A Family Gathering, Frustration and Fortune: Dam Progress, Universal Leaf Africa (ULA) and A Barn Fire.
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
It is Monday afternoon, and the first of our family has already departed due to flight changes and work commitments. Storm is heading back to London on an early flight, so left this afternoon while Duncan heads to a meeting in Copenhagen. It was awesome having the whole family together over these past four days. Obviously, we wish it could be longer, but unlike us, they have work commitments.
The rest of the family leaves on the 11th of June. What better way to enjoy their company than having a Sunday braai just like the old times on the farm with ribs, boerewors and steak. No sadza, I am afraid, yet reminding us of so many gatherings we had at home with our friends and neighbours. The Tideys joined us, and lunch turned into a late evening, as all good braais should. The big difference here in Portugal was that more wine than beer was drunk. For me, one very weak fruit cocktail as my stomach was playing up, and I only ate a little meat. No solution as yet to my stomach problems, although luckily it did not play up too much over the weekend. The doctor just called, saying he needs further tests and that I will probably need to see an endocrinologist. The really hardest thing, that is next to the pain itself, is not knowing what is causing the pain. If that was identified, then hopefully a treatment can be found. Still waiting for the ecoendoscopy; only at the end of the month, let’s hope no cancellations this time. Meanwhile, the new set of tests may clarify some of the issues identified in the last lot of tests.
If I recall in the early part of the year, 2003, ULA had asked me to put together a plan to look at another scheme where a group of farmers, approximately four to five would farm contigously thus enabling them to share land clearing, a central dam for irrigation and farming equipment to reduce costs, especially irrigation costs, unlike our scheme where each farmer, or partnership, farmed independently. Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that all our scheme members had to form a company, and the company, Agricultural Advisors International (AAI) was the operational vehicle for both borrowing and production. This was so in theory; in the event of default or poor performance, the company could revert to ULA or a nominee of their choice.
We were to have some failures in the future, but they never implemented this plan, which we could never understand, but that is for a later blog. At the same time, they asked us to look at some larger properties with a view to buying to cater for this scheme. We were helpful as we thought it would mean extra work for us, after all, we were tied or rather limited to their schemes. We duly identified a couple of properties, and in doing so, Chris Thorne, my partner and I were confused as the negotiations started going awry. We thought Jamie Campbell, whom we had employed to find properties for our scheme, had been tasked to identify larger properties in Choma, and Kaloma was perhaps representing a third party. We were suspicious that he was doing some underhanded deal, but in the event, perhaps we were wrong, or he was also under instruction from ULA. Who knows? Anyway, on almost completing the one property purchase for no reason, the deal fell through, and we heard a third party was buying it. Meanwhile, after putting the plan together and working on the business and costs, ULA called a meeting at ‘The Big Brother’ house and informed us that they were going to run this scheme themselves and Dave Bradshaw, the person who had successfully run the Zimbabwe Tobacco Tenant Scheme for many years, was going to come to Zambia and run it. So there we were, they started a scheme in Mozambique, which poached some potential participants in our scheme, and they were now going to start their own scheme in Zambia. While unhappy, there was little Chris and I could do. I remember the meeting, not the date well, as instead of coming straight to the point, it was only after asking us to present an update on our work on the proposed scheme they said suddenly, “Actually, we are going to run the scheme ourselves.” With the number of farmers we had on the scheme, and our proposed fees for monitoring, working with the banks on behalf of the farmers and providing farmers with agronomy advice, it would make AAI, our company, unsustainable unless we could find alternate income streams; the obvious one was consultancy services to third parties. Luckily, Barclays Bank, our partnering bank, gave us some consulting work, and we found ourselves understanding through this work, what Zambian commercial farmers had gone through in trying to survive hyperinflation and interest rates in excess of 50%. Further, we were to find, unlike the banking culture in Zimbabwe, which had the experience of lending farmers money from the beginning of commercial agriculture in that country, that rather than help a client get through the tough times, they would hit them with punitive interest rates.
"In Zambia, the bank managers were loath to visit the farms. I cannot imagine what it is like to convince someone working from home to lend you money."- Peter McSporran
The worst part of this was the decision-making process. In Zimbabwe, the decisions to support the farmer were made in the country and generally were timely, albeit sometimes late. In Zambia, the decisions of all the international banks, the main ones lending to farmers, were made in some distant head office in Dubai or Johannesburg. So often, the money was released too late to procure inputs, let alone maximise the crop's potential due to delayed planting. While they had the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) with a proactive President in the form of Guy Robinson it did not seem to have the sway the Commercial Farmers Union in Zimbabwe had with the banks or, in fact, the Government up until the land invasions. So the farmers had to deal with the banks on their own despite their union's lobbying. Introducing punitive interest rates on any loans was the most senseless thing I came across in agriculture in Zambia. Obviously, some farmers were at fault due to their own management, but in most instances it was the weather or poor commodity prices which were the main cause of unpaid loans; the banks’ policies would only make matters worse, not remedy them. The other issue was that if they rescheduled a loan, it was short-term; in Zimbabwe, any arrears were generally repayable over three years, not a year as demanded in Zambia. Then again, how would someone in Dubai or London understand the seasonality of African farming?
“Farming is full of risks. The farmer, when he plants, has no idea what price he will receive almost a year later, or when he sells that calf three years after his cow is bulled (inpregnated). This is further exacerbated by the vagaries of the weather, too much rain, a storm or the worst in Africa, a drought.” - Peter McSporran
Unlike the 2001-2002 season, which was first in Zambia, the 2002-2003 season started well and continued into the New Year. This brought us a new set of headaches, trying to get the dam completed before the Chongwe River went into flood or at least the wall above the natural spillway we proposed to use. Nothing like more pressure to motivate us. Luckily, as I said, Graham Rae, our managing partner, had the attitude to keep it going. As for our tobacco manager, Dave Craft, he managed to get our small first tobacco crop planted with seedlings supplied by Terry Toms from Sunshine Seedlings at Chisamba. Further, Dave temporarily fixed up a couple of conventional barns to cure the crop. The crop grew out well and was curing much better than our expectations.
Then we had a barn fire. In Zimbabwe, I had only one barn fire in close to thirty years of tobacco farming, and here we were, our very first crop in Zambia, and we had a fire. Not only did we lose the tobacco in the barn, it also impacted on our curing capacity for the rest of the crop, although we got it up and running in less than a week. It was likely caused by what was the most common cause, that is, after the fire had been pulled, the barn operator had been placing fallen leaves from the floor onto the furnace. We could argue it was untrained labour, but as we know, just another risk or hazard of farming in Africa.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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