Mike Rhodes
Mike Rhodes is Paul Morrell’s adviser. Mike is involved in various farming and humanitarian projects through his association with Paul. He has been asked to take on several projects in the United States and to help out in Ethiopia, and he has currently traveled to Ethiopia three times. Mike said, “When Paul says, ‘Jump to something,’ I just say ‘No Problem.'”
Model Farmers
Mike Rhodes has been working with Mekonen Geteneh on the Model Farmers project in Ethiopia. Mekonen is in charge of many of the agriculture projects for MAI in the country. In February of 2010, Mike traveled to Ethiopia and, with Mekonen, established relationships with several of the Peasant Associations in the country. These associations are a group of farmers working in a specific area. There are about a 1,000 people in those associations in Langano and Kersa Illala, where MAI is interested in testing seed from the United States.
Mike and Mekonen were able to meet with about 600 of those people in the Langano and Kersa Illala areas of Ethiopia. They held meetings with the farmers and their leadership, on February 10th, 11th, and 17th, 2010. MAI is looking for the local farmers’ support so that they will plant US drought-resistant seed. The meetings went very well, and the ideas presented were well received. It was decided that the Ethiopian farmers would plant barley, instead of the originally planned wheat. A shipment of 75% barley and 25% wheat will arrive in Ethiopia any day.
Mike and Mekonen also met with the head of the peasant association in Shashamane. He represents 30,000 local farmers, and he is the agricultural guru of the area. Mike said, “Mekonen used to work for him, and he was actually pretty excited for what we were doing and what we were bringing in. And, he agreed to help us.”
Right now the Model Farmers and their workers are cleaning wheat for MAI at the Alyssa farm in Beltu. New wheat is being brought in, as first generation seed, for the Model Farmers. They will begin planting this seed in the next few weeks on their own one or two acre land parcels. The seed will be given to the Ethiopian farmers for free, as long as they agree to plant it.
Last week Lloyd Ward, Evan Maxfield, Mike Rhodes, David Bailey, and Paul Morrell met to develop a training manual for the Model Farmers. They are in the process of putting this manual together. When completed, it will explain, in very basic terms, how to farm the US varieties of wheat, beginning with simple principles such as planting depth.
Dairy
Paul Morrell and Lonny Ward have been working on building an MAI dairy in the Kokosa area of Ethiopia. Mike Rhodes was able to meet with Roy Remund in Heber a few weeks ago. Roy was responsible for setting up dairies in Afghanistan, and currently in Angola, and he is very well connected.
Roy met with Paul and Mike on May 12th. They discussed the progress that is being made on the dairy in Ethiopia, as well as with artificial insemination and embryo transfers. The idea was also brought up to look into Kenyan cows. Roy will also meet with Lonny in the near future.
Mike will travel to Ethiopia in July of 2010 and take a trip to Kokosa, in order to look at things there and determine if progress can be moved along a little quicker. The overall progress on the dairy there has been slow so far. Paul has given the approval for Mike and Mekonen to buy some cows, so that the land can be utilized more efficiently while MAI is working to get the dairy up and running on the property.
Sisal
Mike Rhodes has been working on the development of a sisal initiative for MAI in Ethiopia. They are currently in the process of doing trial runs on extracting the native sisal. Sisal fibers can be used for carpet, building, rope, twine, and other products. The goal of this initiative is to get the local people to harvest and process the sisal plant by themselves. They can then sell the fibers and have the money to provide for themselves in times when crop harvests are slim or nonexistent. A mill in Addis Ababa will buy all of the sisal that they can produce.
According to Mike, it currently doesn’t seem like this will be a profitable venture. When Mike goes back to Ethiopia, he will be looking for a machine that can help the local people process sisal in a more efficient manner.
Financing
Mike Rhodes is helping to arrange financing for Morrell Agro Industries equipment. Marty Petersen has also been working on this process. The goal is to see if they can get banks, or companies like John Deer, to help finance the projects in Ethiopia, and they are exploring all of the contact avenues that they have. This financing will go mostly towards farming equipment.