turned by a small boy who lifts water to the land by dipping the end of the tube into the waters of the Nile or the Ganges, the task of converting all this into a thriving agro-industrial enterprise is not a job for the faint-hearted. It has a success rate about on a par with panning for gold in the out-back but, when it does come off, as it has been known to do, the satisfaction of beating the odds, not only physical but also bureaucratic, is tremendous. It is perhaps one of the few occupations one rarely retires from. After all, where food is concerned, there is never enough time to look after the Worlds needs. There vill always be millions who never have sufficient, and the task of turning the desert into a granary will always be a challenge. However perhaps we should learn a lesson from the past. It is not always massive machinery which will achieve this, nor the bull-dozing of forests. A politician once had the idea that this was the only way to produce much wanted groundnuts in East Africa. The bull-dozers and tractors reversed the agricultural 'miracle and turned fruitful green land into a desert dust-bowl. a journey across the Africa an continent would have demonstrated to the ' that in the tropical rain forests of West Africa, from Gambia down to the Cameroons, the peasant farmer in every village in an area covering a million square miles, produced the greater part of the world's supply of groundnuts by hand cultivation in small clearings out into the tropical rain forest with a machete, The micro-climate nd infra-structure needed for the crop was sacrosanct and nurtured by these small farmers, and the joke was on the bureaucracy who was quite sure it could be 'estate farmed Today, one has to keep a sense of balance and approach any new horticultural or agricultural project with a know ledge of history and tradition and not be blinded by today's availability of high technology, and in the developing countries one has to get the blend of old and new just right to chieve successturned by a small boy who lifts water to the land by dipping the end of the tube into the waters of the Nile or the Ganges, the task of converting all this into a thriving agro-industrial enterprise is not a job for the faint-hearted. It has a success rate about on a par with panning for gold in the out-back but, when it does come off, as it has been known to do, the satisfaction of beating the odds, not only physical but also bureaucratic, is tremendous. It is perhaps one of the few occupations one rarely retires from. After all, where food is concerned, there is never enough time to look after the World’s needs. There will always be millions who never have sufficient, and the task of turning the desert into a granary will always be a challenge. However perhaps we should learn a lesson from the past. It is not always massive machinery which will achieve this, nor the bull-dozing of forests. A politician once had the idea that this was the only way to produce much wanted groundnuts in East Africa. The buI1-dozers and tractors reversed the agricultural ’miracle’ and turned fruitful green land into a desert dust-bowl. A journey across the African continent would have demonstrated to the ’experts’ that in the tropical rain forests of West Africa, from Gambia down to the Cameroons, the peasant farmer in every village in an area covering a million square miles, produced the greater part of the world’s supply of groundnuts by hand cultivation in small clearings out into the tropical rain forest with a machete. The micro-climate and infra-structure needed for the crop was sacrosanct and nurtured by these small farmers, and the joke was on the bureaucracy who was quite sure it could be ’estate farmed’. Today, one has to keep a sense of balance and approach any new horticultural or agricultural project with a knowledge of history and tradition and not be blinded by today’s availability of high technology, and in the developing countries one has to get the blend of old and new just right to achieve success. 265