Confusion and Nostalgia. Livestock.

The wood sorrel in full flower outside our front gate looking over the Rabacal Valley

I know I am old, but the events on TV last week mesmerised and confused me for several reasons. I have always suspected most politicians are idiots and choose that profession, certainly not a calling, to gain attention and see it as an easy way to make money. They are not so stupid to have realised at an early stage in their career that the truth is not essential, promises made before the election are for breaking, the sooner the better. Certainly not for implementing, and accountability is for others unless you are a really naughty boy or girl.

“The amazing thing is that as individuals, they are accountable to a large number of people, all their constituents that voted for them and even those that didn’t, yet they are the most unaccountable people I know. They make business leaders look like angels.” - Peter McSporran

First, I was shocked to see Keir Starmer on my TV screen fawning over Trump like one of the so-many arse creepers I have met in my life. Grown men, one offering promises playing on the vanity of the other to offer false friendship after years of only offering insults. Trump may be a fool, but he cannot be such a fool to be taken in by this blatant insincerity.  I am sure he found Starmer’s groveling amusing but happy to go along for the free meal with the King and some photo-shots inspecting the Guards made to parade in his honour. It did not end there. The very next day, I switched on the TV and was stunned to see a slanging match in the Oval office between Zelensky, Trump and worse, the VP, Vance. Talk about hanging out your dirty laundry. The Americans say they want peace, as I am sure all parties do by now, but the disagreement is on how and how quickly the peace will be implemented and who will guarantee this peace if it is achieved.

I am sure many were as dumbfounded as I was by these events, but it did not end there. Zelensky got on an aeroplane and flew to London to a more than warm welcome, even a meeting with the King, which clearly smacked in the face of the previous two days' events. Then, Starmer pledged 3 billion pounds ($3.6bn) a year in military aid “for as long as it takes.” What does that mean? It does not sound like a call for peace. 

“So Starmer says to hell with the pensioners, the farmers and the needy; we will fund Ukraine to fight a war and the loss of life it will cause. A war unlikely to be won under the present circumstances without USA support.” - Peter McSporran

My mind went into overdrive. What did it all mean? Can it be limited to what we saw, or is there a much bigger picture? A hidden agenda? Although I have not seen anything similar in the media, I concluded that Trump, the so-called idiot, probably achieved three things. 

• In no uncertain terms, Zelensky knows that he must be open to a peace deal that may not meet all his and his people's expectations.

• Trump has finally convinced Europe that his warnings about the future funding of NATO are real. 

• Europe now knows it needs to develop and fund its own military to defend itself, as it can no longer rely on the USA. 

Perhaps I should have added a fourth thing, he has certainly given Europe a dose of the shits.

I should stick to watching the Antiques Roadshow and rugby rather than the news. The first is more sedate for my old age, and the second is more than enough excitement.

“As ex-Rhodesians*, we know politics is not about good sense or even humanity; it is about power, greed, and, unfortunately, ‘the bigger picture’ better described as hidden agendas.” - Peter McSporran.

*‘Ex’ in that Rhodesia no longer exists. Most of those born in Rhodesia will continue to consider themselves Rhodesian. There is nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia; Rhodesians, due to circumstance, are more prone to it than most.

A Ransomes pully driven threshing mill.

From a child, I knew I wanted to be a farmer. But from an early age, I thought the best part about farming was the livestock, specifically on Mull; sheep and cattle. We did limited crops on Mull, mainly for stockfeed and local consumption. For me, as a young person that meant thinning turnips with a hoe and then some were hand harvested for feeding to the cattle indoors in winter. It is a tedious and arduous task hoeing and throwing turnips into the back of a trailer in your teens, even worse to cultivate, although more limited, were cabbages and carrots. All were not only thinned but weeded by hand—soul-destroying work. Potatoes meant hand harvesting, when everyone, including workers' wives, would come to help. Schools would close to let the children help, and on the mainland the women would come out from town to work on potato lifting. Can you imagine the schools closing nowadays to let the children do manual work on a farm, or for that matter the town ladies going out to lift potatoes. Our oats and barley were harvested by binder, stooked and then stacked, no combine harvester then. A much more pleasant job, as was threshing it with a Ransomes threshing mill belt driven from the tractor. Hay and silage were made each year; I do not know why my father preferred making hay on Mull to silage, as it always seemed to be raining on Mull in summer. When it came to livestock, I enjoyed everything about them, even mucking out the byre morning and evening in winter. The warmth of the byre opposed to the inclement weather outside and the peaceful sound of them chewing the cud made it a pleasant task. I enjoyed all work with livestock, and attending shows and livestock sales was an added bonus. These brought me great excitement in my childhood and youth. It was to continue to do so throughout my active farming life.

The cattle fattening pens as of 1998 on Diandra

Things never go to plan, and I found myself spending a lot of time learning about crops at college. Further, when I started working on a farm in Rhodesia, despite Hamish Smith being a renowned cattleman, both in beef and dairy, I found myself mainly in the fields supervising crop-growing. At Edwards, it was even worse, for other than a few South Devons for house milk, the operation was all about intensive cropping. When I finally took to farming on my own once again, it was cropping, as livestock was expensive to start up in and much more long-term than crops in getting a return. Under the terms of the purchase of Diandra, my father-in-law, Derek Belinsky kept the grazing rights until the farm was paid off, so despite having no cattle myself, I was looking after his to my enjoyment. When we paid Diandra off in the third year, I purchased my own cattle and slowly built the herd up. My first breeding cows were Sussex cross Afrikander. They were fantastic animals, but unfortunately, I could not find replacements as the Afrikander was restricted to very few breeders. Hereford became the breed of choice, which I crossed with Brahman. My ideal cow was a cow with no more than a quarter ear and better an eighth of an ear. That is three-quarters Hereford or down to one-eighth Brahman. If I had farmed in the lowveld, I am sure it would have been the opposite. To this end, we would crisscross, having to buy more Hereford bulls than Brahman. The Herefords, remaining loyal to the Belinsky’s, I bought from their Bell-Inn stud while the Brahmans I purchased from as far afield as Rueben Piloshoff in Bulawayo.

A Brahman cross Hereford. Why did we think ‘Brindle’ cattle were alwayss good doers?

I did try a few pedigree Brahman cows for a while but found the vigour of the young calves lacking as was, in some instances, the mothering traits of the cow. We also had a few pedigree Herefords but found obtaining better bred bulls from the Belinskys’ easier. We ran a commercial breeding herd on Diandra and Mede farms, up to two hundred breeding cows on each farm, and with followers, we were overstocked, relying on crop residues to supplement them. We tried running youngstock on Rydal but suffered losses due to mining pollution on the river. There was limited grazing there anyway, so left Rydal for cropping. We would take our cattle through to slaughter and buy steers to fatten each year. The last few years we did a total mixed ration (TMR) and may I dare say it, we included the litter from our own and our neighbours' boiler units. I think the most we did in one year was a thousand head, perhaps slightly more. Cattle came and went depending on the cropping year and the tax. Through the cattle, I became a fatstock judge, hoof and hook, and as time progressed, became a senior pedigree judge, including judging interbreeds at Harare Show. Until we lost the farms, I never took out a loan for cropping, cattle or machinery greater than the value of my cattle. My cattle were my walking bank, and I am happy to say in my farming career in Zimbabwe, I never had to sell an animal to pay back a cropping or capital loan. Being in the CFU my livestock management had slipped, but luckily in about 1997, Lady Daphne Powell joined us as the cattle manager. While she did not apply for the role as cattle manager, she proved to have a remarkable ability in working with cattle, and my herd improved under her management. In 1998, we brought in Droughtmaster embryos from Australia and by the time we lost the farm, we had a fine nucleus herd of Droughtmasters with our first crop of heifers going to the bull, all for nothing as they were sold for slaughter when we lost the farms. Some of the bulls did find a home, thanks to Keith Swales. I think it was in 1999 when Alistair Smith and I leased Wellesley Estate, from Hamish and Nancy Black, in partnership with a view to buy in the future. In doing so we took over his commercial Aberdeen Angus herd. They were, unfortunately, of the old British type so over time we planned to upgrade them by introducing bigger framed bulls. Once again the land invasions put paid to these plans.

In the early nineties, I decided I needed to find an enterprise to bring in a monthly income. Our crops and cattle both brought income in winter, the cattle because we could only fatten in the dry weather to avoid a mud bath in the pens. I decided on pigs, having been exposed to them on occasion at the Edwards and when I worked as a college practical for the Earl of Murray at Doune in Scotland.

The pig unit on Diandra circa 1999. On stealing the farm, Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao soon destroyed the buildings selling the roof sheeting.

After much deliberation, I decided to put in a two hundred and twenty sow unit. This was the size I considered large enough to support a dedicated manager. We set about building it with our farm builders. Our builder was Muslim named Abakali, who, when we first got on the farm, completed my forced air tobacco curing system after we got rid of the professionals from the city. This substantial building required some two hundred and fifty thousand bricks when only seven thousand are required for the average house. He and his family set up their own mini-village on Mede and continued to work for us and others, although we always had first call on his services. 

Anyway from the plans we built the sheds required and we fabricated all the sow crates, gates and did the electrics and plumbing ourselves. That was how it was in Zimbabwean agriculture. Farmers were very self-sufficient. From the beginning, we would not be able to grow enough maize for the cattle and pigs, although we would home mix. As the Government was reluctant to liberalise the maize market for fear of raising the price of the voter's staple diet, I figured buying maize for livestock production would always be economical. We would also source reject seed crops from Seed Co but here I was in competition with Rob Davenport a large pig producer whose farm was across the road from Seed Co. Management was a struggle as I found that due to the prices offered by Colcom it was challenging to employ a top-notch experienced pig manager. Further, they were like hens teeth in Zimbabwe, nonexistent. One of my neighbours wives, Bridget Kluckow, helped for a while and later Brit Billar with no pig management experience helped especially in the farrowing house. I decided we would not breed our replacement gilts and would rather focus on producing terminal cross animals for slaughter. I, therefore, sourced my gilts from Doug Bean in Shamva, including boars from him and CG Tracey. We increasingly used Duroc on our large white cross landrace sows to produce leaner carcasses. 

By a strange coincidence, my cattle and pig managers were gay. Nothing to worry about in the free west, but it was a big challenge in Zimbabwe where sex between men is illegal. So Daphne had nothing to fear although naturally very discreet, the same could not be said about the pig manager. I will not give his name as he still resides in Zimbabwe, an indigenous Zimbabwean. Most of the trouble was caused by disgruntled staff with a grudge for being disciplined, and on occasion, it would reach the ears of the local police in Darwendale. This would then require my intervention on his behalf. Of interest was that the pig manager was always immaculately groomed while Brit would come with full make-up and equally well groomed. The pigs had the best dressed and made up supervisors on the farm, I doubt if they appreciated it. I would visit the pigs after roll call each morning before breakfast seven days a week, providing I was on the farm. In the late nineties and nearing fifty years old, I had it in my mind that I would lease out the tobacco sections and retain the seed crops and livestock to allow for more travel and fishing. That was my plan, which did not materialise, with all the pigs and cattle going to slaughter when we lost the farms. Yes, we have the right to be nostalgic. 

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.