AALP Class 14 International Study Tour - Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Expect the unexpected, organized chaos, frightening, bumpy, contrast and adventure. These are some of the ways that the AALP Class 14 members described their varied experiences today. We started the day by visiting the head office of Digital Green http://www.digitalgreen.org/  where the class was in awe of CEO Rikin Gandhi's leadership strategy for the company. We then moved to the Indian Dairy Association where the class learned about the history and evolution of the dairy industry in India.

After a quick lunch we headed to the third stop of the day, when a load of rocks narrowing the road caused the bus to make a detour. The problem with detours in India is that the roads do not run in any organized fashion and a five minute drive soon turned into a 45 minute adventure through very rural India. Once we arrived at our third stop, the Pioneer Mustard Breeding Station, the class learned more about the seed breeding process.

As we headed to our fourth and final stop for the day, thinking that our off road adventure was behind us, we soon realized the adventure had actually just begun. We encountered very rough roads, on-going construction, a 100m puddle.  This adventure was finished off by driving dangerously close to the edge of an open-face quarry. But once we arrived at Surjivan Farm for our cocktail dinner, we were greeted by traditional dancers and song, and then paraded to the farm by camel and donkey pulled wagons. It was an amazing finale to a chaotic day.

Marian Sterk, Leanne Cheesmond, Graham Hoogterp – AALP Class 14 bloggers