A meeting with President Abadula
The morning was busy visiting with dealers such as CLAAS, a German made line of equipment, and again with Mr. Chombe with John Deere. A German technician came with the salesman to go over the details of the Lexion model of CLAAS.
It seems to be a good alternative to the John Deere since it is made closer. Mr. Chombe had more precise prices and we made alterations to options available and he will be in touch in a couple of days.
The highlight of the day came first thing in the afternoon when Paul invited Evan and me to join Wally and him to go meet with President Abadula who presides over the Oromiya region of Ethiopia, similar to a governorship in the US.
We came to the first gate and had to exit the Land Cruiser to get patted down by the security officer for any weapons or cameras. We then proceeded through a metal detector at the government building where his office is. We first went to the Minister of agriculture’s office where we visited until Pres. Abadula was ready to see us. I had to sit back and come to the realization of actually getting to meet people of this level in Ethiopia. I wondered how Paul had made his acquaintance after only coming to Ethiopia 18 months ago. He and Wally had met with President Abadula before on occasion and seemed very cordial as we entered his office. We all shook hands and Paul introduced Evan and me. I realized his large stature as Evan and I were introduced. After we sat down I had to look around and I found his office to be rather simple. He and Paul kidded each other and talked progress of the farms and Paul told the Pres. of concerns of paperwork to be done to secure ground and property lines on the Sheneka and Alyssa farms. We talked about results of wheat and barley varieties that Evan brought over and about test plots and their concern of Ethiopia’s lack of rain fall the past year. Paul wanted to grow out more Jefferson wheat and plant as much as 700 acres on the Bale Sate farm. They thought it would be too dry to take the chance but Paul said he would assume the risk. The minister of agriculture said fine if we assume the risk. Paul has a lot of faith in this wheat and feels that it will survive the dry season coming up. Paul asked the President if he was concerned about the upcoming election in May and he said not as concerned as he was of people potentially starving in Ethiopia.
We were again offered some famous Ethiopian coffee and had to decline. I felt bad because it would be like people coming to Idaho and saying “no thanks” to potatoes. They gave us some bottled water instead. We finished our conversation and left.
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