTION TRAINING (Mar 23 & 24)
Last week, the agriculture school students returned to school on Tuesday because of the elections.  So on Wednesday and Thursday I spent the mornings teaching them the production process.  Over the weekend, I had arranged for a drum to be modified into a kiln, paid for several presses to be made, and perhaps became the favorite new random customer of the construction store in town, having stopped by 3 times in 4 days.

Wednesday's Agenda: a process overview from beginning to end, and then practice for the first half (filling the drum to carbonization).  The students had gathered a lot of pressed sugarcane and corncobs just prior to the weekend, so I decided to give the bagasse a try (as I had never worked with it before).  STEPS: SET-UP drum > FILL DRUM with biomass > LIGHT DRUM on fire > SEAL DRUM (to create low-oxygen environment).  Since the carbonization process takes at least 2 hours and the students had class in the afternoon, this was the natural breaking point.

Thursday's Agenda: The remainder of practice from crushing the carbonized material to laying our briquettes in the sun.  STEPS: empty drum and SORT CHAR (in case anything is uncarbonized) > CRUSH CHAR > MAKE BINDER > MIX BINDER & CHAR > PRESS INTO BRIQUETTES.

Lessons?  We can pack the drum tightly and bagasse needs to burn for less time than corncobs before you seal the drum.  This week, we've taken a production break... but I'll try to note the time when we return to production next week.

RESOURCE RESEARCH (Mar 29 and ongoing)
This week I've tried to focus at least half my time on learning more about the feedstock availability of our preferred biomass... and about the local economy in Central Plateau in general.  Yesterday, Berry (my interpreter) and I walked to Carrefour Ledan to the closest sugarcane mill we knew of (20-30 minutes).  But it closed because the nearby farmers had decided to change their preferred crops from sugarcane to other crops (plantains and vegetables).  So after a couple river crossings, we arrived another 40 minutes later at Salmory where there was a sugarcane mill that just finished its production cycle.  The owner was off at another mill he owns, but a caretaker was able to host an informal interview of the property, which hosts primarily sugarcane, but also contains tobacco and a drying shed as a supplementary business.

Today, we went to Papaye to visit the Little Brothers and Sisters of St. Therese.  There, the order hosts an agriculture school, sugarcane mill, cassave processing plant, and a peanut production (all as businesses).  In addition, they provide equipment for corn milling for local peasants, provide sharecropped land for about 50 families, and are trying to host weekend "school" for children in the area who cannot afford to attend school.  This is the order that Brother Armand left to establish the Little Brothers and Sisters of the Incarnation in Pandiassou.  As one of the few places I've heard of in Central Plateau with production for crops other than sugarcane... I am very intrigued why more food production is not common in the countryside.  Apparently the brothers at Pandiassou used to have similar businesses (peanut production, cassave)... but I have not had a chance to ask why they have failed yet.

Tomorrow, I plan to get to the field to visit several more sugarcane mills and reconnect with the school for further production activities and debriefing the students on their consumer interviews in detail.  Friday, I finally meet with the local Ministry of Agriculture office to see if they have any trustworthy data for crop production and food production on a regional level.

Election Day Lull

To You International Followers of Haitian Politics:

There's been all this build up to potential drama over Haiti's presidential elections - Aristide's arrival two days ago, shutting down of gas pumps to deter destructive demonstrations, extra UN and police presence today - but I have to report from Hinche in the Central Plateau that all is extremely quiet.

Of course, I logged online to check the news and polls just like you.  Here are the tidbits from my last hours (and days) reading up on the election:

• Michele Martelly (a famous kompa singer knows for his shocking stage antics) has seemed ahead in support during recent days' rallies...
• No!  Martelly and Mirlande Manigat (a 70-year old university administrator and former first lady, favored by the middle class and known as "grandmother") are too close to call in the race...
• Jean-Bertrand Aristide (famous Haitian populist president who just return from 7-year exile in South Africa) hasn't emerged from his house nor endorsed any candidate... but many of his Fanmi Lavalas supporters recall the well-known facts (some say rumors) that Martelly was involved in prior military coups (such as his own)...
• Wyclef Jean (famous Haitian-American singer of Fugees and solo fame... and a public supporter of Martelly) got treated for a gunshot grazing of his hand under unspecified circumstances...
• Meanwhile, Manigat quietly tries to regain ground after 4-5 first round losing candidates threw their support behind Martelly...

But all of this is far away.  In the newspapers.  Perhaps Port-au-Prince.  But definitely not here in Hinche.  Preliminary results are even expected until the end of the month, but if prior elections are any indication, demonstrations may start in PAP as early as tomorrow.  However, I'm told it's been one of the more (if not most) peaceful political situations at the end of outgoing Rene Preval's term, regardless of the circus that was last November's first round of elections.  And anyone who pays attention to the platforms sees that there isn't enough detail to significantly distinguish the two remaining candidates.  All the international community and aid organizations really want is someone to get elected so that the new administration can get settled enough to resume the flow of relief and reconstruction dollars that have been temporary halted during all this election drama.

So perhaps - despite the overturning of a candidacy and the return of two formerly-exiled presidents, one still a significant symbol of populist power to this day - things will remain peaceful.  Let us hope.

Regardless, my work remains in sleepy Pandiassou and nearby Hinche - where I sit to have Sunday dinner while kids play with toy dump trucks, our only concession to the election that we forgo our weekly flannen (drive and walk about town). Meanwhile, I'll keep you up to date if I hear of any big national developments.

Peace and Love,
Stan

Ecole Entrepreneur (Days 1-3 with the Students)

In Pandiassou, there is an agriculture school where students come to learn the trade.  The teacher agronomists send out their students each morning for practice.  Sometimes they go to help the Little Sisters with their fields in front of the house.  Or maybe they work on fields at the Little Brothers' house... or a myriad of institutions connected to PFI/PSI (Petits Frères/Petites Soeurs de l'Incarnation is the French for Little Brothers/Little Sisters of the Incarnation).  Other times they work on the plot directly on school grounds.

However, the school is much more than a simple agriculture school... it focuses on fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in young men and women to form secondary income-generating activities.  This school is specifically inspiring farmers to increase their profits by engaging in value-added food processing or finding other ways of extracting value from their crop waste.  Thus, the reason Brother Armand suggested we team up for my project.

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting the 120 young men and women who make up the current cohort at the school, giving an overview of the briquetting pilot I endeavor to establish in their township.  However, I needed their help to see if this could be a successful business in the community.  After all, they better knew the intended institutional customers (e.g., schools, nutritional centers, and religious fraternities) than I did... they may even know some of the crop waste suppliers (sugar mills and other food processors - eventually individual farmers) than I do.  In return for their efforts, I would guide them in customer needs assessments, resource and business planning, and all the analytics that go into forming a business... not to mention the process itself.

With the absolute silence during my introduction, you would assume that there was little interest in a charcoal briquetting endeavor.  At 20 minutes, I finally opened it up to Q&A.  After a single minute of hearing crickets chirp in the background, a single student asked a clarifying question on the materials we could use in the process.  After that, it was a blizzard of questions from more process-oriented questions to inquiries into what form of business I envisioned for this project, how open I was to starting up satellite endeavors in other departments right away (30% will return to other parts of Haiti after the April graduation date), what the most significant challenges or drawbacks there are to this project, as well as what particular advantages I see having over other forms of fuel. 

The quality of the questions was particularly encouraging.

Wednesday afternoon, I ran through our protocol (developed in part with the teachers) and some minor interviewing etiquette with half the students.  Again, the barrage of questions was particularly encouraging... though 50% were understandably logistics oriented.  After a quick check-in with Brother Armand on the institutions PFI/PSI holds a relationship with... we sent out almost half of our teams for interviews on Thursday morning (the rest are being organized for next week).  After a quick debrief on any difficult conversations or lessons learned... the students were off for the weekend.  Many returned to their hometowns today in anticipation of the election... not due back at school until Tuesday morning, where we will pick back up on our customer interviews and begin a demonstration of the production process.

Welcome to Pandiassou

Community development can be ad-hoc... or there can be a true driving force that makes a whole town work in lock-step...  Meet Brother Armand and the Little Brothers/Little Sisters of the Incarnation.  This organization is involved in all the development occurring in the Hinche suburb of Pandiassou.  You see that orphanage attached to a local elementary school?  It's run by one of the sisters.  You see the agricultural/entrepreneurial school?  The teachers are organized by the Little Brothers.  And yes, the technical school is run by the seminary.  With 6 elementary schools, 9 nutritional clinics, and a community kitchen, if you want to engage in any sort of activity in Pandiassou, you'd better get a meeting with Brother Armand and get permission... otherwise, the community may not feel very participatory.  So after some informal conversations, yesterday I finally got an official meeting to lay out our intentions to work on the test pilot with the agriculture school in front of Brother Armand.  With official permission, I go to meet the students today so they can help me plan our surveys and production activities.  Wish me luck!

Do or Die: 2011

A little background on activities year-to-date.  Despite struggling with various business models, we're focused this first quarter on 3 key objectives:

1. Develop new partnerships with organizations that are well established in the communities (I like to see a decade of activity if possible).
2. Reconsider our key customer... are there those out there that we can provide unique value to, who may in turn help a fledgling company?
3. Flesh out the business components of a more centralized approach so we can test key elements on our next trip.

Ideally, such a strict focus would help drive us to a March trip to Haiti that could give us enough insight to make a "Go" / "No Go" decision on formalizing a for-profit social venture by this summer.

Well, it's March 8 and I just landed in Haiti today. I have already made it out to Hinche in the Central Plateau where I will begin exploratory research and partnership meetings by Thursday.  For now, expect shorter entries (like this) every few days until my current return date: April 5th.