Guide on how to break into business

As a budding entrepreneur entering the business world, it can be overwhelming to engage with the established players. All too often, it’s who you know rather than what you know that leads to success. Which behaviours can new business owners adopt to help them become successful?

Godfrey Madanhire is a professional motivational speaker, life coach and successful entrepreneur. Starting his company in 2006, he now employs over 100 employees. These are his tips to help you achieve success.

Know who you are talking to

When you are engaging with a potential client, make sure you know who they are. Do research via their LinkedIn profile or a Google search. Take note of their interests. Developing some common ground when in a meeting with these individuals, will not only build stronger relationships, but cement future dealings with them.

Make sure to use the right language

Communication is key in establishing new relationships. A major problem is misunderstanding each other. Make sure when you are in conversation, to you use plain and simple language. After time, you may develop a relationship where you will be able to use more casual language, but this takes time. So, remember to keep it simple and professional.

Network-network-network

For success, you need to create connections. Knowing how to network properly is a vital skill. Identifying opportunities and chasing them down quickly is also key to building networks. Remember that time is not your friend, so when you meet a potential contact, follow up with them quickly. Keeping channels of communication open is important, so always drop an extra email or phone call during business hours to keep relationships healthy.

Listen to learn and to build

Listening effectively is an essential building block for professional relationships. Not only is it a form of flattery, but it will help you to gain insights you can use. If they mention that they love a certain coffee shop, remember to schedule your next meeting there. Picking up on subtle hints and clues in conversations will only help build stronger ties.

Be confident

“What ifs” and “maybes” are not welcomed in business. Definitive and assured responses are what business people are looking for. Do your research about your offering and know all the answers when in a meeting. Knowing the answers to all potential questions will give you confidence. Self-assured owners attract like-minded people, which will only mean good things.

Take some hard advice

A confident individual is one that can take harsh criticism. Knowing how to dissect feedback will only make your company stronger. Remember nothing is perfect, evolving and adopting new angles to approach issues will ensure that people remain interested in your offering.

Be brave

A leader needs to be brave and tackle issues head on, and is sometimes required to make a gut call. You are an entrepreneur so you’ve already proven to the world you are capable taking risks. Exhibiting this characteristic will open more doors for your company. An attitude of “just do it” is exactly what is needed.

5 ways to survive your first year of business

Starting a business can be tough especially when it comes to funding, marketing your business or even drawing on customers.

Generally, 70% to 80% of African businesses fail within their first five years of running. Here are ways to ensure that your business survives its first year:

1. Don’t wing your business plan rather write a formal business strategy. The process of writing your business plan can help you to sharpen your vision and identify potential risks for your new company. The document should detail items like the problem that you are trying to solve in your market and customers that you are going to target. The plan should also include milestones like launch dates, funding plans, costs and competitors.
2. Spend as little as possible because new businesses generally fail when they run out of funding. It is imperative that you keep your cost base as low as possible while you wait for revenue to flow in. This tip is important especially if your business has long cycles in the industry or you need to spend time developing your product before you can start selling it. Some of the ways that you can save money include using cloud software rather than buying expensive software licenses or using contractors and freelancers rather than hiring full time employees so you can access skills on demand.
3. Get professional advice where you need it. Professional Human Resources, tax and financial advice is worth spending money on. A good accountant can help you achieve significant tax efficiencies, highlight ways to save money and give insight into financial trends in your business. Good HR advice can also help you avoid expensive disputes with employees or making poor hiring decisions.
4. You might have plans to expand your business but it is better to focus on one region or product line. Start in an area that you know well, then you can learn, develop a revenue stream and scale out to more national or even international markets. If you attempt to try and cover many regions or offer lots of products and services in the first month, you could spread your financial and human resources too thinly.
5. Automate your business as much as you can from payroll, invoicing and accounting to marketing and customer relationship management. This will save you time and help you avoid any human errors such as miscalculating PAYE for the month. You will also benefit from easier compliance with tax laws and have access to data you can use to make good business decisions.

Everything You Need To Know About Growing Beans

Planting Beans

In general, beans are very sensitive to frost. (The exception is favas, which require a long, cool growing season; sow them at the same time you plant peas.) Most beans grow best in air temperatures of 70° to 80°F, and soil temperature should be at least 60°F. Soggy, cold soil will cause the seeds to rot. Beans need a sunny, well-drained area rich in organic matter. Lighten heavy soils with extra compost to help seedlings emerge.
Plan on roughly 10 to 15 bush bean plants or 3 to 5 hills of pole beans per person. A 100-foot row produces about 50 quarts of beans. Beans are self-pollinating, so you can grow cultivars side by side with little danger of cross-pollination. If you plan to save seed from your plants, though, separate cultivars by at least 50 feet.
Bean seeds usually show about 70 percent germination, and the seeds can remain viable for 3 years. Don't soak or presprout seeds before sowing. If you plant in an area where beans haven't grown before, help ensure that your bean crop will fix nitrogen in the soil by dusting the seeds with a bacterial inoculant powder for beans and peas (inoculants are available from garden centers and seed suppliers).

Plant your first crop of beans a week or two after the date of the last expected frost. Sow the seeds 1 inch deep in heavy soil and 1½ inches deep in light soil. Firm the earth over them to ensure soil contact.
Plant most bush cultivars 3 to 6 inches apart in rows 2 to 2½ feet apart. They produce the bulk of their crop over a 2-week period. For a continuous harvest, stagger plantings at 2-week intervals until about 2 months before the first killing frost is expected.
Bush beans usually don't need any support unless planted in a windy area. In that case, prop them up with brushy twigs or a strong cord around stakes set at the row ends or in each corner of the bed.
Pole beans are even more sensitive to cold than bush beans. They also take longer to mature (10 to 11 weeks), but they produce about three times the yield of bush beans in the same garden space and keep on bearing until the first frost. In the North, plant pole beans at the beginning of the season—usually in May. If your area has longer seasons, you may be able to harvest two crops. To calculate if two crops are possible, note the number of days to maturity for a particular cultivar, and count back from fall frost date, adding a week or so to be on the safe side.
Plant pole beans in single rows 3 to 4 feet apart or double rows spaced 1 foot apart. Sow seeds 2 inches deep and 10 inches apart. Provide a trellis or other vertical support at planting or as soon as the first two leaves of the seedlings open. Planting pole beans around a tepee support is a fun project to try if you're gardening with children, but it will be more difficult to harvest the beans than from a simple 

holwichaikawee/getty

Growing Guidelines

Bush beans germinate in about 7 days, pole beans in about 14. It's important to maintain even soil moisture during this period and also when the plants are about to blossom. If the soil dries out at these times, your harvest may be drastically reduced. Water deeply at least once a week when there is no rain, being careful not to hose off any of the blossoms on bush beans when you water. Apply several inches of mulch (after the seedlings emerge) to conserve moisture, reduce weeds, and keep the soil cool during hot spells (high heat can cause blossoms to drop off). 
Beans generally don't need extra nitrogen for good growth because the beneficial bacteria that live in nodules on bean roots help to provide nitrogen for the plants. To speed up growth, give beans—particularly long-bearing pole beans or heavy-feeding limas—a midseason side-dressing of compost or kelp extract solution.

Spider mites are tiny red or yellow creatures that generally live on the undersides of leaves; their feeding causes yellow stippling on leaf surfaces. Discourage spider mites with garlic or soap sprays. Using a strong blast of water from the hose will wash mites off plants, but avoid this method at blossom time or you may knock the blossoms off.

To minimize disease problems, buy disease-free seeds and disease-resistant cultivars, rotate bean crops every one or two years, and space plants far enough apart to provide airflow. Don't harvest or cultivate beans when the foliage is wet, or you may spread disease spores. Here are some common diseases to watch for:

• Anthracnose causes black, egg-shaped, sunken cankers on pods, stems, and seeds and black marks on leaf veins.
• Bacterial blight starts with large, brown blotches on the leaves; the foliage may fall off and the plant will die.
• Mosaic symptoms include yellow leaves and stunted growth. Control aphids and cucumber beetles, which spread the virus.
• Rust causes reddish brown spots on leaves, stems, and pods.
• Downy mildew causes fuzzy white patches on pods, especially of lima beans.

If disease strikes, destroy infested plants immediately, don't touch other plants with unwashed hands or clippers, and don't sow beans in that area again for 3 to 5 years.

King Lawrence/getty

Harvesting Beans

Pick green beans when they are pencil size, tender, and before the seeds inside form bumps on the pod. Harvest almost daily to encourage production; if you allow pods to ripen fully, the plants will stop producing and die. Pulling directly on the pods may uproot the plants. Instead, pinch off bush beans using your thumbnail and fingers; use scissors on pole and runner beans. Also cut off and discard any overly mature beans you missed in previous pickings. Serve, freeze, can, or pickle the beans the day you harvest them to preserve the fresh, delicious, homegrown flavor.
Pick shell beans for fresh eating when the pods are plump but still tender. The more you pick, the more the vines will produce. Consume or preserve them as soon as possible. Unshelled, both they and green beans will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator.
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To dry beans, leave the pods on the plants until they are brown and the seeds rattle inside them. Seeds should be so hard you can barely dent them with your teeth. If the pods have yellowed and a rainy spell is forecast, cut the plants off near the ground and hang them upside down indoors to dry. Put the shelled beans in airtight, lidded containers. Add a packet of dried milk to absorb moisture, and store the beans in a cool, dry place. They will keep for 10 to 12 months.
Related: 6 Healthiest Beans You Can Eat

rootstocks/getty

Types Of Beans

All beans belong to the legume family. Snap and lima beans belong to the genus Phaseolus, while mung, adzuki, garbanzo, fava, and others belong to different genera. In general, there are two main bean types: shell beans, grown for their protein-rich seeds, which are eaten both fresh and dried; and snap beans, cultivated mainly for their pods.
The two groups are further divided according to growth habit. Bush types are generally self-supporting. Pole beans have twining vines that require support from stakes, strings, wires, or trellises. Runner beans are similar to pole beans, although runners need cooler growing conditions. Half-runners, popular in the South, fall somewhere in between pole and bush beans.
Adzuki beans, which come from Japan, are extra rich in protein. The small plants produce long, thin pods that are eaten like snap beans. When mature at 90 days, they contain 7 to 10 small, nutty-tasting, maroon-colored beans that are tasty fresh or dried.
Black beans, also called black turtle beans, have jet-black seeds and need approximately 3 months of warm, frost-free days to mature. The dried beans are popular for soups and stews. Most are sprawling, half-runner-type plants, but some cultivars, like 'Midnight Black Turtle', have more upright growth habits.

Black-eyed peas, also called cowpeas or southern peas, are cultivated like beans. They need long summers with temperatures averaging between 60° and 70°F. Use fresh pods like snap beans, shell and cook the pods and seeds together, or use them like other dried beans.
Fava beans, also known as broad, horse, or cattle beans, are one of the world's oldest cultivated foods. They are second only to soybeans as a source of vegetable protein, but they're much more common as a garden crop in Europe than in the United States. You won't find a wide range of varieties in most seed catalogs, unless you choose a seed company that specializes in Italian vegetables. Unlike other beans, favas thrive in cold, damp weather. They take about 75 days to mature. Fava beans need to be cooked and shucked from their shells and the individual seed skins peeled off before eating.
Garbanzo beans, also called chickpeas, produce bushy plants that need 65 to 100 warm days. When dried, the nutty-tasting beans are good baked or cooked and chilled for use in salads.
Great Northern white beans are most popular dried and eaten in baked dishes. In short-season areas, you can harvest and eat them as fresh shell beans in only 65 days. Bush-type Great Northerns are extremely productive.

Horticultural beans are also known as shell, wren's egg, bird's egg, speckled cranberry, or October beans. Both pole and bush types produce a big harvest in a small space and mature in 65 to 70 days. Use the very young, colorful, mottled pods like snap beans, or dry the mature, nutty, red-speckled seeds.
Kidney beans require 100 days to mature but are very easy to grow. Use these red, hearty-tasting dried seeds in chili, soups, stews, and salads.
Lima beans, including types called butter beans or butter peas, are highly sensitive to cool weather; plant them well after the first frost. Bush types take 60 to 75 days to mature. Pole types require 90 to 130 days, but the vines grow quickly and up to 12 feet long. Limas are usually green, but there are also some speckled types. Use either fresh or dried in soups, stews, and casseroles.
Mung beans need 90 frost-free days to produce long, thin, hairy, and edible pods on bushy 3-foot plants. Eat the small, yellow seeds fresh, dried, or as bean sprouts.
Pinto beans need 90 to 100 days to mature. These large, strong plants take up a lot of space if not trained on poles or trellises. Use fresh like a snap bean, or dry the seeds.

Scarlet runner beans produce beautiful climbing vines with scarlet flowers. The beans mature in about 70 days. Cook the green, rough-looking pods when they are very young; use the black-and red-speckled seeds fresh or dried.
Snap beans are also known as green beans. While many growers still refer to snap beans as string beans, a stringless cultivar was developed in the 1890s, and few cultivars today have to be stripped of their strings before you eat them. Most cultivars mature in 45 to 60 days. This group also includes the flavorful haricots verts, also called filet beans, and the mild wax or yellow beans. For something unusual, try the yard-long asparagus bean. Its rampant vines can produce 3-foot-long pods, though they taste best when 12 to 15 inches long. Once the pods have passed their tender stage, you can shell them, too.
Soldier beans, whose vinelike plants need plenty of room to sprawl, are best suited to cool, dry climates. The white, oval-shaped beans mature in around 85 days. Try the dried seeds in baked dishes.
Garden cultivars of soybeans, also called edamame, are ready to harvest when the pods are plump and green. Boil the pods, then shell and eat the seeds. Or, you can let the pods mature and harvest as dry beans. Try 'Early Hakucho', 'Butterbean', and other varieties. The bush-type plants need a 3-month growing season but are tolerant of cool weather.

Agriculture in Africa: Potential versus reality

With more than 60% of its 1.166 billion people living in rural areas, Africa’s economy is inherently dependent on agriculture. More than 32% of the continent’s gross domestic product comes from the sector.

However, agricultural productivity still remains far from developed world standards. Over 90% of agriculture depends on rainfall, with no artificial irrigation aid. The techniques used to cultivate the soil are still far behind from what has been adopted in Asia and Americas, lacking not only irrigation, but also fertilisers, pesticides and access to high-yield seeds. Agriculture in Africa also experiences basic infrastructural problems such as access to markets and financing.
Singapore is proving to be an engaged ally in the process of changing this reality. Some big players in the agricultural sector with their headquarters in Singapore, are investing heavily in Africa. Technology and skills are being transferred to smallholder farmers and the large-scale producers are cooperating, playing a fair game that will help develop the sector and make it more sustainable.
Agriculture in Africa: An overview
In Africa, agriculture accounts for two thirds of livelihoods and food accounts for two thirds of the household budgets of poor people. It makes up a very important part of the lives of African people, but in spite of it, it apparently receives very little attention from the governments.
The low productivity levels of agriculture in Africa have resulted in a worrisome scenario: it does not meet the growing demand for food from urban centres. The region is increasingly dependent on food imports. For a continent with such a vast area, a booming young population and tropical climate, it is surprising that Africa is not a net exporter of agricultural products. In the 1970s, Africa provided 8% of the world’s total agricultural exports. Today this number has dropped to a negligible 2%.
Africa spent US$35bn on food imports (excluding fish) in 2011, only 5% of it related to trading within the continent. An increase in productivity, matched with the right set of policies and investment, could revert this situation. Africa could replace these imports with their own produce, which would in turn reduce poverty, enhance food and nutrition security, and provide sustainable growth to the respective societies.
A broader economic transformation is necessary to shift the current paradigm facing agriculture in Africa. In most of the cases, urbanization and economic growth have resulted in new opportunities for local agricultural producers. However, in Africa, this share of the market mainly belongs to foreign companies. Imports of food staples have been rising sharply, and domestic agriculture has so far failed to increase supply in response. Raising productivity in agriculture is vital to transformative growth, not just because it has the potential to expand markets by displacing imports, but also because agricultural growth is twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in non-agricultural sectors.
How does agricultural development trigger economic growth?
Agricultural growth was the precursor to the industrial revolutions that spread across the temperate world, from England in the mid 18th century, to Japan in the late 19thcentury. At that time, a better understanding of the use of soil and techniques, such as irrigation, use of horsepower in the fields, and seed selection, improved crop yields. Consequently, livestock could be better fed during winter times, increasing the size of herds. These changes in agriculture made it possible to feed all the people attracted to the industrial centres as factory workers, triggering the industrial revolution and leading to higher economic growth.
More recently, we see examples of economic transformation linking better agricultural productivity to industrial growth in countries such as China, India, and Vietnam.
In the modern world, the cycle of economic growth resulting from agriculture development, is somewhat more complex than what was observed at the beginning of the industrial revolution. First, as income grows, demand for non-food items grows while demand for most agricultural products decreases as a percentage of total consumer spending. Consumers start spending more money on non-essential products, while spending on food flattens. This imbalance increases the price of non-food items relative to food prices, causing resources like labour and capital to move from agriculture to more remunerative uses in other sectors.
As economic development unfolds, education levels grow across populations. The formal education and complex skills acquired through schooling are largely required in the non-agricultural sectors. With increasing education levels, an economy sees its working force in the fields being replaced by machines and a better use of the soil and resources. Large-scale corporate farms replace small-scale family farms. In the long run, the value of farm production typically grows slower than does aggregate income, or GDP.
Over time, the agricultural sector gives up land to urban expansion, industrial and services sectors use (including recreational and tourism activities), and increasingly also for purposes of environmental conservation. That is, in a nutshell, the history of Singapore. The lack of land, however, resulted in an extreme version of the scenario and basically all the output of agricultural sector was replaced by imports.
In larger countries, these shifts can reach a balance, with a highly productive agricultural sector that provides food to a thriving urban area.
Agricultural growth in Africa
The reality of agricultural development in Africa is still far from ideal. In sub-Saharan Africa, the growth rate of agricultural GDP per capita was close to zero during the early 1970s, reaching negative figures in some years. This changed in the 1980s, when agricultural GDP growth reached 2.3% per year, increasing to 3.8% a year from 2000 to 2005. However, this increment was mainly due to an expansion in farm land, and not in agricultural productivity. African farm yields are among the lowest in the world. However, some countries have experienced a strong GDP growth in agriculture, such as Zambia, Liberia, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

Private sector solution?

From the spice groves and palm-fringed beaches of Zanzibar to the great plains of the Serengeti and the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania can not only claim the greatest variation in altitude on the continent, but also some of its most exotic locations. But despite the richness of culture, landscape and wildlife, Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and faces a serious environmental crisis. With the best rangelands increasingly cultivated to feed a population that has tripled in the last forty years, Tanzania's vast herds of zebu cattle are being forced onto marginal land that is over-grazed to the point of becoming desert. Traditional cattle owners are unwilling to reduce their herd sizes, which for them are the equivalent of life-savings, pension and children's inheritance, and their way of life is threatened by imported concepts of land ownership, as well as pressure from their government to give up their nomadic existence and 'settle down'.
Agro-economy

When Tanzania gained independence in 1967, agriculture was at the centre of the country's development plans, on the basis of the 'Ujamaa' communal land ownership system. However, support for independence movements in other countries stretched Tanzania's financial reserves, and worse was to come. In the late 1970s global commodity prices began falling, and over the last 30 years approximately 85% of the real value of Tanzanian agricultural exports per capita has been lost, from an average US$64 in 1966-9 to $9 in 1992-6. Despite this, agriculture continues to contribute around 80% of export earnings, and most industry in the country is also linked to the agricultural sector, whether producing farm inputs such as fertilizer and farm tools, or processing agricultural products: cigarettes, canned meats, beer and pyrethrum.
Crop patterns

Most Tanzanian farmers are smallholders; few families cultivate more than 2 hectares, and even those who have access to more land struggle to benefit from it, lacking all but the most basic hand held tools. Only around 20% of farmers make use of animal traction for ploughing. In terms of crops, maize dominates much of the country, particularly the highlands in north and south. The lush tropical coastal belt, always warm and humid, is dominated by cassava, with rice also grown in an area spreading westwards from Dar es Salaam. Drought resistant millet and sorghum are grown in the central plateau where temperature and rainfall are highly variable, although aside from these arid plains, rainfall is fairly well spread throughout the year, peaking between March and May, with another, shorter rainy season between November and early January.
Sisal estate near Tanga
Sisal estate near Tanga
Having such a diversity of climatic and geographical zones, it is no surprise that Tanzania's farmers grow a huge variety of fruit, vegetable and spice crops. Zanzibar, once a leading source of spices for the global market, continues to produce large amounts of cloves. Coffee, grown both on estates and by smallholders, is a major export crop, earning a mighty 17% of the country's foreign exchange, and cotton, cashew nuts and tobacco are also grown for export by smallholders. In addition to these export crops, Tanzania is impressively self-sufficient in food production, with over 90% of food consumed being 'home grown'. Yet ironically, the producers continue to suffer chronic poverty; less than 30% of people in rural areas have access to safe water, and malnutrition is reported to have doubled in the last 25 years.
Although Tanzania's rangeland resources would seem a major asset, in reality 60% of this area is infested with tsetse fly and, as a result, animals are concentrated in the arid and semi-arid centre and north of the country. An erosion in land quality has been the inevitable result of over-stocking, and grazing is not the only resource to suffer such a fate. Diminishing government support for animal health provision has left veterinary services badly needing succour. While pastoralist communities tend to attract most attention, in fact most farmers in tsetse-free areas raise both crops and livestock. Many keep cattle for milk, but production has not kept pace with population growth, and on average Tanzanians only drink half the quantity of milk drunk by their Kenyan neighbours.
Private sector solution?

Last year the government began formulating an Agricultural Sector Development Strategy, and identified the following constraints to the sector: inappropriate technology, inadequate research and extension services, over-dependence on rainfall, low utilisation of improved technologies, poor infrastructure, especially roads and market networks, lack of financial services in rural areas, limited processing capacity and technology, low and declining prices of most export commodities combined with barriers to trade in developed countries, and HIV/AIDS. Government spokespeople are happy to advocate the need for a revolution in agriculture and related rural activities, and are pushing for private sector supply of inputs, credit, information and marketing services, with a 'facilitative tax regime' the main draw. However, the private sector currently lacks the experience and resources to meet the challenge, and the ultimately any revolution in Tanzania is going to depend on the willingness or otherwise of the international donor 

Private sector solution?

From the spice groves and palm-fringed beaches of Zanzibar to the great plains of the Serengeti and the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania can not only claim the greatest variation in altitude on the continent, but also some of its most exotic locations. But despite the richness of culture, landscape and wildlife, Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and faces a serious environmental crisis. With the best rangelands increasingly cultivated to feed a population that has tripled in the last forty years, Tanzania's vast herds of zebu cattle are being forced onto marginal land that is over-grazed to the point of becoming desert. Traditional cattle owners are unwilling to reduce their herd sizes, which for them are the equivalent of life-savings, pension and children's inheritance, and their way of life is threatened by imported concepts of land ownership, as well as pressure from their government to give up their nomadic existence and 'settle down'.
Agro-economy

When Tanzania gained independence in 1967, agriculture was at the centre of the country's development plans, on the basis of the 'Ujamaa' communal land ownership system. However, support for independence movements in other countries stretched Tanzania's financial reserves, and worse was to come. In the late 1970s global commodity prices began falling, and over the last 30 years approximately 85% of the real value of Tanzanian agricultural exports per capita has been lost, from an average US$64 in 1966-9 to $9 in 1992-6. Despite this, agriculture continues to contribute around 80% of export earnings, and most industry in the country is also linked to the agricultural sector, whether producing farm inputs such as fertilizer and farm tools, or processing agricultural products: cigarettes, canned meats, beer and pyrethrum.
Crop patterns

Most Tanzanian farmers are smallholders; few families cultivate more than 2 hectares, and even those who have access to more land struggle to benefit from it, lacking all but the most basic hand held tools. Only around 20% of farmers make use of animal traction for ploughing. In terms of crops, maize dominates much of the country, particularly the highlands in north and south. The lush tropical coastal belt, always warm and humid, is dominated by cassava, with rice also grown in an area spreading westwards from Dar es Salaam. Drought resistant millet and sorghum are grown in the central plateau where temperature and rainfall are highly variable, although aside from these arid plains, rainfall is fairly well spread throughout the year, peaking between March and May, with another, shorter rainy season between November and early January.
Sisal estate near Tanga
Sisal estate near Tanga
Having such a diversity of climatic and geographical zones, it is no surprise that Tanzania's farmers grow a huge variety of fruit, vegetable and spice crops. Zanzibar, once a leading source of spices for the global market, continues to produce large amounts of cloves. Coffee, grown both on estates and by smallholders, is a major export crop, earning a mighty 17% of the country's foreign exchange, and cotton, cashew nuts and tobacco are also grown for export by smallholders. In addition to these export crops, Tanzania is impressively self-sufficient in food production, with over 90% of food consumed being 'home grown'. Yet ironically, the producers continue to suffer chronic poverty; less than 30% of people in rural areas have access to safe water, and malnutrition is reported to have doubled in the last 25 years.
Although Tanzania's rangeland resources would seem a major asset, in reality 60% of this area is infested with tsetse fly and, as a result, animals are concentrated in the arid and semi-arid centre and north of the country. An erosion in land quality has been the inevitable result of over-stocking, and grazing is not the only resource to suffer such a fate. Diminishing government support for animal health provision has left veterinary services badly needing succour. While pastoralist communities tend to attract most attention, in fact most farmers in tsetse-free areas raise both crops and livestock. Many keep cattle for milk, but production has not kept pace with population growth, and on average Tanzanians only drink half the quantity of milk drunk by their Kenyan neighbours.
Private sector solution?

Last year the government began formulating an Agricultural Sector Development Strategy, and identified the following constraints to the sector: inappropriate technology, inadequate research and extension services, over-dependence on rainfall, low utilisation of improved technologies, poor infrastructure, especially roads and market networks, lack of financial services in rural areas, limited processing capacity and technology, low and declining prices of most export commodities combined with barriers to trade in developed countries, and HIV/AIDS. Government spokespeople are happy to advocate the need for a revolution in agriculture and related rural activities, and are pushing for private sector supply of inputs, credit, information and marketing services, with a 'facilitative tax regime' the main draw. However, the private sector currently lacks the experience and resources to meet the challenge, and the ultimately any revolution in Tanzania is going to depend on the willingness or otherwise of the international donor 

PDF Expert 5: Well Designed PDF Management App with Text-to-Speech

PDF Expert 5 is a well designed PDF management app for the iPad. The app includes many useful features that allow you to read, edit, and annotate PDF documents easily. Unlike some other feature -rich apps, PDF Expert 5 does not feel cultured. The elegant design makes the app easy to use. PDF Expert is an assistive app because of its text-to-speech integration with the added benefit of extra features.

One caveat, while the app is good for non-disabled and dyslexic users, I would not recommend the app for VoiceOver users because of some VoiceOver problems I have found. Readdle, the maker of the app, should work on fixing these VoiceOver problems so blind and visually impaired can also benefit from the app.

PDF files can be imported from numerous cloud storage services including Google Drive, Drop Box and SkyDrive or using the "open-in" feature of many other iOS apps. You can also view other file types, but the built in text-to-speech reader is only available for PDF documents. Files can be organized into folders or dragged and dropped into different sections.

PDF Expert's text-to-speech function works with any PDF with digital text. It does not work with PDF documents that have text within images. To read a compatible PDF, turn on text-to-speech in the reading mode menu and then press play. You can start reading at the middle or end of a page by highlighting a word and pressing "read from here." Text is read with the default iOS voice that many may recognize as the voice of Siri. Unfortunately, you cannot purchase additional higher quality voices. The app also requires you to re-enable text-to-speech every time you switch PDF documents. This is inconvenient if you switch are between PDF documents quickly.

Click read more below to continue reading about PDF Expert.

Viewing a PDF document is also a breeze. PDF Expert includes a quick scrolling mode and thumb nail view to allow you to easily navigate large PDFs. You can also change the background to sepia or night for easier viewing.

Aside from the text-to-speech features PDF Expert includes a number of editing and annotation features. Annotation options include highlighting, underlining, shapes, strike-through, stamps, signatures, and text. These annotation options are intuitive to use and you can easily can the color of highlights and other annotations. If you would like to add text to a PDF document you do not need to worry about overlapping any original text because the app automatically wraps your text so it will not overlap. Unfortunately, the app will not read your text annotations back to you using the built in reader, but you can always use the built in Speak Selection feature.  

PDF Expert also includes a review mode which allows you to edit and markup existing PDF documents. To learn more about this feature see the below video.

With PDF Expert's easy to use annotation and editing features and its built in text-to-speech reader PDF Reader is an ideal app for any iPad user who wants increase productivity. PDF Expert 5 is compatible with iPads running iOS 6 or higher and is available for $9.99 in the App Store.

Livescribe 3 Smartpen: Do More With Your Written Notes

By combining the ease of hand writing, the power and accessibility of Apple's iOS devices, and audio, the Livescribe 3 Smartpen is a powerful tool.  With the smartpen you can start writing on a pad of paper and see your handwriting appear on your iPad or iPhone almost instantly. 

When taking notes It can record audio that is linked to your handwriting, allowing you to easily hear what was happening exactly when you were writing.  It can easily search through notebooks of handwritten pages to find the right note in an instant, and it allows you to share your notes with anyone without copying or scanning.

The Livescribe 3 Smartpen is not just a refinement of last year's Sky Wifi Smartpen. The Livescribe 3 Smartpen adds new functionality by pairing it with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The Livescribe 3 is still capable of syncing handwriting and audio, but instead of recording the audio from a built in microphone, the recording happens on an iPhone or iPad paired to the pen with Bluetooth. With the pen connected to an iOS device using Bluetooth, features like handwriting recognition and cloud based storage options are handled by the iOS devices. Most of the pens functionality is handled with the free Livescribe+ app that seamlessly manages the Smartpen.

Read on to find out more about the Livescribe 3.

Hardware and Requirements

The Livescribe 3 is a sleek and streamlined device that is about the same size as some thicker standard pens. The pen twists open to reveal the ball point tip. No more forgetting to turn on your pen, it turns on automatically when the tip is out. At the bottom is a special camera that allows the pen to track its location on the page. At the top of the pen is a stylist tip. The stylist tip hides a micro-USB charging port. Speaking of charging, Livescribe claims the pen gets 14 hours of battery life. At the top there is also an indicator light that shows the status of the pen. The Livescribe 3 uses advanced Bluetooth to connect to the companion app. The pen only supports Apple devices because they have the widest compatibility with the new Bluetooth standard. Livescribe may support Android devices when advanced Bluetooth is more widely available. The pen is compatible with iPhone 4S and newer, iPad 3rd generation and newer, and iPod Touch 5th generation. The companion app requires iOS 7.

The Livescribe 3 requires a special dot paper that Livescribe sells on their website. Some may think of this a negative, but the Livescribe notebooks come in a variety of sizes and are competitively priced.

Livescribe+ App

The Livescribe+ app is the brains of the Livescribe 3 smartpen. The pen sends your notes to the app over Bluetooth and then processes the handwriting and turns it into digital text. The app makes it easy to review notes in a page view or list view. Because the app turns handwriting into digital text, it is simple and fast to search through your notebook. You can search by keyword and easily find all associated notes. Once your handwriting has been converted to digital text you can use the built in iOSSpeak Selection feature to have your note read aloud with text-to-speech.

The handwriting recognition was amazingly accurate even with my sloppy handwriting and if it does make a mistake you can manually correct it. If you write down a phone number or an address you can save the information as a contact with one tap. If you write down a homework assignment you can save it directly into your Reminders list which is a nice touch. Using an iOSdevice as the brains of the smartpen allowed Livescribe to remove the screen, speaker, microphone, and wifi which considerably slimmed down the pen. Using an external microphone eliminates the writing noise that the Sky Wifi Smartpen picks up.

Taking the microphone out of the smartpen does not come with out compromise. Because the smartpen relies on the iOS devices microphone you can not record audio without an iOS device nearby. You can still capture your written notes and sync them next time you have your iOS device handy. For some who don't always have their device close by, but still want to record audio the Sky Wifi Smartpen is a great option. If you always have your device close by this won't be an issue.

Sharing your notes is one area where the Livescribe+ app really shines. Using the standard iOS 7 share sheet you can share your notes to any app that supports PDFs. This includes Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many others. Currently recipients of your documents that don't own an iOS 7 device can only view your handwriting and cannot play back the audio and linked notes known as a pencast. It is really unfortunate that the ability to view pencasts on desktops and Android devices was not present at launch. 

Benefits

The Livescribe 3 can benefit many people who need to keep useful notes for work or school. It can be especially useful for students with learning disabilities who struggle to take or keep notes. For example if a teacher is talking about graphing points and the student gets distracted, he can easily go back in his notes and listen to the audio at a later time.

Teachers and special educators who have multiple students who get class notes provided as an accommodation can easily use the Livescribe+ app to share the note instantly with everyone in the class. This eliminates the need for hard-to-read carbon paper or delays due to photo copying. For people who struggle with organization, the ability to search for notes maybe enough of a reason to purchase the pen. Using a conventional ball point pen for writing is much easier than using a stylus to write on an iPad. The Livescribe 3 gives you the ability to write with a ball point tip while still getting all of the benefits of having your notes on your iPad.

Possibilities

The Livescribe 3 Smartpen and Livescribe+ app have really solid features that have benefits right out of the box. If you decide to buy the pen you should decide to because of the features currently available, but with very capable hardware and the flexibility of an iOS app Livescribe could and should continue to improve the product. One feature that I would like to see added is the ability to speed up and slow down audio playback. Variable playback speed makes it easy listen to more audio in less time. With the Sky Wifi Smartpen this was an option, but it is not currently available in the Livescribe+ app. Audio transcription is another feature that would be a great addition to the Livescribe+ app. Imagine listening to a lecture and having the entire text transcript of the professor even if you weren't able to write everything down.  With improving speak recognition software this feature is probably technically possible.

Pricing and Availability

The Livescribe 3 starts at $150 for the starter edition. A pro edition with a darker finish, larger leather starter notebook, replacement ink, one year premium Evernote access sells for $200. Both editions are avalible from Livescribe's website.

Instagram rolls out Live Video broadcast feature globally

Instagram launched Live Videos to its app’s Stories feature back in December 2016. At launch the feature was exclusive to individuals residing in US. Approximately a month later, the Facebook owned company is finally rolling out the feature globally.

It might seem that both Facebook and Instagram are offering the same feature but the mode of delivery is totally different. Instagram Live Videos are different from Facebook Live Videos in that they totally vanish once the live broadcast is terminated. The video will no longer be visible on Instagram once you end the live broadcast.

Another important point is you will only be able to record live video up to a maximum of 60 minutes which is essentially one hour. In layman’s language, one session of live video broadcast can last for a maximum of only one hour.

How to Start a Live Video

Note that you will need to update your Instagram app to version 10.0 and above.

1. Launch your Instagram application
2. Tap the camera icon in the top left corner of the screen.
3. Alternatively, swipe right from anywhere in feed.
4. Tap Live at the bottom of the screen.
5. Then tap Start Live Video.

Your followers will likely receive a notification when you start a live video.

The number of viewers appears in the top right of the screen and comments appear at the bottom. To add a comment simply tap the Comment option. You can also pin a comment to the top so that viewers can see it more easily. To pin a comment, you simply tap and hold on it.

In case you want to turn off comments, Instagram has got you covered. You only need to tap and select Turn Off Commenting. To end your Live Broadcast is as simple as tapping End in the top right. A screen will appear asking you to confirm if indeed you wish to terminate your broadcast. Tap again to confirm.

Uber takes on mapping the planet.

Uber is mapping the planet. The ride-sharing company has shown its commitment to having its own mapping data by rolling out map-cars in Singapore. This is one of 5 other countries that the mapping vehicles have been put in all 5 major continents.

The cars are cryptographic driver rides with mapping tech on top to collect data on real trips. According to the company, Uber will not keep imagery from the end points of your trip thus eliminating the issue of privacy. The data collected will also not be made public.

The company is a long way to getting its own comprehensive mapping data with mapping hardware only available in one country per continent outside North America. This though is an important step to reaching that goal. Uber relies on google for its regular mapping and has a strong incentive to develop a mapping product of its own.

Last year, it was reported that Uber planned to spend at least $500million on the ambitious mapping project. Additionally, the company has taken to poaching some of Google’s brightest mapping talent including Amit Singhal, Manik Gupta and Brian McCledon, all engineers involved in the core making of google maps.

The data collected will reflect the harder-to-pinpoint aspects of routes such as which side a building is facing. This will also be a major asset in Uber’s plan to roll out self-driving cars especially in Singapore which has embraced autonomous technology at a fast pace. The mapping investment by Uber is likely to pay off hugely when robotic ride-sharing is commonplace.

“Over the past decade, mapping innovation has disrupted industries and changed daily life in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I started,” said Manik Gupta, head of product at Uber. “That progress will only accelerate in the coming years especially with technologies like self-driving cars.”

The mapping cars are currently operating in US, Mexico, Canada, the UK, South Africa Australia and Singapore.

IBM and Ericsson have announced a research breakthrough that could accelerate the launch of 5G communications networks

BM and Ericsson have announced a research breakthrough that could accelerate the launch of 5G communications networks and support new mobile enterprise and user experiences enabled by very high data rates, including IoT, connected vehicles, and immersive virtual reality.

The companies have created a compact silicon-based millimeterWave (mmWave) phased array integrated circuit operating at 28GHz that has been demonstrated in a phased array antenna module designed for use in future 5G base stations.

2017 has been described as a defining year for 5G. More countries and governments are opening up new frequency portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including portions known as millimeter wave bands, which are more than 10 times higher than the frequencies currently used for current mobile devices, offering a new source of bandwidth for cellular networks that are being made available for 5G networks.

Scientists at IBM Research and Ericsson reached their breakthrough as a result of a two-year collaboration that set out to develop phased array antenna designs for 5G. IBM’s expertise in highly integrated phased array mmWave IC and antenna-in-package solutions, together with Ericsson’s expertise in circuit and system design for mobile communications, helped the team reach several new technological milestones.

“There has been a lot of encouraging progress in 5G standardization last year including the beginning of live field trials. Big efforts in research and development are key to this and our collaboration with IBM Research on phased array antennas can help operators to effectively deploy radio access infrastructure necessary to support a 5G future. New use cases and applications that span human machine interaction, Virtual Reality, smart home devices and connected cars will depend on innovative technologies that can bring the promises of faster data rates, broader bandwidth and longer battery life to reality.”

– Thomas Noren, Senior Advisor, Business Unit Network Products, Ericsson

“The development of this 5G millimeterWave phased array is an important breakthrough, not just because of its compact size and low cost, which make it a very commercially attractive solution for network equipment companies and operators, but its potential to unleash and inspire brand new ideas and innovations we haven’t yet imagined, thanks to a fully networked society.”

-Dr. Dario Gil, Vice President of Science & Solutions, IBM Research

Making 5G a Reality

The first release of the 3GPP 5G specification is targeted to be ready by 2017/2018, but there has already been much progress in the industry with field tests and demonstrations of new user experiences and capabilities made possible by the higher bandwidth, lower latency, greater density and lower energy requirements of 5G networks.

5G is expected to support data rates exceeding 10Gbps in certain scenarios. New capabilities are designed to allow users to download a full-length HD movie in seconds, provide very high bandwidth and uninterrupted live streaming experiences in highly dense environments such as sports or concert venues, experience ‘life-like’ response times to enable remote surgery or fully immersive virtual reality experiences, as well as see battery life of 10 years for remote cellular devices that may be part of IoT environments.

About the Phased Array Antenna Module Breakthrough

For future 5G phased array deployments to be commercially viable the size, weight, cost and performance of the component are important factors. The IBM and Ericsson team’s result, the world’s first reported silicon-based mmWave phased array antenna module operating at 28GHz, is a significant step towards meeting this challenge. The module, which consists of four monolithic integrated circuits and 64 dual-polarized antennas, measures approximately 2.8” by 2.8”, or about half the size of a typical smartphone. Achieving this compact form factor is necessary to support the vision of this technology’s widespread deployment, especially in indoor spaces and dense downtown areas.

Another performance advance reported by the team is the demonstration of concurrent dual-polarization operation in transmit and receive modes. This capability enables one phased array antenna module to form two beams simultaneously, doubling the number of users to be served at the same time and so improving the overall value and economics of the technology.

A major hurdle for the use of mmWave signals in mobile communications is achieving sufficient range between radios to support target applications. At 28 GHz, each antenna is tiny and individually would support short communication distances, but combining multiple such tiny antennas not only increases the range but also enables steering of signals in specific directions. The IBM and Ericsson team’s phased array design supports beam-steering resolution of less than 1.4 degrees for high precision pointing of the beam towards users.

IBM Communications Circuits & Systems Innovation

IBM Research has a long history designing and developing integrated circuits and phased arrays, and were pioneers of the first monolithic mmWave radio in 2006. In 2013, the team presented results of a highly integrated mmWave phased array transceiver for both mobile communications and radar imaging applications that laid the foundation for this latest scientific work. The IBM scientists have also explored how mobile handsets will communicate at new mmWave frequencies, showing a path for how mmWave 5G radios could be implemented in mobile phones.

A paper describing the IBM Research and Ericsson team’s work, “A 28GHz 32-Element Phased-Array Transceiver IC with Concurrent Dual Polarized Beams and 1.4 Degree Beam-Steering Resolution for 5G Communications,” was presented on February 7 at the 2017 International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.