Hopes of a bumper end to the year for retailers faded yesterday after figures showed the post-Christmas sales frenzy had waned. A “marked” drop in the number of shoppers at the end of last week fuelled fears that any respite from tough trading was temporary, prompting traders to dump retail stocks. Shares in Tesco, Marks & Spencer, GUS, Woolworths and Next, which reports its Christmas figures today, werehit.. Hopes for a strong economic recovery this year were dealt a blow yesterday by a raft of figures showing 2005 ended amid lacklustre conditions across industry, the high street and the housing market. Factory bosses cut jobs last month as growth in new orders from abroad slowed and their cost bill escalated to a nine-month high, an industry snapshot showed.. HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, unveiled a top-level reshuffle yesterday that saw its chief operating officer and an independent director step down and the chairman of Rolls-Royce brought in to beef up investment banking experience on the board. No replacement was announced for Alan Jebson, the chief operating officer since 2003, who will retire at HSBC’s annual shareholder meeting after 28 years with the company.

He was in charge of the bank’s property and information technology, and his role may be split.
Sir John Kemp-Welch, a non-executive director of HSBC since 2000, is replaced by Simon Robertson, a past president of Goldman Sachs Europe and the former chairman of its rival investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Benson.Mr Robertson, who quit Goldman in August, is a non-executive chairman of the aeroplane engine maker Rolls-Royce and a director of The Economist Newspaper, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, and the fine wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd.Dyfrig John, the chief executive designate of HSBC’s British banking operation, will also become a group managing director in March.The shake-up is the latest change to the bank’s board since the announcement in November that Sir John Bond, its chairman, would retire to be replaced by the chief executive Stephen Green in a reshuffle that flies in the face of corporate governance rules.The rules, which were brought in after a report by Sir Derek Higgs, frown upon the promotion of a chief executive to the chair, to safeguard the independence of the role.HSBC said it was too big and diverse to appoint an outsider.. Now that they are fed properly, the cows produce more milk – up to 5.5 litres per hectare per day, all year round – which means there is enough to drink and some left over to sell or make cheese with. With crop yields up and alfalfa patches growing well, local people can now buy a bull at the market for 600 Peruvian soles (about £100), fatten it up and sell it for 1,300 soles (£220). In many cases, the new system follows the ancient channels laid by the Incas.”The sprinkler system is something totally new to us and we needed it to enhance ancestral techniques,” said Mr Ccanayucra. The real amazement came when we turned on the tap and saw the sprinklers spin and the water spray everywhere.”The impact of the watering system has been huge for many reasons. All those little parts actually worked and 40 families’ fields were watered. Despite travelling to neighbouring villages to see the equipment in action, the arrival of mechanical pumps, miles of rubber piping and engineering gear was daunting for an indigenous community unused to modern technology.Mr Ccanayucra said: “We were in awe of it when it all came together.

In others, thin rubber pipes pierced with tiny holes deliver a precise stream to individual plants.The project, typical of the work of Practical Action, involves providing technology and expertise to the community who then built it, and now manage it, themselves “Land that we treated as wasteland is now productive. Things are growing everywhere,” says Mr Ccanayucra.Getting local people to provide the labour gives them a greater sense of ownership over the project itself, says Washington Chani, the local director of Practical Action. “We told them about the sprinkler system but we also took them to another community so they could see how it worked in practice.”Mr Ccanayucra’s ancestors have used irrigation techniques since the days of the Incas to improve their land and grow more crops – but the skills needed to build complex watering systems have been forgotten by many communities. Now we can use the water more effectively,” says Mr Ccanayucra. The modest plastic-lined pond – the banks of which offer stunning views across the valley to the seemingly endless peaks of Peru – is now the heart of this farming community. The rainwater collected here feeds a web of tanks, pumps and pipes that serve the fields below.In some of the fields, a fine mist is sprayed over the crops from shiny new sprinklers.

“The rain has been falling less and less far down the valley. It would run out halfway down the hill,” he remembers, his broad features creased into a frown.Not any more. Mr Ccanayucra’s community has been working with Practical Action – one of the three charities being supported in this year’s Independent Christmas Appeal – to harvest the rainwater in an irrigation system that is making nature’s bounty stretch that crucial bit further.Above the alfalfa fields on the foothills outside the town of Sicuani, now sits the tiny reservoir that has changed the people’s lives “Before a lot of people had to leave. Without water, crops won’t grow, there is no grass for cows and no future.
Martin Ccanayucra has been farming the slopes of the Peruvian Andes all his life and knows the value of water to its last drop. In Canchis province, the rivers run down the mountains like green ribbon tumbling into the valley.