Insect farming is providing the planet a cheaper alternative source of protein. And South African startups bringing it to the mainstream say there’s no business like the bug business. Could the future of food be insect-protein?



An insect in your meal? What was once food faux pas is now a deliberate culinary concoction.



Insect-based proteins are slowly finding their way into agricultural production lines and the menus of discerning diners. It’s a growing industry also looking to primarily help meet the demands of an increasing population, with several startups now pioneering this sector in Africa.



But nutritional bugs are not new to palates across the world; it’s just the way they are being given new meaning that’s gaining currency in the continent&#8217;s farming communities. “Eating insects is nothing new, but the key is to provide a functional equivalent to animal protein that is more sustainable,” says Dr Leah Bessa, co-founder of South African company Gourmet Grubb, which produces a dairy alternative from insect-proteins.



“We found that people were quite willing to try our product. While there is still a mental barrier (to insect-proteins), the market will change quite quickly – it took a long time for plant-based alternative proteins to become accepted, but now they are commonly available.” Gourmet Grubb has positioned itself at the intersection of novelty and environmental sustainability. Based in Cape Town, it farms insects from spent grain. The environmental costs to such farming are considerably lower than animal farming, a major contributor to pollution and land use globally. “South African palates can be quite conservative, but it’s a matter of availability and exposure before tastes change,” continues Bessa.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We found that people were quite willing to try our product. While there is still a mental barrier (to insect-proteins), the market will change quite quickly – it took a long time for plant-based alternative proteins to become accepted, but now they are commonly available.”</blockquote>



In South Africa, mopane worms (a species of emperor moth) fall under the category of edible insect-proteins that most people are familiar with. Once a regional staple in the Limpopo province of South Africa, household consumption of it has been on the decline as people move to more Western diets, despite increased interest in the Western world in new forms of protein – so says Dr Bronwyn Egan, a pioneer in insect-protein research at the Larry Leach Herbarium, University of Limpopo.



“Most people consuming insects currently do so as a form of subsistence protein – because it’s cheap and well, free.” According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in 2013, globally, some two billion people in 130 countries consume insects as a source of protein already, but with population numbers expected to boom to 10 billion by 2050 and global food production expected to grow as much as 70% to meet the new demand, novel and effective food sources are needed. Cost to consumers can play an equal if not greater impact than sentiment, with insect protein being comparable in terms of nutrition to most animal proteins, but considerably cheaper per gram. However, with an increase in consumption and the formalization of insect-protein farming come other challenges.



“The industry needs a baseline nutritional analysis to provide more information as to the benefits of different insect-based proteins, as well as more investigation into the ecology of the insects themselves,” says Egan.



“Once products are out in the market, there is also a need to comply with food safety legislation, and ensure that sustainability and the environment are a key part of production – ideally, before the marketing of insect-protein products, but it seems these will have to happen together.”&nbsp; Innovative companies such as Gourmet Grubb, Ensekta and Kenya’s InsectiPro are expected to make a break into the mainstream, with the estimates of the global insect-protein market at around $8 billion by 2030 (according to Meticulous Research last year), paving the way for new opportunities for growth and investment on the African continent. “Grasshoppers are the tastiest,” laughs Egan, in conclusion.



– By Yeshiel Panchia

Insect Protein 3

Bugs In Your Food? Yes Please, And Spicy!

Nigerian agripreneur Shola Ladoja, the founder of Simply Green, says the pandemic-induced lockdown brought with it logistic adversity, but also more local sales.  



With the marauding coronavirus disrupting lives and businesses in Nigeria, the financial stability of a majority of the country’s 200 million inhabitants has been severely affected.



The significant toll it has taken on economic activities has forced many small and medium enterprises to reimagine new ways of staying afloat. Covid-19 is also set to radically aggravate food insecurity in Africa. In spite of Nigeria’s dependence on oil, agriculture remains an important cornerstone for its economy, providing employment for millions especially in the informal sector.



The threat of starvation is so present that in a public address in May, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, urged Nigerian farmers to produce enough for the country to eat, saying that the country has “no money to import” food.



But every cloud has a silver lining. The food shortage has presented some agripreneurs in Nigeria with serendipitous opportunities.



Shola Ladoja is the founder of Simply Green, which is a farm-to-table company specializing in vegetables, fruits, juices, spices and herbs. The border lockdown has meant that many of the retail and supermarket chains can no longer import foreign produce into the country.



But this hurdle created a new opportunity for Ladoja.



“[Previously], I tried to get my juices into local stores in Nigeria but they all turned me down and most of them wanted to buy imported juices. The lockdown meant that they had to buy a local brand like mine because they could not get them from abroad anymore. We are now able to sell a lot more during this time than previous years,” says Ladoja.



On the logistics side, however, Ladoja has also felt the pinch of the pandemic like most business that require consistent movement of goods and services. The lockdown scenario prevented his workers from coming in and as a result, the company’s daily delivery of juices, has come to an abrupt stop. &nbsp;



Ladoja has had to start thinking outside the box to make ends meet.



“We have come up with a fruit and vegetable box, which we sell directly on our website to our customers. So, they can now buy lettuce, kale and carrots, which we have never done before. So, this period has forced us to think about how we can expand the business and this time we actually created a new line of business, which was not in the plans for this year,” says Ladoja.



According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), even before the Covid-19 crisis, farmers had not been able to satisfy the demands of Nigeria’s population.



“I feel like the government should give out grants and loans and support for small businesses so that they don’t crash. I have friends who have complained they are going to shut down their businesses because they haven’t been paid for two months. A lot of people cannot sell their produce in Lagos because the markets are closed which is going to affect a lot of farmers at this time,” says Ladoja.



Nigeria used to import over a million tonnes of rice from Thailand annually. That number has been significantly reduced with the implementation of high import taxes. This has led to an abnormal increase in food prices in Nigeria since the onset of the coronavirus with the UN estimating the number of people facing acute food security stands to rise to 265 million globally in 2020 as a result of the economic impact of the pandemic.



Nigeria has substantially increased domestic rice production in the pandemic but is still a long way from reaching the levels needed for the country to sufficiently feed itself. Coupled with the decline in global oil prices, it is safe to say the adverse economic impact of Covid-19 on Africa’s most populous country is going to be felt for a long time to come.

YJ1A0739

Farmer Forays: ‘Creating A New Line Of Business’

A car accident made this graphic designer more grounded, and take to farming, tending to vegetables on a piece of land far from Johannesburg. 



About 250kms from the sanitized suburbs of Sandton in South
Africa’s Gauteng province is Randfontein, a rugged gold mining city in the West
Rand, where we meet 31-year-old Katlego Pitse on his farm where he is currently
producing rows of crisp green lettuce. 



A few years ago, the Soweto-born farmer was far from any
piece of earth, and closer to a computer desktop, earning a living as a graphic
designer. 



The only definition he gave himself was as a
‘creative’.&nbsp; 



“Straight after high school, I studied graphic design from
2008 until 2012. From there on, I pursued a career in commercial arts.
Advertising is the number one industry that absorbs creatives,” says Pitse of
his ‘other job’.



He worked for various companies in Johannesburg and his
career was well on to greener pastures as he enjoyed a hefty salary with annual
increments and a lavish lifestyle, until an unfortunate incident threw him out
of gear. Pitse was involved in a road accident in 2015 and the snazzy, pricey
car he had been spending so much on, had to be written off. The accident was a
facilitator, as he was faced with some life-defining choices, and the prospect
of a new direction, one that made him more grounded.



“I had to start over. This was the kind of catalyst that
gave me a bit of a wakeup call; going forward, [I realized] if I was to spend
money, it had to be on valuable assets that are going to yield returns that can
be passed on,” he says.



He left a full-time job to freelance at a night club; this
is where he was exposed to the day-to-day operations of a business. It helped
him take to entrepreneurship, pursuing agriculture full-time; which had been a
burning desire since his days as an art student thumbing through agriculture
magazines. 



“I was constantly doing research. It was something I knew I
wanted to do but I wasn’t sure when I was going to be able to pursue it fully
because you need an actual career,” he says.



“There was an article I read about a farmer based in
Winterveld. I called to ask if I could visit to see his operation in 2015. Just
that farm visit was an inspiration to start my business.”



Pitse saved up enough money to buy a vacant two-and-half
hectare plot in Randfontein for R200,000 ($13,400). It took him three years to
start production, during which time he pursued his graphic design career on the
side. 



In 2019, the first year of production, Pitse focused on
cucumbers – his pet passion – and did cycles of long English cucumbers. Due to
the high costs, Pitse had to re-evaluate and decided to move to a less
cumbersome crop, lettuce.



Pitse is currently employing two family members and still
does the odd graphic design job to supplement his income. 



Surely, a small-scale farmer with big graphic dreams of the
future.

Katlego 485

Soil Toil: How A Car Accident Made This Graphic Designer More Grounded

In Johannesburg, city-dwellers like Linah Moeketsi have taken the future of sustainable farming into their own hands. Where land is becoming scarce, they look to the skies. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Doornfontein is one of Johannesburg’s older inner-city
suburbs with decaying buildings and dingy alleys that wear a dour, monochrome
look. 



Daily commuters and street surfers jostle with delivery vans and mountains of metal scrap but the grey of the concrete city makes it hard to believe that there could be a patch of green in a most unlikely location.



READ MORE| <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/09/16/no-seat-at-the-global-table-for-indigenous-cuisine/">No Seat At The Global Table For Indigenous African Cuisine</a>



Above the humdrum of life here is a rooftop hydroponics farm
looking down on the city, but upwards to a new route to restoration and urban
preservation. 



Atop the eight-floor Stanop building – offering a
breath-taking view of the city and the landmark Ponte Towers in the distance –
one woman has made it her mission to turn a grimy grey terrace into a green
lung on the city’s skyline.



“City life is taking on a totally new direction… even people who think they couldn’t one day farm, find themselves on rooftops,” Linah Moeketsi tells FORBES AFRICA.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42474" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0057.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



Moeketsi grows herbs, used to treat non-communicable diseases (NCDs), in a 250m x 500m greenhouse on the building’s terrace. But her rooftop farm is sans any soil – it uses a hydroponics system.



“I think because we are in the city and we would like to produce for people in the city, hydroponic farming is one of the answers because you can actually harvest more than twice the produce, and the growth rate is quicker and there is produce that you can have throughout the year that people demand because it is in a controlled environment,” she says.



On a windy Wednesday morning in October, we meet Moeketsi at
her aerial green facility, a couple of days before she is to send some of her
plant produce to the market.



She talks about her journey as an offbeat farmer. It all started when her father fell ill in 2013, when doctors failed to correctly diagnose his disease.



“They couldn’t see that he was diabetic. He didn’t show the signs of diabetes, but he had this foot ulcer that just wouldn’t go away,” she says.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;The future of city farming is great simply because we have more and more young people getting into this space. Even though it&#8217;s farming, they are looking at it from a very different angle. </blockquote>



Moeketsi decided to do her own research, so she read up
books on African medicinal plants and used some herbs that belonged to her late
mother, who had been a traditional healer.



“It took me a good eight months to help my dad and I
actually saved him from having an amputation.”



The news of Moeketsi curing her dad’s diabetes using herbs
spread. Sadly, her father died in 2016, at the age of 87. But she is proud to
have helped prolong his life.



“So he passed away in his sleep, not sick, nothing, he was just old. But he was always grateful; he was like, ‘even when I die, I’m going to die with both my limbs’, so we would make a joke about it.” 



 READ MORE| <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/09/04/businesses-at-the-heart-of-a-greener-future/">Businesses At The Heart Of A Greener Future</a> 



After her father’s demise, Moeketsi rented some land and
turned her knowledge on natural herbs into a fully-fledged farm. However, when
the owner of the land returned, she was forced to vacate.



Land was always going to be a problem in the city. But instead of giving up, Moeketsi looked to the skies.



“Because of this passionate drive for an answer, I found
myself researching what’s happening outside Gauteng and South Africa, and I saw
in Europe, they were farming on rooftops,” she says.



In 2017, her dream became a reality when she secured a deal with the City of Johannesburg as part of an urban farming program, and started the rooftop project a year later.



When we visit her greenhouse, we are welcomed by the sweet
lingering scent of herbs. It’s hot and humid, and two fans whir away to cool
the air.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="681" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-681x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42472" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-768x1155.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043-1022x1536.jpg 1022w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0043.jpg 1277w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" /></figure>



Moeketsi walks around the greenhouse wearing dark glasses and a white jacket, with a syringe in hand – she could easily pass off as a medical doctor.



She elaborates on the hydroponics system. There are four pyramids, each attached to their own reservoirs of water. On each pyramid, different plants, ranging from spinach, lettuce, sage, parsley, basil and dill, rest on beds with pipes connecting them to the reservoirs. Moeketsi plucks out one of the pipes and inserts the syringe; water spouts out of the tube and she returns it to the bed.



“Twice a day, you have to check that water is actually going
through the pipes, because that’s how the plants get water and nutrients,” she
explains, as she unblocks a pipe using the syringe. She says it’s one of the
best ways to farm using little water.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42473" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



“When you put in certain plants in the greenhouse, you know
you are guaranteed sustainable farming because you can produce those plants and
harvest them,” she says.



Moeketsi adds that this allows her produce to stay
consistent season after season.



“So, from that point of view, it makes the city more sustainable in terms of food produce that is easily accessible and cost-effective for the consumer because not everyone around here can afford the high prices of food but they can at least afford what we sell, whether it is at R10 ($0.5) or R15 ($1).” 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42475" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0108.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



As Moekesti continues to tend to the plants, a farmer she works with walks in and begins filling up the reservoirs. 



Lethabo Madela has known Moekesti for almost six years.



“When you look around Johannesburg, there is no space, so
rooftops have saved us a lot, especially those of us that love farming,” says
Madela. “I’m learning a lot and I think she [Moekesti] changed the whole concept
of farming for me because I used to farm vegetables. I didn’t know culinary
herbs or medicinal herbs.”



Moeketsi speaks of other farmers around the city who have taken to the rooftops to farm plants such as strawberries, lemon balm, spinach and lettuce.



READ MORE| <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/07/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-pesticides-and-bees/">Everything You Need To Know About The Future Of Pesticides And Bees</a>



In a suburb called Marshalltown, a 10-minute drive from
Moeketsi’s farm, Kagiso Seleka farms lemon balm also using hydroponics.



He produces sorbet and pesto from his produce which is then
used to make ice cream.



“It [hydroponics] is great for farming sensitive plants in
terms of temperature. Lemon balm does not like frost. But it’s better to grow
even out of season so you can set a higher price,” he tells us.



However, he says hydroponics farming is a luxury not many
farmers can afford.



“It [hydroponics] does have a bit of a higher capital upfront, but you get a higher yield and higher quality, so people are willing to pay more. Hydroponic planting saves about ninety five percent of water soil farming in a water-scarce country,” says Seleka. 



READ MORE| <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2019/03/15/local-solutions-can-boost-healthier-food-choices-in-south-africa/">Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa</a> 



“We do have water shortages, and I know people are on the
whole ‘organic trip’ but, is it more important to have an organic plant versus
a water-saving environment?” 



The Program Coordinator for Agriculture at the City of
Johannesburg’s Food Resilience Unit, Lindani Sandile Makhanya, says there
certainly are more rooftop farmers in Johannesburg now than ever before.



Converting idle terraces into avenues of profit is becoming
a norm. There are new rooftop farms being set up every day, offers Makhanya. 



He regularly visits Moeketsi’s farm to check on the progress
and collect produce to sell.



“Urban farming in Johannesburg is rising, mainly because the
idea of producing our own food is very important because most people are moving
to urban areas and therefore it stands to reason that we have to try to produce
as much as possible,” says Makhanya.



“[There is growth] even in animal production, although we are moving away from the bigger numbers, but we are involving the smaller ones; because of the space issue, they are increasing overall.” 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42476" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



For Moeketsi, her farm has changed her life and given her
hope for a better future. In addition to the teas, tinctures, ointments and
medicinal products she processes from her plants, she plans to include more
by-products such as syrups in the future.



“The future of city farming is great simply because we have
more and more young people getting into this space. Even though it’s farming,
they are looking at it from a very different angle,” she says. “That is why the
city is changing and rooftop farming is going to get bigger and bigger.” 



Clearly, farming in Africa is covering exciting new ground.

DSC_0093

Green-Sky Thinking

Why data could be the deciding factor in Africa’s agricultural transformation.

The world has a palm oil problem.
It’s a global, billion-dollar industry and its end result is irreversible environmental damage, ranging from deforestation and fires, to the loss of species such as tigers, pygmy elephants and orangutans.
Palm oil is used in 50% of the products we buy (think bread, shampoo, soaps and even chocolate) due to the fact that it is the highest-yielding vegetable oil crop.
Yet, in a country like Uganda, where 80% of the population is involved in agriculture as a way of life, many Ugandans farm oil palm on small plots, barely making a living.
“The use of data for purposes of precision agricultural systems is being used around the world to optimize farms, from anticipating natural disasters such as droughts and flooding, to predicting the best time to harvest crops, to anticipating outbreaks of pests and disease before they impact the produce,” says AgriSA’s Janse Rabie. “In an era of ever-increasing challenges with respect to ensuring food security, both locally and elsewhere in Africa, the application of data and smart farming practices is becoming ever more important.”
SAP Rural Sourcing Management is a cloud-based system used by Barry Callebaut, among the world’s largest sustainable cocoa producers. But what does fair trade chocolate have to do with Uganda’s problematic, smallholder farm life? And how can data change the palm oil trade so the way in which we farm this much-used resource becomes more ethically-focussed and transparent?
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/05/15/2020-to-2030-will-be-the-decade-of-agri-tech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘2020 to 2030 Will Be The Decade Of Agri-Tech’</a>
Back in 2009, SAP built a prototype for small-scale farmers across Africa using funding from the German government.
“We spent a long time doing ethnographic research, getting right on the ground with small-scale farmers in West Africa to understand how they live and what challenges are. We wanted to find out what would be useful to them and the cooperatives to which many of us didn&#8217;t belong,” explains Simon Carpenter, SAP Africa’s Chief Technology Advisor.
<div id="attachment_37559" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37559" class="size-medium wp-image-37559" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Simon-Carpenter-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Simon-Carpenter-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Simon-Carpenter-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Simon-Carpenter.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Simon Carpenter. Photo provided.</div>
The system was bought by Callebaut so they could provide it to their small-scale (but globally situated) growers as well as the co-ops they deal with – be it cocoa, vanilla or even palm oil micro farmers – a way to collaborate in real-time.
This is where the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust (KOPGT) comes in. The farming collective acts as a hub, connecting smallholder farmers to government services and local agricultural companies. And now, the GIZ – a German development agency that provides services in the field of international development cooperation – is working closely with the Ugandan government to roll out this solution to over 2,000 farmers.
“If we can start to gather data from small-scale farmers on how they farm and where they’re farming, we can do a couple of things: firstly, we can start to build a history and an identity for that small-scale farmer, which makes it easier for either the government or the private sector to extend credit to them so they can start to scale their farms. It also informs government in terms of who is growing what and where which starts to inform future government policy. Do they need agronomists? Are they growing the right crops for their kind of economy? Once you&#8217;ve started to generate this data, you can do some amazing things with it,” adds Carpenter.
<h3>Farming of the future</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37561 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-769x1024.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="985" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-769x1024.jpg 769w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-600x799.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6-768x1023.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/6.jpg 1537w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />
In many instances, lack of information has a direct impact on African smallholder farmers&#8217; outputs and, by effect, livelihoods. According to new research, only 5% of cultivated land in Africa makes use of irrigation compared to 38% in Asia.
Farmers today are experimenting with new processes and production methods. From big data to biotechnology, sensors, drones, autonomous systems and more, the technologies likely to make the most difference in agri-tech are tools and equipment that can capture and interpret data.
Benji Meltzer is the co-founder of Aerobotics, a South African agri-tech startup that has developed an early warning smart scouting platform that could help farmers identify potential pest and disease issues in tree crops. With over 500 farmers already signed up on the platform across 11 countries, they’ve built an end-to-end farm monitoring solution.
<div id="attachment_37558" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37558" class="size-medium wp-image-37558" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer-80x80.jpg 80w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Benji-Meltzer.jpg 1459w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Benji Meltzer. Photo provided.</div>
“As farming conditions become more difficult, farmers have more reason to optimize and farm more precisely. Our data can be used to make more efficient use of resources, including water and chemicals, by applying corrective action in a data-driven manner (rather than blanket application across the farm) and as a result focusing on treatment. Farmers don&#8217;t have tools to effectively manage their resources and farms and are wasting both time and money through inefficiencies. The lack of information, insights and data-driven decisions on the ground can lead to losses and reduced yields,” explains Meltzer.
“We are able to identify individual trees and help growers pinpoint those that are under stress. This means farmers can focus their attention on the areas that matter, and as a result farm by exception and driven by data, rather than by walking blindly through the field,” he says. “We are able to monitor pest and diseases close to real time through our drone imagery (which is processed within a few days) and in-field scouting tools which enables farmers to monitor by exception.”
Aerobotics helps farmers take advantage of a portion of this data by allowing them to drive decisions from using proprietary machine-learning algorithms. What’s interesting is all of their products are currently hosted in the cloud, where they use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale their applications.
“We specifically use AWS for cloud storage (to store raw and processed imagery), cloud compute (to process huge amounts of data and extract insights), database storage and to serve our applications. Working with AWS to help farmers grow healthier crops is a perfect example of the way in which technology transforms traditional industries, leading to better livelihood conditions. Africa can be a harsh environment for farming. Crops are constantly under threat from problems such as disease, pests, and drought. Using the AWS cloud, we are bringing compute, data analytics, and other advanced technologies to help farmers grow healthier crops, despite the harsh conditions.”
Like others, Meltzer believes that cloud has the potential to solve many problems in almost any industry and application. Agriculture is no different, whether it’s irrigation systems, fertilization, or disease and pest control, compute and data analysis capabilities the cloud offers transform these processes to make farming of the future easier.
The use of drone technology, along with data harvesting, has been incredibly effective for South African macadamia growers. At Sutton Crest citrus farm in Mpumalanga in South Africa, for example, they managed to increase nut production with more detailed soil analysis, GPS data and probes.
Macadamia nut trees require different nutrients from one phenological stage to another, so by understanding what to add to fertilizer and when, the farmers can prevent early nut drop – something which lowers overall yield – and save water usage at the same time.
<h3>‘Crowd-farming’ cows?</h3>
From using geo-spatial analysis to farm sugarcane in Swaziland to Fresh Direct, a Nigerian startup which repurposes old shipping containers to grow crops in the densely-populated Abuja capital; to Livestock Wealth’s Ntuthuko Shezi who is “crowd-farming” cows in South Africa as an entry point to the financial services industry, the time is now for African agri-tech.
And it’s far more than self-driving ploughs or robotic tools – the value lies in big data and its applications. MySmartFarm is another locally-developed all-in-one farming tool hosted in the cloud. It analyzes farm data to give real-time insights.
According to a status report from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Africa’s food system requires an agricultural transformation focused on more than just production. It needs to encompass the entire food system. It could explain why, nearly eight years ago, John Deere, the agricultural equipment manufacturer, fitted their tractors with global-positioning-system (GPS) sensors. It seemed revolutionary at the time, but this addition made it possible to stop farmers missing out patches as they shuttled up and down fields or covering the same ground twice – a common problem with an easy solve involving data.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has created standards for ethical and sustainable palm oil production which certifies qualified growers and processors. Currently, around 20% of the palm oil across the globe is certified by RSPO but with smarter farming methods, this number will surely increase.
The farm, like the future, is not what it used to be.
&#8211; Tiana Cline

Farmer-flying-a-Phantom-4-Pro-using-the-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app

Big Data And Smart Farmers For Africa’s Agricultural Transformation

Picture this: remote rural Africa, where communities assiduously farm vast stretches of arable land not knowing anything about digital technology or drones that can transform their lives.
Now picture this: forward-thinking innovators and entrepreneurs who swap the city for the village and lend these communities the tech and savvy to change farming – and their fortunes – forever.
Agriculture, the mainstay of Africa’s informal economies, needs a facelift, and some new faces to talk tech to power. Agri-tech is the buzzword, and we profile three innovators spearheading change in their communities. They grew up on these farms, and knowing their earth best, have created the technology they need, in turn revolutionizing agriculture, from the little corners of Africa.
<h4>‘Clarity From Above’ 
James Paterson, South Africa</h4>
<div id="attachment_36233" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36233" class="size-medium wp-image-36233" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/James-Paterson-CEO.jpg 1181w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />James Paterson. Photo supplied.</div>
An unidentified flying object hovers over a 150-hectare orange farm in a small town called Clanwilliam in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
It’s the first time James Paterson is testing his homemade drone. The object flies over the mountainous terrain offering a bird’s eye view, then singles out a tree with stunted growth. The object detects that the tree is not receiving enough water.
The object looks like a prop out of the Transformers movie series. It has eyes too – a camera lens – to monitor what’s happening on the ground. Paterson, 29, controls this propeller-enhanced technology using a controller. He is the co-founder and CEO of Aerobotics, a company that interprets satellite and aerial drone analytics to enable farmers.
He calls it “clarity from above”.
The drone space in Africa has significantly developed over the years, and the view from below has certainly changed too. In Rwanda, drones are a common sight, famously used to deliver blood and medical supplies to remote areas, and here in this small South African farm, it’s being used to improve the way we grow food.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/02/drones-by-africa-for-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Drones By Africa, For Africa</a>
Aerobotics’ core mandate is to provide data on tree crops, enabling farmers with information on disease, pests and water usage. They are able to tell the farmers if a tree lacks nutrition and what it needs.
“Find one small thing that is going to improve the farmers’ life and then focus on that,” says Paterson.
“Instead of just giving the farmer a picture or a map, we give him exactly what’s going on with the tree and we can track that over time.”
He believes this would be useful in areas such as Cape Town with the ongoing water crisis.
He co-founded the company with Benji Meltzer in 2014 after they built drones in Paterson’s garage. Paterson, who grew up on a fruit farm, had always loved aeronautics. Meltzer is also the Chief Technology Officer of Aerobotics.
Now, he is able to merge farming and tech into something he enjoys doing on a daily basis; running an aeronautical company providing farm analytical services.
<blockquote>“Some farmers… like the older way of doing things.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36240" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36240" class="size-medium wp-image-36240" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/farmer-using-Aerobotics-Flight-Planner-app-for-DJI.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Aerobotics interprets satelitte and aerial drone analytics to help farmers.</div>
But running the company hasn’t always been easy. Apart from competing with drone companies providing similar services, their biggest challenge has been trying to convince farmers to use their product.
“Some farmers… like the older way of doing things,” says Paterson.
“But even then, after we have met with them and we show them what that can do, they can really understand this is something that can help them on the farm.”
Currently, they have over 200 clients in countries such as the United States, Russia and South Africa.
Paterson has been one of the few to benefit from drone innovation in agriculture. He says he and the team were the only South African startups amongst 24 companies around the world to be part of Google’s Launchpad Accelerator in San Francisco early this year.
They have also secured an R8 million ($663,000) fund from two venture capital firms who Paterson says saw the benefit of their software for farmers. They are currently undergoing a new round of funding.
Aerobotics’ Chief Financial Officer, Timothy Willis, believes that technology in farming can assist in better risk mitigation and enhancing efficiencies around yields.
“I think those two things together will add to making a more efficient agricultural sector in Africa,” he says.
Five years from now, Paterson predicts drones will become more autonomous.
“In the future, you won’t be concerned about the drone, it will just do all the work for you.”
<h4>Smart Farming 
Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Abia State, Nigeria</h4>
<div id="attachment_36235" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36235" class="size-medium wp-image-36235" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841-682x1024.jpg 682w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NdubuisiEkekwe_IMG_82841.jpg 1181w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Ndubuisi Ekekwe. Photo supplied.</div>
From a farm in the Abia State of Nigeria, Dr Ndubuisi Ekekwe talks to us about a table.
Not just any table, but a small square-shaped table resting on one leg, which actually is “an electronic farm diary” that records and collects crucial information for farmers.
Ekekwe calls it Zenvus, which he created in 2011. It collects data on the soil’s pH, moisture and temperature, and records the sun’s intensity and humidity in the air. An inbuilt solar panel charges it.
The device is his contribution to smart farming. It wirelessly transmits the recorded data to a cloud server from which farmers access it on a mobile app and get real-time data.
“2020 to 2030 will be the decade of agri-tech,” Ekekwe tells FORBES AFRICA.
Zenvus services corporates, and have supplied to 500,000 farming entities. He says it’s currently in a partnership with the government of Cross River State in Nigeria, as well as Abia State.
Ekekwe says he has been approached by a number of international companies wanting to cash in on Zenvus. However, he has been reluctant to sell it.
“Someone wanted to buy Zenvus for $5 million five years ago. I wouldn’t even sell it for $15 million, just to tell you the kind of value it has,” he says.
For Ekekwe, it’s more important to service farmers. To date, he prides himself in having the largest farmers’ cooperative in Africa.
<blockquote>“I wouldn’t even sell it for $15 million.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36239" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36239" class="size-medium wp-image-36239" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Field-Photos-of-Both-Devices.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Zenvus collects crucial data for farmers in Nigeria.</div>
Ekekwe grew up as a farm boy in a village called Ovim in Abia State. Growing up, he received distinctions throughout his high school year and went on to acquire an engineering degree, four master’s degrees, two doctorates in management and microelectronics, as also a medical robotics degree from the United States.
He chose to move back and stay on in his village.
Ovim is known for the Ajonkwu festival when the Igbo community gather to celebrate the harvesting season.
According to Ekekwe, farmers rely on the moon to obtain a greater yield. As a result, tech for farming isn’t something a lot of people in his community are open to.
“Farmers are not literate and that is why we are not selling tech to them, we are selling the service,” he says.
According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), 65% of Africa’s labor force is engaged in agriculture. Despite this, agricultural productivity on the African continent still lags behind significantly compared to other continents. AGRA suggests that farming only accounts for 32% of the continent’s GDP. Africa therefore does not reap the benefits of agriculture.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/06/05/agriculture-behind-africas-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Agriculture Behind Africa’s Health</a>
Ekekwe says the future of Africa is farming. He believes the convergence of tech and agriculture will result in more people wanting a piece of the pie of agri-tech startups and open up more opportunities for Africans across the continent.
<h4>‘Uber For Farmers’ 
Brian Bosire, Kisii, Kenya</h4>
<div id="attachment_36237" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36237" class="wp-image-36237 size-medium" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-300x181.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="181" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-300x181.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-600x361.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101-1024x617.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/RS16164_DSC_17101.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Brian Bosire. Photo supplied.</div>
On a farm in southwestern Kenya, in the small town of Kisii, a field agent reads data off a yellow square-shaped monitor, which has wires running into a smaller device connecting to the soil. It takes him about five minutes to read data regarding the soil’s PH, water levels, and disease and pests found on it. In almost two minutes, the data is sent to the farmer.
The field worker’s job is done and he looks at his phone to find his next requested farm match.
The device that has helped him is named UjuziKilimo, which is Swahili for ‘knowledge farming’. Its founder, 24-year-old Brian Bosire, calls it “an Uber service for farmers”, and this on a farm that even Uber might find difficult to access.
The field worker travels to the nearest farmer who has requested his services. This kind of smart farming service costs the Kenyan farmer about $20.
Bosire had always wanted to become a key contributor to Kenya’s agricultural industry. He grew up in Kisii, a town known for its highlands and wet weather – favorable climate for farming. Frustrated by the lethargic technological growth in the agricultural space in his town, he sought to create something innovative that would improve the yields for the farmers of Kisii.
“We aren’t selling tech, we are selling the solutions,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.
Bosire says what he tries to do is become as close to the farmer as possible. As a result, he and his team target small-scale farmers and read data on vegetable crops, maize being one of them. The UjuziKilimo can read data from about five to 10 acres of land. Farmers can request data on their farms by simply sending an SMS so even farmers with the most basic cellular devices can benefit.
<blockquote>“We aren’t selling tech, we are selling the solutions.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_36238" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36238" class="size-medium wp-image-36238" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ujuzi-Kit.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />UjuziKilimo helps improve yields.</div>
When Bosire moved to the big city of Nairobi to study, he took advantage of every opportunity to pursue his dreams as an entrepreneur. To date, he has founded three companies, all operating in the tech innovation space, UjuziKilimo one of them. 
It’s old hat that Kenya, the country which pioneered M-Pesa as one of Africa’s leading startups, is home to a lot more players in the tech space. But Bosire says his business is different.
Earlier this year, his other innovation company, HydroIQ, won the Startup of the Year Africa 2018 award. Slightly linked to agri-tech, it’s a virtual water network operator which connects water utility companies and water consumers through an online platform. It allows for mobile money payments, data analytics, leakage detections and water use and consumption through sensors that relay information.
All this leads one to believe that the future face of farming in Africa is young.
Bosire hopes UjuziKilimo can grow to reach from 10,000 farmers to over 50,000.
“We want to become the largest data center of agriculture analytics in Africa,” he says. Future plans include launching UjuziKilimo in the United Kingdom under the name ‘Soil Pal’.
&nbsp;

Green Combine harvesting small path of wheat

‘2020 to 2030 Will Be The Decade Of Agri-Tech’

Although we sometimes desire change, there is no absolute way to measure change. What we do know is that the future invades the present faster than many entrepreneurs can handle.
We go to bed, only to wake up and see that a company with a lean work force and tiny office is now the fastest growing company in the world. The future of wealth creation and multiplication in Africa worries me because of our slow development of basic infrastructure. If Africa entrepreneurs are to be the future leaders in businesses, then our romance with the old rules will have to give way to more ingenious ways of wealth creation.
Steven Silbiger, who has written many business books, describes wealth in a way that contradicts the definition of wealth held by many African entrepreneurs, especially in the 20th century when land was the major factor of economic activities. Silbiger writes that “wealth is portable, it’s knowledge”.
In Africa, the popular understanding of wealth is that it is tangible and usually associated with the acquisition of property. Many African countries are blessed with lands that are either embedded with mineral resources or fertile for farming. This idea that land was a prerequisite for wealth creation led to Africans valuing tangible substance far above the intangible. That preference still prevails today. From Zimbabwe, to South Africa and Nigeria, there is heated discussion on land matters.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/11/30/single-market-windfall-africas-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Single Market A Windfall For Africa&#8217;s Economy</a>
Africa&#8217;s first entrepreneurs, according to history, were both farmers and traders with extensive trade routes that developed across kingdoms. Famous ancient African business hubs, such as Timbuktu, Ashanti, and Oyo, became wealthy empires due to their wide trade networks of agricultural produce.
Today, many of those business hubs are reduced to passive historical business cities because of an unexpected change that occurred. Have Africans learned lessons from these sudden changes that shocked us in the previous century?
In Nigeria, there is a wave of young entrepreneurs rushing to farming. When I talk to them about starting such a business venture, I see a genuine passion. The challenge is that many of them avoid the discussion on the agriculture value chain. They just want to farm and trade the produce. That was the same thinking of entrepreneurs in the 20th century who had vast cocoa farm, but no factory to produce chocolate.
The dynamics of wealth have shifted from crop farming to agricultural value chain, productive thinking and digital value creation. The rule of wealth creation has extended beyond Adams Smith’s theory of “the rent of the land”.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/12/22/entrepreneurs-born-made/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Entrepreneurs Born Or Made?</a>
In the present business environment, the human brain matters most. An economy with digital technology and an acute investment in the human mind creates an enabling environment for wealth creation. No city can be better than the thinking of the entrepreneurs within it. That is the philosophy that differentiates poor nations from the rich. Business growth now largely depends on workers’ creative ability which cannot be quantified, but explains the underlining factor for all disruptions in business.
Today, creative problem solving and the human mind are the fields for wealth creation. I cannot think of a self-made billionaire who didn’t resolve a problem.
In light of this, an entrepreneur will get rewarded to the degree of the problems they solve. All cities with outstanding development are products of businesses and individuals solving problems and improving existing solutions.
Thinking creatively and prioritizing intelligence will help any business. The next generation of entrepreneurs must embrace creative thinking over tangible assets. &#8211; Written by Victor Mamora

Change The Rules And Be Rewarded

John D. Rockefeller said the secret of success is to “get up early, work late and strike oil.” Uganda has struck oil; around 6.5 billion barrels are scheduled for commercial production in 2020. This drive towards production, which government estimates will attract investment of up to $8 billion, has raised the prospect of increased demand for auxiliary services, including insurance.
“An oil and gas co-insurance syndicate has been established to pool the industry’s technical and financial capacity thereby better positioning us to underwrite oil and gas risks,” says Miriam Magala, Chief Executive Officer at industry lobby, Uganda Insurers Association. “In addition, the syndicate is serving as a capital pooling mechanism.”
Insurance companies in Uganda held around $177 million worth of gross written premium in 2016, up by 3.6% from the previous year, according to the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda (IRA). But this compares poorly with average growth of 17% in the last five years, even as assets increased by 9.3% to $114 million, says Kaddunabbi Ibrahim Lubega, the IRA’s Chief Executive Officer. The market paid $72.8 million in claims, while life insurance registered the most growth at 32.7% in sum assured.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/09/18/africa-ditch-ubuntu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Should Africa Ditch Ubuntu?</a>
Premium growth will likely more than double to 8% this year, according to Magala, on increased regulatory enforcement of workers compensation, motor third-party, ring-fencing of marine insurance, and implementation of a $1.4-million government subsidy for agriculture insurance. The industry expects penetration to increase from just less than 1% of GDP to 3% by 2025, she adds.
“We expect a stimulus effect from large public investments intended to address infrastructure constraints and prepare Uganda for oil production,” says Lubega. “In readiness of the market, an oil and gas syndicate on a co-insurance basis was approved.”
As prospects increase, two of the continent’s largest reinsurers, Africa Re and Zep Re, have set up offices in the capital, Kampala, as they seek to tap cessions emerging from the oil and gas sector.
In anticipation of increased activity, the government pushed reforms through parliament last year to improve the financial system, introducing risk-based supervision where an insurer’s capital requirement will be automatically adjusted – depending on the risk they are carrying. The amendments also covered compliance with insurance core principles and financial action task force (FAFT) regulations, according to a ministry of finance report, which also notes that the amendments also improved harmonization with the East African Community bloc requirements.
A separate amendment also introduced bancassurance, a distribution channel that is expected to promote growth of the sector due to the vast bank network in the country, says Lubega.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/06/05/agriculture-behind-africas-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Agriculture Behind Africa&#8217;s Health</a>
In agriculture, the insurers lobby estimates companies will underwrite $2.3 million in the next six months, before applying the government subsidy, as the pilot scheme looks to guarantee returns from crop and livestock farming, according to Finance Minister Matia Kasaija.
Insurers needed to work closer with farmers to understand different crop varieties and planting windows in order to reduce commercial premium rates. Corn is covered as high as 23.9% versus a 10% average affordable to farmers, according to Shadreck Mapfumo, the International Finance Corporation’s Senior Financial Specialist.
“I don’t think we are ready to provide sustainable agriculture through insurance when we don’t have the man power,” he told an industry conference, in Kampala, in May.
According to Magala, other areas of opportunity include a new requirement to check for motor third party insurance as part of the mandatory vehicle inspection checks, which should see compliance boosting premiums. The government has also made it mandatory that policies on ships, aircraft and other vehicles registered in Uganda – as well as goods imported from other countries – be issued by locally licensed insurers in Uganda. Unlike many countries, the Ugandan government does not insure its assets. If it did it would see a windfall in excess of $27.5 million covering public sector workers compensation, fire and public liability insurance, says Kasaija.
Despite low insurance penetration in Africa, analysts remain bullish on Uganda.
“Foreign investors are interested in Uganda due to the positive growth trend and favorable business environment,” says Arthur Kamp, Investment Economist at Sanlam Investment Management. “Uganda is going to exceed Kenya in terms of total population numbers by 2040. Population growth is an indicator of development.”
Ugandan insurers are taking note. &#8211; Written by Joseph Burite

Oil And Farming A Boon For Insurers

Weak global cocoa prices have caused much grief to African producers. Global cocoa futures were down 40% in late April from August 2016, when the decline started.
Côte d&#8217;Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of the commodity, has cut its 2017 budget by 10% consequently. Neighbouring Ghana, and second largest cocoa producer, also missed out on about $1 billion in cocoa export earnings due to the bearish market, according to Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), on the sidelines of the emergency International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) meeting held in Abidjan in late April.
The $1.8-billion loan the Cocobod took for the 2016-17 season was spent carelessly or misappropriated to road contracts by Ghana’s erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration ahead of elections in December 2016, causing it to run out in March. The Cocobod had to seek $400 million in bridge financing via cocoa bills from the Bank of Ghana, the country’s central bank.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/07/10/rapid-railway-yet-slow-ports/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rapid Railway Yet Slow Ports</a>
In light of the debilitating effects their cocoa troubles are having on their finances, Côte d&#8217;Ivoire and Ghana have been forced to collaborate more. Unfortunately, the countries, which together account for about 60% of global cocoa supply, have different pricing systems.
“We are trying to harmonize how we do our systems for trading so we can use that to monitor the market and coordinate the sale of cocoa,” said Aidoo in April.
To reduce price volatility, cocoa producers resolved at the ICCO meeting to better manage supply.
Poor bean quality, especially high acidity, is a downer as well. Farmers also worry about above normal humidity levels. In mid-March, Ivorian cocoa grinders were rejecting as much as half of the beans from farmers, as acidity levels were sometimes more than double the European Union ceiling. Dry weather and bad storage are believed to be responsible for the bad beans.
Although it is hoped improved, but late, rains could see better beans come from the April-September mid-crop harvest, worries remain. The rains were quite heavy in mid-April for instance. As a deluge tends to make pods fall from trees, the harvest may not be bumper. Also, heavy rains raise the risk of a disease or pest outbreak. They also make road transportation more difficult, as roads become less than ideal.
Still, a supply crunch is highly unlikely. For the 2016-2017 season, the ICCO forecasts in its February market review that world cocoa bean production would increase by about 15% to 4.55 million tons, with grindings to also rise by about 3% to 4.24 million tons.
Out of this, Côte d&#8217;Ivoire is expected to produce at least 1.9 million tons, 42% of the world total and 20% more than its production of 1.58 million tons in the last season. ICCO projections for Ghana in February for the 2016-2017 season is 850,000 tons. However, Cocobod lowered the target to 800,000 tons in March, a little above the 780,000 tons it produced in the previous season.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/07/06/african-darling-investors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">An African Darling For Investors</a>
With a glut of the commodity in Côte d&#8217;Ivoire and room for more in Ghana, unsurprisingly cross-border smuggling has been rampant. Depending on the times, cocoa price disparities between the two countries tend to encourage smuggling either way. Although farmgate cocoa prices were set at 1,100 CFA francs per kilogram by the Ivorian Coffee and Cocoa Council for the 2016-2017 main crop harvest, a supply glut due to stockpiles in warehouses from crops as late as December have crashed prices. Suddenly, the 900 CFA francs per kilogram for the commodity in Ghana seemed like a steal. Guinea has also been a beneficiary of Ivorian cocoa smugglers, where it is sold for about 850 CFA francs per kilogram. Such is the despair that Ivorian grinders have been able to strike attractive bargains, with offers ranging from 500 to 600 CFA francs per kilogram. A common market would eliminate these distortions.
Incidentally, the prices for manufactured cocoa products, such as liquid deodorized butter and natural powder, have been steady this year. With cocoa prices so low, and European manufacturers enjoying a boom, there couldn’t be a stronger case for more value addition by African producers. &#8211; Written by Rafiq Raji

Tough Times For The Cocoa Bean Counters

Over the past two decades, Nigeria’s once thriving agriculture suffered as its oil industry boomed.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that, between 1962 and 1968, Nigeria&#8217;s major foreign exchange earner was the agricultural sector. Palm oil and groundnuts made up around 47% of the country’s exports. However, Nigeria’s position as an agricultural powerhouse has declined as oil gained prominence in Africa’s largest economy.
“The oil sector represents 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria but accounts for 98% of the foreign exchange earnings of the country and 80% of the revenues for the government,” says the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/05/01/farmer-marathon-man-businessman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Farmer. Marathon Man. Businessman</a>
Following the crash in crude oil prices, agriculture is slowly emerging as a remedy for the economic woes of Nigeria.
“We have to provide counter cyclical reports. Nigeria is too big to fail. We will support Nigeria with a $1-billion support program and a number of policy reforms that have to be done to rejig the economy and we have coordinated with others on this. This is actually a cheap source of financing, which will come with a 1.2% interest and a 40-year moratorium, so this is the cheapest source of financing you can get,” says Adesina.
The AfDB and other governmental agencies are pulling together to attract young entrepreneurs to farming once again. Rotimi Williams, a rice farmer, believes Nigerians need to be convinced that agriculture is a viable path to relieve current economic woes.
“The minute we found oil in the 70s, all our attention shifted from agriculture to oil and gas – it was easier for the government to make money from that. We became an importing nation because we didn’t have to do any work; we just had to pick finished goods from other countries. That is one of the reasons why there was a shift and now we are finding it difficult to shift back to agriculture because it needs a complete reorientation of the mindset here,” he says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/03/01/farming-coming-town-near/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Farming Coming To A Town Near You</a>
Williams is the founder of Kereksuk Rice Farms. He has 45,000 hectares of land in Tunga, local government in Nasarawa state, close to Abuja.
“We are operating on 1,000 hectares which is expected to give us 8,000 tons of rice a year. I say expected because ideally I should be doing two crops a year but because of floods, which happen every September, I am only doing one crop. Government is yet to build appropriate dams in the right places. We have no accessible roads, no electricity and we have security issues, so all these things put together limits what we can and cannot do in agriculture,” he says.
Williams is not the only one who believes in shifting the way Nigerians think about farming.
“People first of all need to believe in themselves. The ‘I can do’ spirit must come up in you or else you will be wasting time. People must believe that once the passion is right, nothing is impossible and this is their time to realize their greatness. So we launched the Dakada campaign, which is entrenched into the main core values of our people,” says the Governor of Akwa State, Udom Gabriel Emmanuel.
“Through this process, we realized that a lot of the youth are interested in agriculture, so we said ‘fine, we are not going to give you money but we are going to give you all the resources and facilities to do what you need to do’. So we try to provide not just the environment but the input as well,” says Emmanuel.
According to Antti Ritvonen, CEO and Country Manager at Dizengoff West Africa (Nigeria) Ltd, “The main reasons why the youth are not farming are they have the wrong perception about farming, lack of technical know-how, lack of precise technical support and inadequate financial will power,” says Antti Ritvonen, CEO and Country Manager at Dizengoff West Africa.
Dizengoff claims to provide opportunities to Nigerians looking to move into farming.
“We provide greenhouses that we deploy as a tool for empowering youth and women across Nigeria. Since we started, our greenhouses have created employment for over 50 youths directly and over 700 people indirectly across the country, so agriculture is certainly a driver of economic change and growth,” says Ritvonen.
But they are not the only international company investing in the agriculture sector in Nigeria. According to Reuters, Old Mutual and Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) joined forces to raise $200 million to spend on agriculture projects in the country.
There is, however, a limitation to how successful agriculture can become in Nigeria: land. According to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), about 95% of agricultural lands are not titled, effectively limiting their capacity to be treated as collateral for finance.
“In most developing countries that thrive in agriculture, like Thailand and India, the government gives them funding… but on the books of the government they write those loans off. This means they don’t expect the money back but they expect you to do a lot more with the money they have given you. In Nigeria, the government expects you to go to commercial banks to get funding and that is not going to fly because they require collateral which any young entrepreneur would not have. You need to create that enabling environment, which means land is easily accessible and the resources are also available for them to be able to thrive in the business,” says Williams.
As agriculture slowly becomes a beacon of hope for job creation and revenue generation, the government will need to spend more to help entrepreneurs get their hands dirty and grow.

Can Farming Ease Nigeria’s Woes?

Remember Piet Kemp? It’s been more than three years since FORBES AFRICA featured him in its pages in October 2013. Kemp left South Africa for the Soviet republic of Georgia in search of greener pastures, he says he has found happiness and toil thousands of miles away from home. The 72-year- old Kemp claims to now be a Georgian citizen and vows to never come back to his homeland. He was one of 10 South African famers who left on the promise of free land.
<blockquote>I am really glad to be out of South Africa; it’s a dangerous place.</blockquote>
And the whole country belongs to colonialism,” says Kemp. He now has 30 laborers, who neither speak English nor Afrikaans, but Kemp says he is slowly learning the Georgian language. “Speaking the language was very difficult. My wife has been helping me learn it and I don’t need a translator anymore.” Kemp says spare parts are one of the big problems. “Sometimes when the tractor is broken, it takes a long time to get the tools to fix it. We have to import our tools and machines.” Before the age of 80, Kemp plans to retire.

Piet-Kemp

Greener Pastures For African Farmer

Imagine if the next time you needed to toss together a salad, spice up a meal or garnish an after-dinner treat, you only went as far as your balcony, rooftop or garden to source the ingredients. If you are a city-dweller in sub-Saharan Africa, that is more possible than you think.
Urban farming is mushrooming on the continent, almost as quickly as the rate at which people are moving into cities. Around 40% of the African population (around 375 million people) are metropolitan residents and that number will grow to 60% by 2050. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 150 million of those people grow their own food.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3476" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/shutterstock_33409384-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />
A handful of them are hipsters who nurture herb gardens while practising yoga and preaching about organic eating and low carbon footprints. Hundreds of thousands more are after more than just a feel-good factor. Just as urban farming became part of the recovery after the First World War and is being used by Cubans to combat crippling sanctions, in Africa it is solving some of society’s most severe problems. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most under-nourished region and is rife with hunger and unemployment.
The FAO cited Malawi, Cameroon and Ghana, where up to 50% of households have vegetable gardens, as three countries with successful urban farming programs. South Africa is not far behind, with steps being taken to encourage urban farming in a country where around 20% of the population does not know where their next meal is coming from.
“Urban agriculture projects strive to reduce food security and create economic upliftment. Growing food in the backyard of your shack can be the difference between going hungry and having a healthy meal on the table for your family,” says Catherine Nicks, the Project Manager of Tyisa Nabanye, a non-profit urban agriculture organization which runs a farm on the slopes of Signal Hill in Cape Town.
Tyisa Nabanye occupies land on ERF 81, one of the original sites of agriculture in the Cape that dates back to the 1700s. Although it is historically farmland, these days it is not an ideal place to grow crops. While the clay soil remains nutrient rich, the area is often lashed by heavy rains and strong winds which destroy a harvest overnight. But Nicks and a team of seven others have found a way of working with the elements instead of fighting them through an ideology of permaculture.
“We practice companion planting in our garden, where certain vegetables are planted together with certain herbs and play different roles. Some plants feed or fix nutrients in the soil, others repel or attract insects that perform specific functions,” says Nicks.
“We find that kale and spinach do well in our garden, partly because they need little attention and they grow year round. And partly because they sell well, people cannot get enough of the very limited kale in the city.”
Kale is the new ‘it’ food and is often used in green juice where it is blended with spinach, cucumber and apple to create a healthy brew. One-Juice, a company that specializes in selling these drinks, buys some of its kale directly from Tyisa Nabanye. By doing that, they have created a direct connection between customers that are conscious of where their food comes from and the producers who supply that food.
People who drink One-Juice’s products only have to ask where the raw materials come from to be directed to Tyisa Nabanye. There they are welcome to see for themselves how the crops are grown. Nicks meets many of them personally, answers questions, introduces them to the gardeners and invites them to
come back.
“Urban farming is largely about reducing the distance between farm and fork, about increasing ones understanding about where our food comes from. We now know the name of our farmer as well as our doctor,” says Nicks.
“It’s about knowing what a gooseberry looks like before it has been dehusked, washed and placed on a layer of bubble wrap in a plastic container, what the leaf of a watermelon plant looks like and how tall a tomato plant can grow. We use our garden to share our knowledge about where our food comes from and how we can be more sustainable.”
But it’s not as simple as that. The 8.2–hectares, of which Tyisa Nabanye does not even occupy a tenth, is owned by the South African National Defence Force and run by the Department of Public Works. The farm does not have a lease to operate and there are constant bureaucratic battles to overcome, despite a policy in place which promotes urban farming.
In June 2007, the City of Cape Town drafted an urban agriculture policy in which stated its vision to create a ‘prosperous and growing urban agriculture sector,’ which would center on poverty alleviation and job creation. By encouraging agriculture in the city, the government hoped to take steps to increase food security and provide people with a sustainable income source.
More than five years after the document was tabled, the city reached an agreement with the Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF) to turn a disused bowling green into a bowl of greens, literally. The farm uses that phrase as its slogan now. It was the city’s first pop-culture urban farm and quickly captured the attention of Capetonians because it was promoted as a community space.
OZCF connected itself to locals through a weekly market which sold fresh vegetables grown on the farm and grew to include a variety other stalls. It became the place to be on a Saturday morning for socializing, sipping on fair-trade coffee or craft beer or even trying a hand at farming as one of the OZCF volunteers. But the quaintness did not last.
The farm is situated on a heritage site and city officials require certain safety requirements to be met to accommodate the foot traffic and a proper market licence to trade. In early December, news broke that the market would stop until those boxes were ticked and the young and beautiful were outraged. They had grown to think of OZCF as a public property and exerted enough pressure to move the market to the official residence of the province’s Premier, Helen Zille, from where it continues to operate from.
The fracas over OZCF remains unresolved but it achieved something the community wanted most; it created awareness. Residents cared enough about where their food was coming from to go to where it was being grown. They watch it flower and flourish, buy it unwashed and unpackaged, cook it themselves, eat it and share it with others. If that sentiment lasts, urban farming will continue growing in Africa and could become as commercially viable as it in Beijing, where half the vegetables consumed in the city are in grown in urban farms.
With that in mind, go on and grow
a little.

Farming Coming  To A Town Near You

Farming is anyone’s game, even if you can’t see.
Forty-five-year-old Nobuhle Mthembu had a severe migraine, aged 10, that cost her her sight.
“I woke up one morning and I just couldn’t see. My eyes were closed. My grandmother washed them with water and my eyelids opened but I have never been able to see since then,” she says.
The business of food has become her solace and living.
In an orange overall, on this cloudy winter’s day in the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, she navigates around the plot with her walking stick. Mthembu can do everything those with sight can, if not more.
“I use my sense of touch to do my work and run this business. Planting is easy and I can do it the same way a person with eyes can, the difficult part is weeding after planting has been done. Because I can’t see, I can’t use tools because I might take out the good too. So I have to use my hands. I touch around the plants and I can feel the difference between weeds and crops and I pull out the weeds.”
Water is pumped into tanks and buckets from a stream, running along the bottom of the plot, to irrigate the crops. Shipping containers are used to store produce.
“Even if we are disabled, there are things we are capable of doing.”
Mthembu has memory as her guide. She spent her childhood watching her grandmother farm.
“I enjoyed being in the fields with my grandmother. I used to cry to help at all times until they allowed me to. I told myself, blind or not, I will farm,” she says.
Because of her zeal, her grandmother gave her a field, the size of half a football pitch, to plant.
“In October, on my birthday month, my grandmother said I should plant peanuts on my section. I was very happy. The peanuts I planted grew and were amazingly big and I noticed that this is my gift, and I could make money from it. ”
“Farming is my thing. I grew up in a family that made its money and food through farming. My grandmother liked farming and I was always with her. Even after she died, I continued with the work,” she says.
Following her dream to make money, in 1989 she started a vegetable garden with her sister, Bukani Latha, who is paralyzed on one side.
“We realized that, as a disabled person, depending on the government doesn’t help because the disabled social grants are not enough and we need to contribute to the economy,” says Mthembu.
She gathered disabled people for a meeting to encourage them into the field. It was a long journey of 10 years.
In 2009, she gained permission from the local council to farm a plot of land at Inchanga, near Cato Ridge in KwaZulu-Natal. She finally founded the 19-member Bukani Sibonelo Disabled Women’s Co-operative. The council helped with seeds.
“This team gives me hope.  Every day, we make a difference in our lives and in those of our families, and most importantly we add value in the country by promoting food security through the items we sell,” says Mthembu.
The team grows spinach, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, beetroot and mushrooms. These are sold nearby, given to the needy and supplied to clinics.
Mthembu has won four awards and says they encourage her to work harder.
“I want my work to inspire other disabled people to get involved in agriculture and do the best they can instead of begging on the street.”
Profits and prizemoney are ploughed back.
“We now want to expand our work by supplying major retailers which could bring in good money for us. People may laugh or look down on disabled people but when you offer something valuable, the way they look at you is different,” she says.
Mthembu wants to read braille, there is no doubt she will. She has already proved where there is a will, there is fertile field and a way.

‘Blind Or Not,  I Will Farm’

It was a long walk to farming for Marlin De-Jager, ending at a 3,000 hectare plot, near Aberdeen. In these parts, De-Jager’s background is as rare as the famous Karoo lamb. His persistence, as solid as the rocks on his land.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2201" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_0890-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
He was born and raised by a single parent after his father walked out. He skipped town while in high school after a brawl at a rugby game. He wound up struggling in the Western Cape province digging a train tunnel along the Hex River.
A few years later, he returned to Aberdeen and changed his fortunes by starting his own farming business; buying unwanted sheep with black wool from farmers and selling the mutton.
“When you slaughter something, it doesn’t matter what their hair looks like. When the skin is off it doesn’t matter. That’s how I started,” says De-Jager.
Next, he bought 21 small pieces of communal land and taught the community how to plant gardens.
Last year, after 20 years of saving, he bought his own farm for R4.2 million ($420,000).
“As an emerging farmer, I want to become a commercial farmer. For me, one day, it’s to see my son and his children also becoming commercial farmers,” he says.
One morning, De-Jager read about fracking in the newspapers.
“I was very interested to know how it works. For me, I don’t know how they are going to get it right. Water underground is like blood in the veins. To stop one vein affects the whole body,” he says.
Since then De-Jager has been talking to his community one-by-one.
“I’m only a drop in the ocean. I am trying to convince the colored community about my concerns with fracking. Our people are mostly small farmers. I sat and asked them about fracking. They said ‘we haven’t got land so why must we worry?’ That is their view. I don’t think they realize what will happen,” he says.
De-Jager fears many people don’t understand what fracking means and believes energy companies are taking advantage of this.
“They [fracking companies] don’t care about the land. They care about their pockets. You can see all the big companies. They are sitting there and making their money. Then when it’s finished, they pack up and leave and we must deal with the land,” he says.
The emerging farmer intends to fight fracking before it happens, he says. De-Jager doesn’t want to see the farm he spent so long saving for, destroyed, before his son takes over.

No Land For My Son

It was early morning, the sun was blazing. Tommie van Zyl walks over to Wilson Mashola, one of the drivers at the farm, standing near the entrance of a warehouse, where thousands of tomatoes are being loaded onto a yellow truck. Tommie greets Mashola in his mother tongue, Khelobedu, the language of this part of Limpopo, in northern South Africa. The language is similar to northern-Sotho, seTswana and Tshivenda and it’s not easy to learn. The two hug and share a few jokes. Tommie turns to say that Mashola has been a driver on the family farm for 32 years.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1842" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_0324-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />
Tommie inherited this knack of communication from his father. In a country with 11 official languages, Tommie speaks three tongues of the people of Limpopo, as well as his mother tongue Afrikaans, and English. He’s a strange millionaire, dressed in a plain blue shirt, chinos and veldskoene—hardy shoes typically worn by South African farmers. At first glance you wouldn’t think Tommie is chief executive officer of this massive multi million rand tomato farm.
It was his choice, when he returned from studying in the States in 1986, to shun the khakis worn by many a farmer.
“I always ask what we can do to remain relevant. Some of them still wear it, but I felt in order to be one with the people, you need to change stereotypes about Afrikaans farmers,” he says.
Nestled in the valley of Mooketsi around 400km north of Johannesburg, the farm is the home of the ZZ2 brand. It’s famous across the continent for tomatoes—harvesting around 170,000 tons a year from 2,000 hectares (ha).
The name dates back to 1906 after the end of the war when farmers were compelled to get a registered number with which to brand their cattle. The authorities gave each of the van Zyl brothers a number from ZZ1 to ZZ4. ZZ2 was the brand of the second eldest brother Burt, grandfather to Bertie and great grandfather to Tommie—who used it as the trademark for what was to become the biggest tomato farm in the southern hemisphere.
Tommie’s father, Bertie, left school at 16 to take over the farm from his ailing father. In those days, the van Zyl’s had a mixed crop, mainly potatoes, and life was difficult. Bertie realized that his neighbor made more money from tomatoes than potatoes and convinced his father to change. The first crop was harvested four years later.
The climate in the Mooketsi valley was just right. Tomatoes flourished all year round and soon, the farm was rich. Over the years, the van Zyl’s diversified into avocados, onions, stone fruit and beef.
The company also has farms in Musina, Limpopo, near the border with Zimbabwe. They grow apples and pears in Ceres and Riebeek-West in the Western Cape as well as Langkloof in the Eastern Cape. Marketing manager Clive Garret says a new crop, is dates, farmed in Hakiesdoorn in the Karas region of southern Namibia. The company hopes to harvest their first crop of dates within the next year.
Bertus Venter, Production manager and agronomist at ZZ2, says dates are in high demand during the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, due to their high energy and nutritional properties. The climate in the southern hemisphere allows for the growing of fresh dates to be available during that holy month.
“As far as business growth is concerned, we’re constantly looking at how we should adapt our business. We benchmark ourselves against the best in the world and we will adapt our system to the well adapted to the environment we’re in. We’re firmly established in South Africa, but also where it makes economic sense in neighboring countries,” says Tommie.
It’s been a long road to the tomato millions for Tommie. While growing up, he started to learn the trade, though he says he didn’t walk into managing the company.
“I didn’t get the job because I was the son of the owner. My father was a very strict man and he didn’t want us to go to school.”
Bertie wanted Tommie to stop going to school after grade eight, but with the help of neighbors and uncles, he persuaded his father to allow him to study.
Tommie completed an undergraduate B.Comm degree in economics and agricultural economics at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape. When he found he couldn’t play any other sport, he opted for boxing, gaining full sports colors while studying.
Following his completion of a postgraduate honors degree, he was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to learn for a Master of Science in food and resource economics at the University of Florida, in the States. While there, he was also awarded membership to Gamma Sigma Delta, an international honor society dedicated to recognizing accomplishments of leaders in agriculture and the related sciences, at the very least he vindicated his neighbors and uncles.
On completion of his studies in 1986, Tommie returned to the family farm. He started off as a buying clerk in the purchasing office, expanding his responsibilities and started to farm a year later. At the age of 27, in 1992, he cut his teeth and became managing director for operations, property and investments.
“But we had a very interesting managing system. I had the title and the responsibility, but not necessarily at that time, the authority. I grew into authority and probably since 2001, we established proper governing structures that gave me full authority as chief executive officer, reporting to our board of directors, but since 1992, I had the title of chief executive officer,” he says.
The father of four took over the reins of the multi million rand conglomerate in 2005 after his father died. His son, Burtie, is following in the family footsteps, starting off as a junior project manager and coming through the ranks to his current position of general manager for the avocado plantations. One of Tommie’s twin daughters is studying genetics and horticulture and the other geography and environmental science; his eldest daughter is a jewelry designer.
When he is not farming, the 54-year-old enjoys reading books on philosophy, business and economics, and sometimes takes long walks through the countless rows of tomato fields.
The saying, never judge a book by its cover or a tomato by its skin, couldn’t be truer when Tommie suggests a helicopter flight over the farm. He jumps into the pilot seat and starts the rotor blades—a farmer of many talents. He obtained his private pilot’s license with night rating for an airplane and more recently a helicopter license. From the sky, the tomato and avocados look like neatly laid-out football fields.
From here, tomatoes are exported to Reunion, Dubai, Seychelles and Oman, while around 3,000 tons of avocados go to Europe. The rest of the produce is sold through the fresh markets in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Their biggest competitor is Azura in Morroco.
Around 20 trucks are on the road daily, transporting nearly 4,000 tons per week to a warehouse in Johannesburg, where they are divided and dispatched to various stores across the country, and to sellers. Tommie says hawkers are one of their biggest customers. They buy products cheaply in bulk and sell them on streets and small shops.
ZZ2 also has a commercial herd, consisting mainly of Pinzgauers, which roam on non-arable land, for the breeding of weaners on high-valued stud cattle. The farm is also involved in wildlife conservation with fenced conservancies measuring 23,721ha. The game includes white rhino, nyala, gemsbuck, red hartebeest, giraffe, impala, kudu, Burchell’s zebra and eland.
The livestock alone is worth R30 million ($3.3 million) and the game R8.5 million ($940,000).
In a time when many of the country’s mines are being lambasted of raking in huge profits at the expense of the people, ZZ2  built small villages for the workers and their families nearer to the farms.
Tommie says each farm has its own clinic as they are far away from the nearest hospital. They provide bus services for workers’ children to a nearby primary school and also support a farm school and 13 créche’s for around 300.
Each farm has its own vehicle workshop where the school buses and the trucks get serviced by professionals.
ZZ2 employs around 8,000 people in South Africa, of whom around 6,500 are based at the headquarters. The farm also employs people in neighboring countries from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, who carry out seasonal work.
With over 60,000ha—and counting—of farming land, ZZ2 turns over around R900,000 ($98,657) for tomatoes alone and nearly a R1.1 billion ($120 million) for the entire company. But the tomato farmer says this is humbling.
“When you think you’re king, you’re paw-paw, when you think you’re paw-paw, you’re king. I’m very intrigued by value in a broad sense. Money doesn’t really impress us. We’re impressed by the value of the things we produce and the meaning that we’re creating for many people,” says Tommie.
As the autumn sun sets over the farm, the workers pack their tools and dust off their boots, as one shift ends and a new one begins at the entrance of the warehouse. Looking far away over the horizon Tommie would like to employ more of them next year and expand the tomato business. In these recessionary times, there can be few businesses that can look at the sunset and say that.

Tag: Farming

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA