Agro based clusters and traceability

With the recent ecoli incidents in Europe I suspect it may get even worse for farmers in developing countries to sell their products. German authorities are now certain that it was locally grown products that were to blame, but the average consumer may have become more conscious that it matters where foodstuff comes from.

So what should growers of fruit and vegetables in developing countries do to secure market access?

Last weekend I read a FAO report on Agro based clusters in developing countries. I have become involved in the design of such a cluster, with focus on using electronic traceability for creating product documentation. This solution is intended to support the cluster in creating market advantages through the use of modern export and sales support technologies. But can this also be used to make the end consumer trust the products?

A pilot in the eTrace project had success with using traceability information in the dialog with consumers at the point of sale. According to the fish monger “Instead of selling just a few kilos a day, I sold more than 150 kilos over 4 days. This is a very significant increase for us.”

Can similar effects be expected if flowers, fruit and vegetables from developing countries are equipped with traceability information? And how should it be done, by printing the information on the packaging or by providing links to online solutions like this (in Norwegian)?

A small friend

A couple of days ago I moved this young leaf warbler out of the way. It sat on the ground and our cat was in the immediate vicinity! I think he knew about the target, but he stayed at some distance to keep us humans from discovering what was going on.
Well, I moved this little friend over to my neighbours berberis bushes, where it happily jumped into safety.

Those bushes are the stronghold of the birds in the area - there is always activity and a lot of sound. So again the cat was deprived of having fun.

Bøvelstad

Den norske turistforening opened a new cabin not far from where I live last Sunday. So three dads and six boys went on tour from Thursday to Friday.

The terrain turned out to be tougher than we expected. But we should have known, because that part of the forest is known for its hills and unevenness.

But we made it to Bøvelstad where we had a wonderful evening and a very good sleep, before we headed back home.

This picture shows the group (minus me) as we are about to get back to the cars. We were worn out, but everybody agreed it had been a nice excursion.

I am the walnuts, goo goo g'joob

I have bought two walnut trees. I didn't think they were available in cold Norway, but I stumbled across an enthusiast that had some to spare. So I planted one at home and one in the forest at my cabin.

The one in this picture is the one in my garden. There I already have hazelnuts, so if the trees start producing walnuts I can dream of supplying the household with varieties of nuts.

Last winter we had long periods as low as -20 celsius. The producer of these trees claim that his trees can stand this type of temperature, and colder. He lives not far from where my cabin is, and the climate there is colder than at my house. So I hope that the one in the forest will thrive. I planted it near a small pond that will keep it with water.

I will have to wait some years before they start carrying fruit, but to be on the safe side I will contribute to global warming in the meantime to help the trees' survival!

Want orders? Then bake cake!

Yesterday, 17. May, was Norway's National Day. Where I was we were blessed with nice weather, and then it is not uncommon to have some cake. This time I tried an alternative to the traditional sponge cake.

Based on a almond sponge, coffee cream, vanilla cream, berries and some other good stuff I "mashed up" this special 17. May cake.

The overall idea was to make something to remind us of our flag. Red raspberries, white cream and blueberries covering the almond sponge with coffee cream ++.

But then there are the risks. Someone might like it so well that they want their own. So also this time - I got an order. Maybe not so surprising really - it was a returning customer.

But it makes me feel like I am pretty good at making cakes when my mother-in-law places yet another order.

Vipukirves, the magic axe

For my birthday I got a Vipukirves axe, which is specially designed for chopping firewood. In my role as gentleman farmer I try to keep my household with firewood. Sometimes chopping is required, and an axe is an obvious tool.

However, the Vipukirves changes the process of chopping wood entirely, especially for wide segments of logs.

Consider the first picture - it shows the unique profile of this axe, and a promising firewod candidate. Also shown is a "belt" around the candidate. I used the inner tube from a bicycle tire, but I suspect that a car tire would have been better. At least, that is what is often used in instructional films on Youtube.
Anyway, the purpose of the "belt" is to keep pieces from escaping and keep the workpiece on the base during chopping. Even with a regular axe, the chopping process has a tendency to eject the log pieces in different directions so that they fall off the base. With the Vipukirves the smaller piece can be thrown away quite violently. Therefore the belt, so that the workpiece remains on the base and you do not have to traverse the entire yard to gather the chopped firewood.

So what about the result? Well, this next picture shows the same log segment after being chopped. As you can see the pieces are more rectangular than the usual circle segments an ordinary axe would produce. The belt has kept the pieces in place so that they can easily be moved to a stack for drying.

This was my first experience with the Vipukirves, and I am not fully trained yet. I still had to use my hydraulic splitter for log segments with many branches. But the new axe is definitely a useful tool. I must be on the lookout for a used car tire though. The "belt" I used did not work as well as a wider tire would.

Google selects Arduino for Android Open Accessory

Stop press! Google's initiative for using the Android platform for controlling your environment, Android Open Accessory, has selected Arduino as its platform.

Think of the possibilities - the Arduino is so simple to play with that we can expect "everybody" to play with this. I even have one myself.

With this I can play with simple instrumentation projects and easily interface the real world with applications written in Processing. And now I can also start controlling Arduinos and whatever is connected from my Android devices. Hurray!

But will I find the time? Back in the early eighties I did instrumentation projects with Z80 and similar processors. It was such fun! If my employer practiced the Google concept for employees time to own projects, then I definitely know what I would be doing!