When it comes to crazy things, nothing beats what Pilirani Lazaro, a 22-year-old peasant farmer from Kalaza Village in central Malawi, did recently.

It may sound stranger than fiction, but on November 21, he took a knife, went into the bush, cut off his testicles and immediately put them up for sale.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika had just returned home from New York where he had been attending a UN heads of state summit to review the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making a detour through Havana—a city known more for its cigars than for its pies.

As is customary, he held a press conference when he touched down at Chileka International Airport and used the occasion to flay his critics for complaining that his numerous foreign trips were draining the national treasury.

Editors Note: Knight Fellow Edem Djokotoe investigates the fishing industry in Malawi

The future of Malawi’s agriculture could lie in the hands of people like Heinrich Sitima, a 14-year-old school boy I met during a farm visit in Chiradzulu, a rural district some 30 minutes’ drive from Blantyre. He lives with his parents on Wambeu Farm, a 10-hectare sprawl with pigs, goats, cows, fish, bananas, cabbages, tomatoes, onions and a animal feed enterprise.
   Heinrich Sitima at Wambeu Farm in Chiradzulu Heinrich wants to be a farmer when he grows up.

I had hopes that, if not all, at least most of the students who assured me they'd be here on the first class would show up.

Folha de São Paulo, the newspaper where I'm hosted, has 12 computers in the training room I was given access to. Unfortunately the larger room, with 14 machines, was being used by Folha's own trainees and was not available.

I have for a while been aware of the ironic “equality” between Africa and America that the rate of food wastage on the two continents is about the same at 30 to 50 percent: In America it is spoilt in people’s refrigerators while in Africa it is spoilt on the way to the market.

But this disturbing African reality hit me again hard in the face last month as we were gathering information about the Tanzania dairy industry ahead of the Milk Week at the end of May.