I have one month to go before I resume the cycle of health reviews, and to this end I plan to enjoy it as much as I can. With cancer, you never know what is ahead so best not think about it. It now looks like our fishing trip is off for this year, so it's something to look forward to next year. Now there is ambition. My life is a bit like that now, looking to the next event in the near future, not too far ahead. I must say that as you get older, time does seem to go much quicker, even with a lot less time to fill the day. I had a great fear of how I would fill my day on retirement; now I wonder how I managed to fill in ten hours of work each day and more. How did I find the time?
Perhaps the internet and its content takes up much of my time, my routine is to read news articles in the morning, including anything to do with Zimbabwe and Scotland. I then look at the messaging groups I am part of, rarely contributing but rather reading unless something really irks me or interests me triggering a comment. Yes I do look at social media, it is the easiest way to follow what old friends are up to. Without the internet and social media I would have lost contact with many. Often contact in social media leads to a live reunion by telephone or video call.
Despite the distances involved everything seems much closer nowadays. You no longer have to wait for that letter that rarely comes in the post to keep up with friends and family. Do not underestimate social media’s importance especially for those that live alone.
“The biggest problem with the internet is it has as much garbage or more than that of interesting or credible content. I try to verify stories by visiting a number of the more reliable news sites, but my suspicion is that most modern reporters do the same in both generating and verifying their news reports.” - Peter McSporran
For the past month or so we have been waiting for rain, yes now as a gardener not as a farmer I look to the sky for relief. Both Rozanne and I are guilty of looking at the weather forecast a number of times a day, especially if we are in a dry spell. Just to make it clear, unlike the south of the country, where we live in Portugal is blessed by excellent rainfall, the thirty-year annual average being just in excess of a thousand millimeters. How we would have loved that at home. We keep the garden alive at this time of year with survival only applications of water applied once a week. Due to the winds, our evaporation is very high. When we first arrived in Portugal, water was relatively cheap but now the billing system is loaded against anyone that uses more than what is needed for domestic purposes so our bill always has an expensive part down to the garden. From social media I have watched our weather, which is expected to be dry in summer and wet in winter, the continuous rain in Scotland this year, the drought in Zimbabwe and Zambia and recently the heavy unseasonal and even unique snowfalls in South Africa. Is it because of all those years farming in Africa and waiting not just for the first rains but also any rain in a mid-season drought. Rozanne records our daily rainfall and also takes the weekly temperature readings, maximum and minimum. It is noticeable that we as ex-farmers are the only people that do this amongst our expat friends. As for the weather forecast, our Portuguese neighbours are much more accurate than the met office or the internet despite being able to see the clouds approach on satellite imagery. Perhaps it is because we live close to the Atlantic that brings the inaccuracy, but for a couple of weeks we have been promised rain with it being continually delayed or rather moved forward a few days on the day of its forecast, weeks now. Once again we are promised rain this week, we will see.
This reminds me that the biggest risk to farmers in most parts of the world is the weather. Every business has risks, the main risks to manufacturing being the market and production costs while the farmer has the risks of weather and time. I have added time as most manufacturers when they see demand decline for their product through volume of sales or price resistance they can slow down or cease completely the production of that product be it industrial or food processing. We will not mention supermarkets here, especially as they only pay farmers for what they sell and only after it is sold. All the risk is in the producer’s hand including the financing of their commodity until sold by this third party.
“The definition of a farmer is ‘an optimist’. You cannot farm if you are averse to risk. Only a crazy optimist would invest in something they have no guarantee of producing due to the idiosyncrasy of the weather or any guarantee of a viable selling price.” - Peter McSporran.
On the other hand, the farmers plant a crop with little knowledge of what the price will be when they sell, perhaps nine months later or breeds a cow knowing, if it is in calf, will only sell the offspring two to three years later. Tree fruit growers and plantation groups have even longer timelines with most taking at least five years to start producing crops large enough to begin recovering costs, not a profit, without the knowledge of what the selling price will be. How crazy is that? In Zimbabwe, drought was our biggest risk and as input costs, as they have done the world over, grow at a faster rate than crop selling prices, more and more farmers diversified into irrigation and a new bouquet of crops, including winter wheat, barley, coffee, floriculture and horticulture to try and mitigate some of the risk. Even livestock farmers, especially dairy farmers, invested in irrigation to ensure grains and fodder for their stock. Irrigation is expensive and to most crop farmers, be it from tobacco to maize, would only irrigate a portion of their land in mitigating against drought, reducing the risk but not removing it. An added advantage of producing crops under irrigation in a drought in central Africa was due to the logistical cost of importing substitutes; there was always a premium which helped to offset the losses on their dryland production.
“Time is the biggest contributor to the risk carried by all farmers. No one can predict the price of an agricultural commodity in a year’s time, let alone five or more. Nowadays in sophisticated markets this can be mitigated by using various financial instruments including forward selling which also have their own set of risks.” - Peter McSporran
Thinking about it, perhaps we should give credit where it is due. Zimbabwe inherited a knowledgeable and sympathetic banking system for farmers after Independence, very much stimulated by sanctions and therefore probably unique in the world, where money was lent on cash flow rather than asset security.
During my time in office at the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), my duties required me to speak at most of the seventy-two farmers associations, the mainstay of the union's structure. All of these were run locally, with no financial or administrative support from the union, only advice when required. Each would have an annual AGM where new executives and sub-committees would be elected. AGMs would be poorly attended in many areas for fear of being voted, rather press ganged, into becoming an office bearer. To try and mitigate poor attendance, guest speakers would often be asked, more often than not senior elected members of the CFU, chairmen of associations, especially those whose association represented the leading agricultural enterprise in that particular area, or senior members of staff. If it was known there was going to be a really contentious subject on the agenda a member of staff with specific knowledge could well accompany the speaker. We farm leaders in that day did not have the skill or guile to fob off our members with no meaningful answers which is common practice in present day politics. Normally these were pleasant duties and if far afield required overnight stays sometimes in the most interesting and remote parts of the country. Only in the army during the bush war did I visit more unique places. In saying this, other than these pleasant duties, sometimes we were summoned to address grievances or some crises. The crises were very often related to Government agencies, in all their forms, or local council interventions. Just a few examples are security problems, police not dealing with stock theft but happy to ask for bribes at local roadblocks, veterinary restrictions due to Foot and Mouth, lack of critical services, or poor roads. Most of these we would be happy to deal with if we still had our farms today. When I think back, how we complained and whinged about not only serious matters but many trivial.
In regard to the internal grievances, luckily, they were rarely against the CFU, but more generally against fellow members. In saying that perhaps they did exist but in representing farmers you soon obtained a thick skin. Back at head office when we often received a call to attend a Farmers Association meeting or a special meeting convened especially to resolve a local problem and depending on its severity and complexity either the president or the vice president would attend along with of the directors, being either David Hasluck the director or Jerry Grant the deputy director. David would come for the more politically and business or CFU related crisis, while Jerry would attend matters related to livestock, especially cattle, wildlife and conservation. He himself was a great advocate of conservation with his wife Eve and daughters compelled to spend most of their holidays in the bush.
The most common problems were related to water, more often than not over extraction from a dam or river or even the use of someone else's water right. Some of the other larger crises I have mentioned previously, others I have not. They included water problems in Middle Save, complicated by the Government and the Regional Water Authority, even the Chinese, internal politics in West Nicholson, frost issues in Chipinge (coffee), dairy issues in Gweru, water rights in Mazowe and Makonde, two of the most vociferous regions overlapping into many farmers associations, to an instance of abuse in Nyanga which was the hardest to deal with due to the anger in the community. In most instances the problems were resolved and in regards to distance one of the furthest I attended was in late 1994 when Jerry Grant and myself were called to Gwaai where the Farmers Association and the Intensive Conservation Committee (ICA) wanted to impose sanctions on one rancher come wildlife operator for over use of the natural resources. That is the dissemination of the wildlife on their property and to some extent his neighbours attracted by the vacuum he or rather they were causing on their property. It was my second time there, previously a family were accused of needlessly killing lionesses which they claimed were eating their cattle. It was felt killing four lionesses was extreme. As you can imagine I knew nothing about wildlife law but Jerry was an expert and struck a commanding figure. This time we were happy to see the local organisations with our help deal with the issue using the powers of the ICA to suspend all hunting on that property until wildlife numbers recovered. It was not all unpleasant as after the meeting, which was held at the Gwaai River Hotel, all parties enjoyed a meal there and of course, many drinks in the bar festooned with all sorts of currency on the wall. All being friends again at the end of a long evening. That was the last time I visited there as a couple of years later the hotel was destroyed, I think in 1997.
The next day, we visited a conservation project involving the local Mabale community. The project was sponsored by Buck de Vries and the Bloombergs, the latter had owned the Gwaai River Hotel for four decades. That evening we were hosted by Bucks and his wife and he kindly took us into Hwange National Park. There is nothing better than to view wildlife with a knowledgeable local expert and a leader in his field. What a wonderful evening witnessing a lion hunting buffalo, the buffalo faring better than the lions that time, followed by an evening in the largest rondavel I had ever been in enjoying Buck’s whisky. At the same time, he enthralled us with his wildlife tales and especially his experiences supplying wildlife, including lions, for the film industry.
The forecasters were right. In the last three days, we have had thirty-seven millimetres of rain, which is much more effective than ten thousand firefighters.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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