I had been having trouble getting good information on yield rates, for crops other than rice or rubber. What you find is that farms dont usually have dedicated crops on dedicated blocks. Things all grow together, so there’s a pineapple bush, then a few palm trees, then some cassava and 3 plantein trees then more pineapple bushes…crops tend to be scattered at random densities and interspersed with each other, as the norm. CARI (the Cuttington Agricultural arm) has experimental fields which stand out as being rectangular and mono crop. People know that a palm tree will produce 4 or maybe 5 seed heads at a time, which gives about a gallon of palm oil, for instance. But its hard to translate that to produce per acre, as dedicated areas are so unusual. I have asked Charles to collate some expected metrics for me, for the area and soils we have.
I struggle with acres. An acre is a furlong by a chain, or alternatively 10 square chains (as a furlong is 10 chains.) You will recall that a chain is 22 yards. I just need to think in terms of 63 metre squares as acres.
A gallon is 128 fluid ounces, around 3.8 litres. In Liberia they are not aware that they are the only country in the world using acres and gallons, with the single exception of the US. So the Liberian education system teaches an obsolete measuring system used nowhere else in the world. It means that maths text books tend to be US based or nothing. There are some great Ghanean texts, all metric. Fortunately with UNMIL here, various engineers have erected road signs in Km’s, not miles.