Baobab: News Briefs

Footage to Air on PBS

Some of the footage and parts of a key interview done by Baobab for our production "If There Were No Bananas" have been purchased by Ward TV. It is a Washington DC-based production company owned in part by fabled CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite. The footage and interview clips are being used in the pilot program for a new series called "Secrets of the Sequence." This science series will step outside the usual territory of the human genome and explore the other exciting avenues this technology can open up. The pilot program shows how sequencing something as apparently mundane as the banana genome might pave the way for an assured food supply for the hundreds of millions of people world-wide who depend on bananas and plantains as their starch staple.

Commercials for IITA

"Research to Nourish Africa" is the new slogan for IITA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. To launch the new slogan and a new look for IITA, Baobab has produced three 30 second Public Service Announcements (PSA's). They are called Dreams, Pride and Achievement and focus on how agricultural research in Africa can allow people to dream, restore their pride and let their children achieve. The spots will be used by IITA strategically around the world. At present they are in English only but Japanese versions are in the works.

Baobab to make Video for IFPRI

The Washington DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has commissioned Baobab to produce a short inspirational video based on the material aired on our television series "Centres of Action." The video will premiere at the 2020 Vision Conference in  Bonn, Germany,  the first week of September, 2001. The conference theme is "Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020."

Video News Release for  Lancet and Africa Malaria Day

April 25, 2001 was an important day for the struggle against malaria in Africa. It was the World Health Organization's first Africa Malaria Day. It was also the week the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published the results of a new malaria prevention study in Tanzania. Baobab produced a video news release package for the research sponsors, the Swiss Tropical Institute and will produce a further video about malaria prevention in that region.

New Training Sessions in Africa

Baobab recently completed short video training sessions for staff at two major international institutions. In Ibadan, Nigeria and Yaounde, Cameroon our participants were from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The course was a two day introduction to the use of digital video cameras for research documentation. In Nairobi we gave a one day session to the Africa-based staff of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Baobab goes Bananas over Video

The International Network for the Improvement of Banana And Plantain (INIBAP) has commissioned Baobab to make a video about the importance of bananas and plantains to global food security. People in the richer countries of the north usually take bananas for granted, a nice but not essential dessert fruit. But for millions in the developing world, bananas and plantains are the staple starch source in the diet. Baobab has completed the first phase of location work in Thailand, India and the Philippines. Shoots in Africa and Latin America are planned for 2001. The video is scheduled to premiere at ICW 2001, the annual conference on global agricultural research in Washington DC.

Training in Nairobi

Staff of the Communications and Publications Division of the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry spent the first week of July in an intensive video production training course designed by Baobab. The Nairobi-based research institute has realized that effective use of video is a necessary skill to have when it comes to communicating with both the general public and with large donor agencies.

First on the Block with new digital editing

This summer Baobab installed one of  North America's most advanced digital production facilities with the addition of a Matrox RT2000 real time editing system. As with the original DV Master installation four years ago, Baobab Productions is one of the first companies n the world to adopt the newest digital technology. It improves work flow and makes it easier for clients to see a product as it is being edited.

AQUAtox complete 

May was a banner month for Baobab Productions with the release of a set of videos about the International Development research Centre's AQUAtox 2000 project. On May 29th our inspirational / motivational video about the global project to demonstrate community-based water testing techniques debuted at a reception in Ottawa attended by federal cabinet members and students who from around the world who had participated in the project. Two days later our English and French language news releases were picked up by several Canadian broadcasters. Baobab taped scenes on location in Mexico, the Ukraine, Germany, Burkina Faso and the Philippines.

PBS Debut

On September 24th, 1999 "Market to Market", a weekly program about rural affairs in the United States, broadcast a feature about appropriate agricultural technologies for developing countries. The feature was based on three of Baobab's stories from last season and made extensive use of Baobab footage. "Market to Market" is the longest running rural tv magazine in the United States and is currently carried by more than 80 affiliates of PBS, the US Public Broadcasting System.

Magazine Article About Us

Baobab Productions is profiled in the September edition of Ottawa Life, a slick bimonthly magazine about the city of Ottawa. You can buy it at new stands  and supermarket checkouts in Ottawa, or read an excerpt of the article on the Ottawa Life home page.

AQUAtox 2000

Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is the chief sponsor of a water quality and health project involving 60 schools around the world. Students measure local water quality using a kit provided by IDRC. They learn scientific methods and do a service for their communities. This fall, Baobab Productions will be documenting the work of students at two of the schools in Mexico for use at a celebration of the project in the spring of the year 2000

Broadcast Editing in a Brief Case!

Baobab Productions has just brought on line the world's most compact, mobile broadcast video editing facility. It weighs less than 6 pounds and fits in a small brief case. The key is a new Sony Laptop computer, the Z505SX. It weighs just over 3 pounds with the battery, but has a built-in digital video link. In combination with a compact, digital video camcorder like our 2 lb. PC7, it makes a complete mobile edit and production facility that easily fits in carry-on luggage. Baobab hopes to use the system in the field to edit short features (up to 7 minutes) without having to return to our home home base.

Training Program for Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada, the numbers bureau of the Canadian federal government is conducting a unique capacity building project for its counterpart bureau in China. They are producing a training course in survey methodology that will eventually be taken by thousands of statistics bureau employees in China. To deliver the fifteen module program to so many students, Canada and China will turn to video. Baobab has just competed a script development course with the members of the Canadian training team to help them bring their story of surveys to life.

Agricultural Research "on the air"

Baobab is producing a series of weekly features about ground-breaking agricultural research work being done in developing countries, primarily in Latin America. Each story looks at a project of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It's a consortium of 16 research centres around the world devoted to improving nutrition and food security for the world's poorest. The Canadian International Development Agency, (CIDA), provided funding for Baobab to make ten feature stories for the fall season of the CTV network television program "The Canadian Farm." The shooting locations included the Sacred Valley of the Incas near Cusco, Peru and the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico. Other locations were in Colombia, Ghana and Bangladesh. The series begins in Canada on September 19, 1998. Click here for a list of the stories and their scheduled air dates.

High Speed Internet Experiment

Baobab will be one of the first businesses in Canada to use a new, very high speed internet connection utilizing special uhf frequencies to move data over the air between office and internet backbone. Sometimes called "wireless cable" the new system will let Baobab post higher quality video off-lines to clients all over the world. Baobab will provide video for a "video on demand" demonstration. The system, operated by Maxlink, should be running by September 1. The trial period will run for about four months.

Fog to Drinking Water in Ecuador 

Pachamama Grande is a village of a hundred, isolated on a small plateau 12,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Potable drinking water has been a problem for these people for as long as anyone can remember. But nearly every evening the mountain top is shrouded in clouds. Canadian scientists have designed a set of fog-catching sails that convert that mountain mist into safe, abundant water for the people of Pachamama Grande (Great Earth Mother). Baobab has just returned with video from the site for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). 

New Video and Book about Women Fish Farmers in Bangladesh 

The International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) has selected Baobab's Marlene Bedford and David Mowbray to produce a short video about their successful aquaculture research program in Bangladesh. Simultaneously, Marlene and David will write a book on the same topic for the Gender Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). Both video and book will focus on the unique opportunities the program has provided for poor, rural women in Bangladesh. 

Assignment Ghana

In October, Baobab documented the remarkable work of researchers at the Navrongo Health Research Centre in Northern Ghana. Located in one of the world's poorest areas, the centre is conducting front line research into interventions that can improve the health of children not only there but throughout Africa. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) chose Baobab for the assignment because we knew the territory well and because we have a demonstrated understanding of the methods of scientific research. 

Baobab Releases "White Plague"

Baobab has just completed a new, 11 minute, video feature about nature's most dangerous agricultural pest - the whitefly. Disease-causing viruses, transmitted by the pinhead sized insect, destroy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food in developing countries every year. The target crops include beans, tomatoes, cassava and sweet potatoes. Now an international consortium of research institutions has banded together to get at the whitefly problem. Baobab recorded on location in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Colombia to tell their story.

Baobab Chosen to write video guide for IDRC 

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has selected Baobab to write a special guide book for its program officers. The booklet will concentrate on helping the staff of the world renowned development agency make informed decisions about video investments, co-productions and internal video projects.

(added 6/8/97)

Baobab's "Bean Dreamers" broadcast

"The Canadian Farm" [produced for Baton Broadcasting by Carleton Productions International] broadcast Baobab's production "Bean Dreamers" between May 10 and May 17th. The estimated North American Audience was 3.4 million viewers. "The Canadian Farm" is Canada's national farm and agri-food television show. It is also carried on direct broadcast satellite in the United States. Broadcast Schedule. News Release.

Baobab Records CIDA Success Stories

Baobab Productions has just completed recording video and still material about three successful development projects in China. The projects were all funded in part by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The projects were: 

• China-Canada Lean Swine Project - better pork for the Chinese.
• Integrated Intensive Forest Management - a project to help make China's northern forests last.
• Canada Fund aid to a centre for autistic children - the only one of its kind in China.

Training Program in China a Great Success

Baobab Productions was chosen by the Training Division of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to conduct a two week intensive training program for Chinese agricultural extension service personnel. All were experienced videographers in their own right. The Baobab course was designed to upgrade skills with a view to improving the quality of training and educational videos produced by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. Twelve videographers from across China participated in the course. All rated it very highly.

Baobab Videos Broadcast

Baobab has found a broadcast ally in Canada's national agriculture TV show "The Canadian Farm." The show has already broadcast "To Leave Something More," our video about the work of the Andean Bean Research Network and our package on Integrated Pest Management with bean crops in the Andes. Executive Producer for Carleton Productions International, Mark Ross, says that viewer response to the stories from the developing world has been fantastic. Canadian Farm is viewed weekly by 350,000 Canadians, mainly in rural areas. The show recently signed a deal for US direct broadcast satellite distribution and now also reaches 3 million Americans. 

"Los Baños Trolley" in Production

Baobab is starting production of a documentary video tentatively titled "Los Baños Trolley." It tells the story of some poor shanty-town children in the Philippines who have found a unique way to earn income for themselves and provide a vital service for their community at the same time.