Tough Weekend, Friends' Achievements, Some Personal Success and Challenges in Zambia.
Rain at last. Lots and lots of rain and storms. After a very, very dry summer, the driest we've recorded since we arrived in Portugal, the rain has returned. Red alerts for it and winds forecast at 140kms an hour. The rain is forecast for another 12 days. No doubt by day 5 we'll be complaining about the rain. That's how it is, isn't it?
“Farming in Zimbabwe we would complain after a week of dry weather but after only three days of rain, that is unless it rained at night and the sun shone during the day. A rare but sometimes welcome scenario for farmers.” - Peter McSporran
Our neighbours invited us around for snacks and drinks to celebrate my birthday last Thursday, as they do annually. This year I could get there without the help of a stick, unlike six years ago when I had first been diagnosed with cancer. I remember that night not only for the company and the fare, but also because our understanding of Portuguese was very poor at the time, which led to a hilarious misunderstanding. Mine is still non-existent, so poor is an overstatement. When Lucilia, our neighbour, brought out the cake, the discussion around the candles confused Rozanne, and she thought Lucilia was saying I could eat the candles, as they were edible. As I bit into the first one, my hosts, both Lucilia and Augustus, her husbands, had their mouths drop open, aghast, as I, after a couple of chews, realised they were far from edible. I cannot really blame Rozanne, but her decision to have me eat the candles may not have been just a language issue, although she denies it. It certainly amused all but me. So, following this year's pleasant drinks and snacks- luckily doughnuts and without candles this year- the weekend changed for the worse, I'm afraid. Saturday, despite the rugby, I was in great discomfort. For whatever reason, something must have triggered my stomach pain and bloating. I don't know, but I'm beginning to think it might have something to do with fat. I had lamb for Saturday lunch. There is a borrego (lamb) special week at all the local restaurants. Probably, stupidly, I had more fat in the form of butter on bread that evening. Later that night I was extremely uncomfortable. Sunday I ate very lightly, with no fat of any kind, and I felt much better. By Sunday evening I was much better, although my mood wasn't after watching Australia’s abysmal efforts against England at rugby. I won't mention Scotland’s loss to New Zealand.
Today, Monday, I'm off to get my blood test done at the University Hospital in Coimbra for both my prostate cancer review and my stomach cancer review the following week. It's not long since I've had various scopes, CT scans, and other tests. So far, it has been deemed in remission. We'll wait and see what they have to say.
“I find I am more apprehensive about my tests and consultations when my cancer is in remission than when it was active. I think this is probably the case for all cancer sufferers.” - Peter McSporran
Health stop-press. My stomach surgeon called me later in the week and said that although one marker was slightly up, it hadn't changed from six months ago, so I don't need to see him for six months. As for prostate, I will hear next week.
Getting back to something positive, I've been in contact with him since I wrote the previous blog, when I mentioned Des Bruk-Jackson’s and our visit to Gwabi Lodge and Camp on the Kafue River next to the Zambezi River. Anyway, Des got a hold of me last week to say, in his sweet way, “Happy birthday, you old fart!” And to inform me that he still has the red truck in the photograph from that trip, the one which carried his deep freeze full of beer, no food. He also gave me an update on his farming enterprise up north, east of Mkushi, some five or six hours' drive from Lusaka and two hours' drive from Mkushi Boma itself. A long way from nowhere. Anyway, Des, who was my immediate neighbour and good friend and oft-time fishing partner on Darwendale Dam in Zimbabwe, came up on our Tobacco Scheme and, when he was put under pressure from Zambia Leaf Tobacco (ZLT) pricing regime after about six years, he decided to give up farming in his own right for a while, sold up and went to work up on the Mkushi block for a number of years.
Surprisingly, after frugally saving his salary and bonuses, he then, with great fortitude and pioneering spirit, moved onto a virgin farm in the Mkushi area, away from the main farming block. The good news is that he's been very successful, growing seed maize, soya and winter wheat all under centre pivots. No more tobacco for him. I could hardly believe it when he told me his whole wheat crop this year averaged 9.9 tons per hectare, his best land in excess of 10 tons. Even in the Zambian environment where crop yields are generally higher than those achieved in Zimbabwe, this is a very impressive achievement. I remember the old Zimbabwean days when Kevin Connor first broke the 10-ton barrier in winter cereals. That was regarded as an amazing and at the time unique yield. Now yields in Zambia are much improved, and some people do achieve 10 tons more often than not on specific lands rather than their whole crop. But to average 9.9 tons across the whole crop is a wonderful achievement. Well done, Des.
I have also been aware of another achiever recently, one of the younger generation, that is Sarah Whaley’s selection as a Nuffield scholar.
Sarah is my late friend Joe’s daughter, and if he had still been around to witness it he would be so proud. For those who do not know, the Nuffield Scholar is a young agriculturist or farmer who is chosen in the belief he or she has the potential to become a leader and make a worthwhile contribution to agriculture and the wider rural industry in their specific field. It involves studying similar agricultural practices in other countries, in Sarah’s case in Australia and the Far East. Well done, Sarah; your dad would have been so proud, as obviously your mum Wendy is.
Getting back to 2004. Things started to go wrong for me in a number of ways. We were under huge pressure on the farm. The crops in our first years farming in Zambia were average or below average in yield, especially on the newly opened lands. Fertility was low, and the impact of the huge number of large flattened anthills also reduced yield. Strangely enough, as the anthills are integrated into the soil, they become very fertile areas in the field and need reduced fertilisation and liming. Further the contract prices being afforded by ZLT the local subsidiary of Universal leaf Tobacco (ULA) were sub-economic taking no account of the cost increases due to the strengthening South African Rand, the country from where we sourced our inputs from. With these low prices, the crops and low yields were barely enough to finance the next crop and finish our capital expansion. Graham Rae, our general Managing partner and a human dynamo, was still happily clearing land and spending money, and didn't seem to worry about where it would come from. He left that to me. Meanwhile, for myself, I was totally unsure where we would get the money required. To say things were very tight would be an understatement. It was not easy.
At the same time, we started timber exports from the forestry project down in Sesheke in the Western Province. While it was being exported to South Africa, payments came through very slowly, and cash flow was a major headache down there, which took up much of my time. Luckily, Paul Cartwright had stepped into Chris Thorne’s shoes at Agricultural Advisors International(AAI) as a partner, running the scheme well and doing other consultancy work which I helped with when required. With so many balls in the air, I was becoming a good bullshitter, the prerequisite for not being a good consultant, more for a successful one in marketing yourself. Mind you, when it came to recommendations and advice, our practical experience meant it was increasingly recognised that Paul and I were worth heeding. I was finding it easier to get others out of financial holes than the one I was in myself. I don't know why I took on responsibility for both projects to try to find the money. I suppose because no one else was willing to do it. But it became very, very stressful for me one way or another.
The good thing was that our little consultancy was doing well. We had successfully exited from a buying service, and we had turned Afgri around. Afgri was now trading at a profit, up from a US$10 million annual loss when we joined the board as shareholders. Further under Rob Coventry’s management, Greenbelt Fertilisers was expanding; in fact, it was flying, especially securing many of the contracts for Zambia Sugar. At the same time, Cropmasters was ticking along nicely. So, in some ways, things weren't so bad, but I was only seeing the bad. Paul wasn't directly involved in these investments, only AAI.
To make my mood worse, Rozanne, my wife, although working for us, had decided, along with Keith Holland, to set up a cattle auctioneering company. They started building sale pens at the Palm Hotel in Kabwe and planned to hold their first sale at Keith Club's farm, west of Lusaka in the Chongwe district. Everything was going well; Keith was enthusiastic, until about a week before the auction was due to take place, when I received a phone call from Carl Irwin warning me to tell Rozanne not to go ahead with the sale or face some bad consequences. What consequences were not said, but fair or unfair, the Irwins had a reputation. Carl and Francis Grogan had built Zambeef from a small business selling meat out the back of an old truck, a Land Rover, they told me, and had grown Zambeef into the leading finisher, slaughterer and retailer of beef in Zambia, with Shoprite as their flagship outlet, it being the first large and, at that time,, only international supermarket chain in Zambia. They controlled virtually all the meat markets in Zambia, from hoof to fridge. A couple of other small independent abattoirs existed, but they were price followers, not makers. Zambeef sold the vast majority of meat in Zambia, and therefore set the prices. They probably by that time had about 50 outlets in the country. I'm not sure. I could be corrected. But their business model was that they didn't buy finished cattle; they only bought store animals and then finished the cattle themselves in feedlots at their Chisamba farm. They therefore controlled both the live price and the retail price, ensuring a very good margin for themselves. So the idea of someone setting up an auction to sell store cattle was anathema to them. They wanted to try to stop it. The conversation was fairly threatening, and when I told him he was threatening, he put the phone down. Rozanne and I thought we had to go and speak to Carl, preferably with a lawyer but all refused. So we, anyway, Rozanne and I went to see Carl on our own and the first thing he said to us was he did not threaten us. He was just very angry and expressing his views. With hindsight most people would be angry if the person leasing their land’s wife planned to challenge their business model. Despite the warning, the cattle sale plan progressed, but the night before the sale, Keith Club phoned to say that he had raised his reserve prices, except for some cull cows and a few heifers, which sold well. So, one way or another, they destroyed that auction sale and any chance of a successful one in the future; that was the end of that. Keith Holland immediately returned to Zimbabwe and never returned after that auction. He's never told me if Carl or Francis spoke to him directly. I just think he felt uncomfortable being up there, in an environment outside his comfort zone. And anyway, the idea of the auction was now dead. So following that, my relationship with Carl and Francis was much more fragile. I had broken one of the golden rules; I had fallen out with powerful people in a small business environment. I did not know it at the time, but this would lead to immediate problems, and to my success much later.
Disclaimer: Copyright ©️ Peter McSporran. This blog reflects my personal views and recollections, expressed in good faith. It does not represent any company or organisation, and references to others are not intended to cause offence or invade privacy.
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