"Outtakes and Observations" documents the international travels of the LSU Ag Leadership Program, and a tribute to its original writer, Michael Danna. Mike loved traveling the world with each class and blogged from all corners of the globe starting with his trip to South America as a member of Class VIII in 2004. Mike lost his third battle with cancer on March 6, 2015, but his work continues here. Members of each class will offer their thoughts and insights during their travels, so check back often as we honor Mike’s memory and look forward to the future leadership of Louisiana agriculture.
By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
If you refer to a banana plant as a tree Carlos Gamboa will point his razor sharp machete at you and tell you not to call it that. At the Dole Banana Plantation today outside La Fortuna the class learned everything there is to know about the banana. It really is the perfect food.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
There’s still a prevailing notion that women in agriculture are something of a novelty. That’s like saying women might one day make it to the boardroom. While women do make up a small percentage of farm-owner/operators, (less than 6 percent nationwide), the number of women taking a more active role in agriculture is on the upswing.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
A belated shout-out happy birthday to Josh Vines, who celebrated his 29th trip around the sun last night. We celebrated with a cake provided by the restaurant.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
We had another great day today. We visited a sugarcane plantation, followed by lunch and a stop at the Iguana Ice Cream Shoppe.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
It’s amazing what hours on a bus will do for your interpersonal disposition. Every AgLeadership international trip involves riding on buses to get to the next destination. That down time usually gives me a chance to get to know the class members. Some I’ve known for years; others I’m meeting for the first time. But each member has, so far, left a distinct impression on me.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations
A man who really loves his family, I mean really loves them, will chop sugarcane with a machete 10 hours a day in 95-degree heat. He’ll even leave his home in Nicaragua and walk to where the work is: in Costa Rica.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
There have been volumes written about American’s love affair with their smart phones. One of the films up for an Oscar this year is “Her,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, a romantic letter writer who falls in love with his software, so to speak. A modern day “Romeo and Siri,” if you will.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
If Nicaragua is the charcoal briquette of Central America, neighboring Costa Rica is Latin America’s Crown Jewel. You can pick your friends, as they say, but you can’t pick your neighbors.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
The blog blackout over the last two nights comes to an end with our arrival in Costa Rica Wednesday night. The hotel in Jinotego, Selva Negra, Nicaragua, was something out of a Hemingway novel; pre-War German-influence architecture, small rooms and rustic, lush green courtyards and sitting areas. The most reliable thing in the hotel was the laundry service and the bar. For most on this tour that’s all that was really needed.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
No matter where AgLeadership graduates travel, be it China, Chile or Central America, they always pick up on the common tie that binds Third World nations: the cost of labor.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
The Nicaraguan hotel the class is staying in has no internet. Mike will post an update when they arrive in Costa Rica.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
As a result, the rich were wiped out in a purging for the poor and in the end everyone was poor. The economist Thomas Robert Malthus said that population expands geometrically, while the food supply expands arithmetically. That basic principle was at the heart of the Nicaraguan dictatorship, where food and other essentials were rationed.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
A Third World traveler’s worst nightmare is getting sick in a place with few options for getting better. It happened to me Saturday and for a moment I began to worry that things were going to take a real turn for the worst. I contracted a bladder infection.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
You don’t get to be the largest food distributor in Panama by cutting corners. You do it by cutting beef. And pork and everything else the Panamanian consumer, regardless of income, needs.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
An official of the Panama Canal told a group of Louisiana farmers traveling here that the state’s grain export infrastructure is essential to global commodities shipments through the Central American country.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
There’s an old saying about having to break a few eggs if you want to make an omelet. There’s another old saying that goes, “a snake might not hurt you, but it’ll make you hurt yourself.” But more on the snakes later.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
Good morning from Panama City. Class 13 of the LSU AgLeadership Program touched down in the Canal Zone at 9:51 p.m. EST after an uneventful three-hour flight from Miami. Current temperature, which is always the current temperature regardless of time of day, is 82 with an expected high of 90.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
I’ve never had a fear of the number 13. In fact, I’ve often called the number out, particularly on Friday the 13th, daring it to mess with me. Fear of the number 13 dates back a ways. Some say the fear was derived from Judas Iscariot, the 13th apostle to arrive at the Last Supper. We all know how that story ended.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
One of the best things about traveling abroad is returning home to the greatest country on earth.
Only Americans can say that. There are 312 million of us, which leaves about 6.6 billion others who can only dream about it. Be it ever so humble, right?
I trust all of you made it home safely and got a chance to catch up on some well- deserved rest. Nothing like sleeping in one’s own bed to really give the body a chance to recover.
Read MoreBy Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
When Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin invented PowerPoint in 1984 they hoped it would replace its dull predecessors, the overhead projector and transparencies. PowerPoint, with its interactive capabilities incorporating graphics, sound and motion, was supposed to captivate audiences, enabling them to better retain the information they were seeing and hearing.
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