Category: (c)2016 Aaron E-J

Solving world hunger through the miracle tree – moringa

         I was listening to a news story from the BBC recently about the starvation in the North East part of Nigeria called Borno and this made me think about the need for much wider adoption of Moringa oleifera better known as just moringa.  Moringa is a fast growing, drought resistant tree that has leaves and pods that are incredibly nutrient rich.  Just a few hundred grams of the leaves can provide sizable quantities of all of the essential amino acids and relatively high amounts of many vitamins and minerals.  Although there is growing awareness of the plant's usefulness for a wide range of issues, fighting starvation is perhaps the most acute. 
        However, I have found little in the way of news reports for the use of this tree in fighting starvation. If we airdropped large quantities of the seeds plus a starter nutrient during the beginning of the rainy season, we could potentially create a self-sustaining food source that requires little to no input. I sent a version of this post to contacts in UNICEF and USAID, no idea what will become these messages

Links for more information about moringa:

Moringa oleifera: A Food Plant with Multiple Medicinal Uses http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.2023/epdf

Adoption of Moringa oleifera to combat under-nutrition viewed through the lens of the “Diffusion of Innovations” theory
Thurber, M. D., & Fahey, J. W. (2009). Adoption of Moringa oleifera to combat under-nutrition viewed through the lens of the “Diffusion of Innovations” theory. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 48(3), 212–225. http://doi.org/10.1080/03670240902794598

Nigeria Boko Haram: 75,000 children 'risk dying of hunger'
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37991798

Lost in the haze of coffee gone cold…

Lost in the haze of coffee gone cold…
Why can you not be here?
Near to where the apex of summation of cognition and bliss,
Where the setting sun meets with me and the music flows free from the hands of someone else,
…for someone else,
With every intention, but none towards me,
While the pent up burning of a fossil so cruel,
Its pressure bound to hieratical rule,
And the rungs of the ladder have long gone away,
Replaced with nothing but ambiguity and rhetoric,
While every act of good intention goes unheard,
Lost in the haze of coffee gone cold,
When the adrenaline starts to wane,
But the oxytocin of men giving birth to ill thought out apotheosis,
Hits head on with reality.
Then the beating drum goes quiet,
And you begin your next day, your next year, your next life,
Right where you left off,
No better, no worse, no fucking different than any other day.
That's why.
The question is as obvious as the answer to yesterday's logic,
But yesterday's logic is far too simplistic as the future I seek,
Where we meet will be determined by when we meet,
Who we meet though, is what is boring a hole in my soul.
Even though I have the power to set the parameters,
It is that I have set the bars,
Too high to reach,
But too strong to break…
That is why…
That is why.
–Aaron E-J