Ghana Maybe Time; I've got the watch, they've got the time!

The time is Plus 6 GMT (Ghana Maybe Time) in Accra. 

We were supposed to depart at 6:00 am for the Cape Coast but ended up leaving more around 9:00, but was ok because our driver made up for the lost time. It was the most terrifying trip of my life. Narrowly missing cars and trucks, slamming on the brakes, stepping on the gas; I thought I would never make it back to Montana to see my wife and kids. But here I am, blogging and and getting ready to board a 11 hour flight back to JFK. I think I'll take another Black Label, please!

Our trip to Cape Coast was amazing and we saw some great looking N'Dama cattle (natives of the Caribbean), and took a tour of the farm. 

N'Dama cattle being driven to the kraal (corral).

Hens imported from Holland. 

This makes your old Thorsen chute look pretty cherry! 

Milling facilities. 

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After our farm visit we headed to the most terrifying place on the face of the earth during the 16, 17, and 1800's: The Cape Coast Castle. 

The castle was built in the 1600's by Swedish traders for the purpose of exporting timber and gold out of West Africa, but later became the epicenter of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, supplying millions of able bodied men and women to the Caribbean and the America's. The castle is equipped with 5 slave dungeons, each about 400 square feet in area, and at the height of trading each room held around 250 slaves for a minimum of two weeks, and a maximum of three months. The dungeon is where they ate, drank, slept, and relieved themselves. So much excrement had been accumulated that the original brick flooring had been totally covered and hardened with human feces. This place was extremely troubling. 

Deck of the Castle. 

This must have been the most terrifying journey.

The male slave dungeons.

Cape Coast Cannons. 

We are now waiting to board Flight 26 back to JFK. We have had the most amazing time here in Ghana and we have discoverd that there is a whole new ranching frontier, far from the American prairies, just waiting to be explored. The opportunities here are endless! 

A meeting with the Director.

Trey Milhoan posts the daily blog from Accra...

Today’s adventures started as they do every morning, about two hours later than scheduled. “The Ghanaians are great people, but on time they are not”. We departed the hotel at around 10:00 am and weaseled our way through Accra, arriving at the beautiful five star resort “Mövenpick”.  Our morning conversation with the hotels purchasing director really helped us understand the demand for high quality beef from the retailer’s perspective, reaffirming our efforts here. In fact, every person we've interacted with in Ghana has expressed that there is almost limitless demand in the current consumer marketplace.

Don't take that turn too fast, ya hear! 

       

We left the Mövenpick Hotel and rushed back across town to the American Embassy, just to learn that are closed on Mondays. So… we loaded back up, and went straight back across town to meet with the Ministry of Agriculture, Director of Livestock Production. Our discussions with the director revolved around the Aveyime Ranch and it’s future impact on the local community. Efforts to establish a profitable ranching enterprise on the ranch and educate area producers are our primary objectives, but this will ultimately result in imminent relocation for the ranches resident squatters.  Fences in Ghana are as abundant as unicorns and leprechauns! These undefined boundary’s result in frequent encroachment from surrounding producers who will simply turn up a piece of ground, plant their crop, and graze their livestock.

The Makola Market. Very Crowded! 

       

Observing the Ghanaian culture is captivating. There seems to be an “unspoken” understanding amongst the Ghanaian people, always knowing of each other’s personal space and acceptance of one another. “This is a good thing because if Americans drove like this, we’d all be toast”. The entrepreneurial spirit of the culture motivates people to utilize every bit of land for crops or cattle, no-matter whose land it may be.  Our mission is to help producers define their specific pieces of ground and maximize it’s productive potential, and like TCU preaches “manage the resources at hand in an ecological and economical manner”.

       

After a successful meeting with the director, we ventured through the nightmarish streets to the American Chamber of Commerce office where our fruitful visit concluded our workday.

A Visit to the Port of Tema

We set off for the Port of Tema at 10:30 this morning and by the time we had reached the coast, Trey’s life had been shortened by at least 5 years due to the insanity of Kwabena’s, and the other reckless TroTro drivers insane pace of Accra style of driving. A quick stop at the beach and we proceeded to the gate of the port where naturally the security was tight. We were hassled a bit by two immigration officers requesting to see our passports but thankfully to Kwabena’s smooth tongue we were set free in a matter of minutes. I have to admit, both Trey and myself were a bit uneasy when the guard aggressively opened my door and asked what we were doing, while intently staring at my cell phone. We were later advised to keep our phones in our pockets when talking with Ghanaian officials. You don't have to tell me twice!

The Gold Coast

A Ghanaian flag and two Panamanian vessels.

This was my first visit to a major shipping port and needless to say I was very excited. Containers, containers, and more containers! I have never seen so many shipping containers in my entire life and the large Hanjin cargo boxes that pass through Missoula on the BNSF Railway finally make sense to me as I have now seen their final destination. I have also never witnessed such mindblowingly large shipping vessels. These things are like small floating cities on the water and hundreds of them line the coast awaiting their turn to unload. The amount of capital that transacts through here each 24 hours must be staggering!

Me, Kwabena, and Trey in front of the Nord Explorer. 

We had decided to visit the port to get an idea of how cargo is brought into the country in order to help us tie together the logistics of building an American style ranch in a foreign land. The Institute has connections with a port in Texas, and the idea of transporting live cattle, equipment, and materials has crossed our minds, so seeing the final destination made sense to us. The other plus of the day was witnessing first hand how the real business gets done in Ghana when dealing with Ghanaian officials. T.I.A. my friends.  

After a quick stop at the Hotel Marjorie to visit some of Kwabena's friends we headed to the Makola Market in the heart of the city. The Makola is Accra’s largest market selling and it deals in anything a man could wish for, illegal and legal alike. Crawling with millions of people, the sidewalks are invisible below the trinkets, tiles, and plastic imported shoes from China. People cross in front of our speeding truck like snowflakes in a blizzard and motorbikes clip the sideview mirrors as our truck narrowly misses falling a tire into the 2 foot deep, open air raw sewage and rain gutter. The smells are not for the faint of heart. I would estimate our trip through the Makola, to a cafe and bar on the coast at a short one or two miles, but the trip takes nearly 4 hours due to the close proximity of everything in sight.

Former officers quarters built by the British.

The name of the outdoor bar and cafe along the shores of the Atlantic has eluded my memory but the initial beauty has not. If this were California the value of the real estate would be enough to purchase one of the smaller African countries. You enter the seaside deck by going through a metal gate and downclimbing a long flight of concrete stairs, ending up on a breezy terraced patio that is constantly pounded by mighty waves being pushed ashore by coastal winds. A band played traditional African music and there were many couples dining and drinking on this warm Accra Saturday night. All beauty aside, I did notice that the ocean was littered with trash, so much so that the waves looked as if they were pushing ashore the debris of a tropical storm. This was very depressing and made me feel very fortunate to live in a country where the majority of the people deeply care for our world's natural resources.

Seaside bar and cafe – Accra, Ghana.

We only stayed at the bar for a short while, mainly because Kwabena wanted us to see the old slave barracks that line the shore that were built by the British empire during the days of the Gold Coast and the slave trade heyday. These were an eerie sight indeed.

We ventured out...alone!

Yes it's true, we ventured into the depths of Accra today, all alone! No driver, no escort, no maps, no TomTom, no iPhone...just us and our high heeled American cowboy boots. The walking was a bit rough on the uneven streets, but other than a few rolled ankles we made it to AC Square and it's modern market. I purchased a can of peanuts, three tangerines and a large bottled water. Trey, well he did a tremendous job of promoting the American processed food stereotype by purchasing the following: gummy coke bottles, Pringles, 5 packs of Top Ramen, Cheezits, and a Mountain Dew. Amazing! I'm just sad that I do not have a photo to post of the pile of chemistry! Ok, now before you go on judging, Trey usually eats healthy meals! 

Although the day was not filled with Sanga cattle, beautiful ranches, or visits to fascinating abattoirs, we did gain some ground on the digital side of things and continued to fill up Google's data warehouses. 

A pleasant walk home. 

Beef: The Final Destination

A visit to the AC Market

We have seen the farmer, the buyer, the butcher, the processor, and tonight we saw the final destination...the countertop! Although tonights venture through dimly lit  smoke filled alleys was the first of the day, it does not mean time was wasted. 18 hours of MacBook stare offs and we have copious amounts of solid material stashed away on Google servers somewhere in the US, possibly The Dales...that's in Oregon. 

The AC Market is one of Accra's most modern and little did we know the supermarket is littered with American amenities; Trey was like a kid in a candy store, literally clearing the check out isle of its Snickers inventory. After finding some generic Chinese mosquito repellent (Lord knows what's in this stuff) we made our way through the densely packed isles towards the meat counter. What we saw amazed us both! 

Ham and cheese under the glass.

The Olive and cheese counter would make Safeway jealous, Captain Crunch cereal fans can buy a box a of sugar-coated junk for around $2.00 (US), and the beef, well it's much better than what I had imagined, although i'm not quite sure the steaks on the right would qualify as "T-bones." But they're a start! We also learned that a huge delicacy here in Ghana are smoked cows feet. I don't know if I can muster the adventurous nature enough to choke one down. 

T-Bones and bone-in...and cow hooves too! 

Observing the consumer at work! 

The picture above has brought one last thought to mind; observing the consumer at the meat counter is a truly amazing experience! Call me weird, or call Kevin Johnson weird (he was my animal health professor at TCU) because he got me kicked off on watching how people interact when purchasing beef at the counter. This is truly a spectator event and should be enjoyed with a hot dog a lawn chair and pint of coors! 

Don't forget to check out the following sites: 

http://instagram.com/americanag

http://ranch.tcu.edu/

http://www.instituterm.tcu.edu/

Experiment Stations and Soil Scientists and Abattoirs, Oh My!

University of Ghana

Today was action packed and full of amazing new discoveries. Mid morning found us at the University of Ghana – Department of Animal Science to meet with the department head, Dr. Frederick Yeboah Obese. A wonderfully jovial man. Dr. Obese provided us with great insight to the issues facing beef production in Ghana. Ticks are apparently a very bad problem across the countryside and non-native cattle seem to have a very hard time staying alive.

These Bos indicus are natives of Namibia.

We then departed Dr. Obese and headed to the Agricon offices to meet with Envaserv Research Consult, a company with the ability and scientific knowhow to provide the ranch with in depth soils and water quality data, as well as detailed GIS maps of the property at large. These guys were most certainly professionals. 

Another cram back into the tiny Ford pickup and we were off to the University of Ghana's experiment station to take a look at some of their production practices and imported genetics. The station was run down, but in Accra, what isn't? Constructed in 1953, the small farm has not seen an improvement since it's inception, and the only investment money has come in the form of research grants from the Leventis Foundation to improve poultry production. 

The experiment stations Sanga-Shorthorn cross cattle.

 A cross between Persian Black Heads and Djallonke Sheep. 

Farm Relics

By far the most interesting part of the day was a visit to the Accra Abattoir Company. In the US, bystanders are never allowed to just walk freely through a processing plant and they are most certainly not allowed to snap photos, but that is exactly the opportunity that we got today. 

One of the most well spoken and interesting people that I have had the pleasure of speaking with, Mr. Kwabena Osei-Boaten was educated at Dartmouth College and later worked as a top executive at a Dallas-based internet company before moving back to Ghana to re-open the meat packing company. A financially astute individual, it was clear that Mr. Boaten was running a tight ship and had his finger on the financial health of Ghana as a whole. He also operates his business with extremely good company culture; his pay is above average and he even went as far as building a Mosque for his Muslim employees. 

Transparent marketing on the side of this refrigerator truck! 

The kill floor. The lights weren't on, it's not that gloomy.

Band saw for halving beef carcasses.

Trey Milhoan, Emmanuel Dagbui, and plant owner - Kwabena Osei-Boaten.

And what post would be complete without a picture from the drive home! "A picture is worth 1000 words," but there are no words that can explain the shear chaos of the trip home tonight. Trey's knuckles were as white as printer paper and he later told me that he nearly kicked a hole in the floor trying to "hit the breaks." He was in the passenger seat. People here are everywhere; in the back of trash trucks, on top of cargo that is staked on top of buses, and inside oil drums! Yet amidst the rancid odors, blown-out speakers and pot-holed roads, there is a beauty to Accra, Ghana that is unique and will forever be engrained in my memory.

This picture does not do the chaos justice. It needs sound and smell. 

For more pictures from Ghana check out: http://instagram.com/americanag

Check out TCU Ranch Management at: http://ranch.tcu.edu/
Check out the Institute of Ranch Management at: http://www.instituterm.tcu.edu/

Beautiful ranch country it is!

Aveyime Cattle Ranch – Accra Plains 11:00 am, Accra, Ghana – We depart on the 1 1/2 hour journey through the Accra Plains on our way to the Aveyime Cattle Ranch. We see some interesting sights along the way...like guys riding in the back of trash trucks!

A cheap taxi across Accra! 

The drive seems short and when we arrive at the ranch Trey looks at me and say’s, “this place is absolutely gorgeous!” I agree! The sea of grass extends well beyond the line of sight and the sound of birds and crickets reminds me of home. The ranch also looks and feels different from when I first visited the headquarters back in June. Maybe it’s the changing seasons from wet to dry, or the familiarity of the ranch itself, whatever it is, it feels good to be in ranch country. After a short sit-down with the manager, Okyere Derko and the rest of the crew, we begin a tour of the facilities of the once thriving operation.

Aveyime Cattle Ranch as far as the eye can see...and grass too! 

Accra Livestock Market. Just point, negotiate, and pay! 

Constructed in 1973 by the Italian Government, the 10,000 hectare Aveyime Cattle Ranch was the premier cattle operation of its time running up to 3,000 head of Sanga/Friesian cross cattle. Constructed for the greater good of the Volta people, the ranch was financed entirely by the Italians; which is also what ultimately lead the ranch to abruptly close its doors when all cash flow ceased at the hands of newly minted Sicilian politicians. However, for more than 20 years the Philanthropic efforts of the Italians helped propel the area’s farmers towards success by offering them free educational classes, animal health care, and by purchasing the their cattle. Our nighttime discussions have revolved around the same theme; artificial insemination, cross-fencing and more, and these are precisely the actions the Italians undertook during the last century. We just hope to be a bit more successful.

To see more photos from the Ghanaian ranch country check out: http://instagram.com/americanag