We understandably are all shocked by what is going on in Ukraine. Why? If I am truthful, for many because it is suddenly so close to home. There have been similar ongoing scenarios in the Middle East, Africa and Asia for many years. To most, luckily they only require a quick glance on the iPad or tv news with the accompany, saying, “How terribly disgraceful!”, before returning to their social media or mundane game. This is especially true of those who have not had any personal experience of this element of human survival. Previous generations in Europe had all experienced it first hand but that is now two full generations behind most. Hardship to many is poor internet signal for a few hours, a rail strike causing inconvenience or waiting too long to see the doctor. Of course, there can be added real or imaginary hardships such as gender, even no gender, colour or race. All tough on the individual, all who receive unequivocal support from the ‘rich’ liberal left who only eat in the most trendy and expensive restaurants pretending to emulate the culture of Viennese coffee houses. In their case, talking about things so very distant from the real world of poverty, pain and hardship drives how they imagine reality and their contribution to social responsibility. The two exceptions to this are bullying and poverty, even in our most affluent spoilt societies, they exist to all our shame.
For us who have been involved in war and have had the experience of forceful eviction from our homes and places of work, we all know how ineffective and short-lived ‘coffee house compassion’ lasts if it even truly exists.
“Only those that have witnessed war first hand have knowledge of the depth of darkness of human nature.” - Peter McSporran
The longer the present conflict continues the worse the atrocities will come through frustration of the leaders, especially the aggressors, and through the individual’s battle hardship and fear. I was surprised to read many of the Russian forces involved are conscripts. Watch out if more of those battle-hardened troops with experience of war in Chechnya or Afghanistan get more involved.
Many a person from the ‘politically correct left’ has told me over the years that we Rhodesian farmers got what we deserved forgetting that we were Zimbabwean citizen farmers living in our country forty years after independence. Admittedly many of us had strong British roots, no sympathy from the UK Government there, rather just platitudes and useless words. For these people, words are much more important than action. Even worse you can be judged in the manner you express them rather than their content.
“Wars, civil disturbance and famines appear in the western press in a holistic manner. To the individual involved, there is nothing more personal.” - Peter McSporran
A reflection of the leftist elite is the castrated United Nations. It should change its name to ‘The Organisation of Self-Interest’. If it ever had teeth, they were lost long ago. Crazily, you have this ridiculous rule that any of the five permanent members, including Russia, can veto a resolution. It gives one country, most often the guilty party or those it aligns with to protect itself or allies from either censor let alone concerted action. It has been the cause of inaction in many of the troubled spots in the world making it an onlooker rather than a positive role player in keeping the peace. Mind you, it does have a large stock of clichés in the form of platitudes.
“It is time the veto rule at the UN was reviewed, otherwise the UN will continue to be a spectator to the world woes. World pandemics and wars are sorted out by strong individual leadership not expensive diplomatically correct bureaucrats.” - Peter MacSporran
The fact is people like Putin get confidence from all the words and visual ineffectual claims of solidarity against his aggressive ambitions unless they are coupled with action. The sanctions will be devastating for the poor in Russia, nonetheless, Putin will still live like a king with little care of the suffering of the general population or his armed forces. In truth, the main purpose of sanctions is to try and instigate the innocent citizens to get up and overthrow the dictator. That is right, punish the innocent man on the street to instigate the overthrow of their leader. I saw an interview this week with the ex-head of MI6 saying just this in essence.
Maybe this time though the sanctions will also cause substantial pain closer to home. Perhaps not just food and energy price increases but also very serious food shortages. All that wilding, going green and solar farms will do little to feed the nation. Trees planted indiscriminately do not produce food, in fact, they put production at risk in many instances. Green energy timelines will be the first victim to fall away, they were ridiculous anyway. Sell-by dates will be ignored.
“Harsh reality is a good extinguisher of worthless social action. Of course, all things must become sustainable but only within a sensible manner. Certainly not by countries in isolation.” - Peter McSporran
In medical news, my eye specialist informs me that my eye has improved although I have developed some floaters in my left eye. It did not stop him, he once again jabbed my right eye. He informs me there is no damage in the right, so may disappear over time.
After a diet of Rozanne’s organic cement of rice, bread, bananas and apples, my stomach began to misbehave again this morning. Aaargh!
“Old age is like farming, you have to learn to live with all the curveballs. Good times have to be treasured and made the most of. In bad, always think tomorrow will be better.” - Peter McSporran
Back to Farming
Once discharged from the army after my year in National Service, it was back to the farm. Strangely this was one of the most unsettling times in my life. I think the shift from a year of army life back to civilian was a greater change than I envisaged although not recognising it at the time. I cannot imagine what it is like for regular soldiers. Tough we know, as many just cannot fit back into society again, especially those that were exposed to prolonged combat. For me, it was perhaps suddenly I was no longer in constant contact with others, the camaraderie and self-decision making rather than being told. In the army, you eat, sleep, play and work (sic) together. On the farm for a bachelor, it is a lonely time in the evening with little or no TV reception, the only daily social interaction with workers who view you as the boss.
For me, the Smiths welcomed me back and instead of moving into my cottage at the top section at Umzururu, the home farm, I moved into a recently vacated farmhouse on Highlands farm. So with my tattered couch, small fridge, bed, dining table and some tea boxes as cupboards I moved into an old but very large house. First job was to paint it, using what I could find in the farm workshop. This led to a multicoloured house indoors, blue lounge, green kitchen, brown bathroom and yellow verandah. Shortly after moving in, my new neighbours, Johnny Walters and Earl Burger dropped in and were in awe of my colour scheme, lack of furniture and my accent. At Nyabira Club that Saturday, they told the area there was a poor Scotsman, who spoke little English, living at Highlands with packing cases as furniture and a tartan house. They were exaggerating, be it only a little. One of the first problems I had with the house was blocked drains. On farms, you do all the building, plumbing and electricity repairs yourself with the farmworkers. In clearing the drains we unfolded a mystery. To this day I have found no answer for it. The toilet drains were completely blocked by numerous used condoms. Not uncommon I believe. But the mystery to me was why would the recent tenants, an eighty year plus old couple need to use condoms, and so many?
My father, which on occasion he did, wrote to me asking if it was wise to continue to live in Rhodesia in light of the escalating war? So with the loneliness, my own uncertainty and the ‘bees’ my father set off, all of which made me very unsettled. As Highlands house was some three and a half kilometres from the main workshops, which was still the hub of all my farming duties, it required an early morning, evening, lunch and dinner drive on the motorbike. As it was June, it was bloody freezing in the morning and cool in the evening. I had not purchased warm winter clothes and anyway even in winter, shorts and short sleeve shirts were worn on the farm. This cold seemed to get into my bones along with what was going on in my head. This was portrayed as lethargy and a lack of interest at work. Not always, but on occasion. I knew it and so did my boss Hamish, who luckily tolerated it.
One evening remains vividly in my mind. In my rush to get home, I skidded on the gravel road falling from the motorbike and removing most of the skin off my right arm, side and leg. I knew I should go to the doctor in case of infection but why bother if I had my cattle veterinary box to hand. Nothing to it, out with the Terramycin, an aerosol cattle wound spray and hit my injuries with a good covering. About five seconds later I was going through the roof in agony. How was I to know it would sting so badly? The cattle hardly flinched when applied. A long night immersed in the bath trying to remove as much as possible. Lesson learnt. In later years I found Terramycin eye and wound powder was just as effective without the pain or the purple stain which remained for several weeks.
As I mentioned my call-up papers were on the way only after the Salisbury Show in August which I once again enjoyed in that year 1975. I also had a car so could go to Salisbury on a Saturday night. When you worked as a farm assistant your day was from pre-dawn to post-sunset making it physically impossible to work all day and play at night. So for me, the forty-odd kilometre trip to Salisbury nightlife was restricted to Saturday nights only. As I knew little of the places to go, on the recommendation of a Scottish builder installing a crop drier on the farm, I started to frequent Callies Sports Club. Every Saturday they would have a dance which ended strictly at midnight when I would buy the Sunday Mail on the way home, essential reading in those days. No chance of picking a girl up willing to travel to the farm. Staying awake was always a challenge. I suppose my trips to Callies lasted most of that year when I was home from the bush along with the occasional visit to Gwebi Agricultural College where my old animal husbandry lecturer from Auchincruive, Peter Chard, had become deputy principal. This connection was to open a new chapter in my life.
Scoping Adventures with Han
Shortly after the formation of AgDevCo, Han Derksen and I started to do more work for them as founding members, at first for only limited cost recovery. This, in a way, a risk, which was then to bring me ten years of what I think was late-life productivity. I have always liked to achieve things so my recent retirement needs a total reset of the mind.
As of yet I obviously, in my life story, have not yet recounted my loss of the farms and my move to Zambia. This I will recount at a later date.
Han was such an enlightening guy to work with, strong work ethic, knowledgeable, clever and a good person to pass the social hours with over a whisky and cigar. Every minute I spent with him I learnt something new. Being Dutch, therefore bluntly honest at times in manner as I have found all Dutch to be, including my own relations. This did not necessarily endear him to everyone at the first meeting. Once becoming familiar with him, everyone would warm to him and his dry sense of humour. Advice he gave freely.
“Only consider an investment on behalf of others if you would be happy to commit your own cash resources.” - Han Derksen
Sounds easy but with targets to meet or even worse pressure to ‘get money out the door,’ it is not always adhered to. Further in greenfield and brownfield ‘start ups’ in agriculture, there is huge inherent risk.
One of the first jobs we did after working together for InfraCo in Zambia was to do work in Mozambique for AgDevCo. Although AgDevCo was at that time open to work anywhere in Africa, I suggested not to start in Zambia but look at less developed agricultural countries such as Tanzania, Mozambique and West Africa. In Mozambique, the team from AgDevCo consisted of Chris Isaac, Han Derksen and myself where we set about doing the scoping exercise for the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor (BAGC).
As I have mentioned previously Han, Chris and I went to a Government-sponsored investment conference in Maputo prior to our mission. We left that meeting feeling there may be little role for us, there seemed to be so much success instigated by NGOs to be found in the proposed Beira Corridor. This corridor was demarcated by the railway line from the port of Beira on the Mozambican east coast to the city of Mutare on the eastern border of Zimbabwe. There was no set limit to the width of the corridor, rather an undefined area where the towns along the railway line served industry and local agriculture with Chimoio being the main hub. The corridor itself was some two hundred and fifty kilometres in length. We had previously done some work in the area trying to gain income for AgDevCo by performing consultancy. I also knew the area as I had a good look at it before deciding to move to Zambia after losing our farms. My old friend John Meikle was a strong advocate of Mozambique, he already had mining and farming interests there. Also when we set up our commercial resettlement scheme for Zambia, the tobacco companies, in the form of ZLT under the guise of Mozambican Leaf Tobacco were promoting a semi-similar self-managed minimum cost scheme. For me, in an area unsuitable for Virginia (flue-cured) tobacco which was unfortunately for many to be proven a correct assumption. More recently I had done some scoping studies for a sugar biofuel project in the area for InFraCo.
I cannot remember if I mentioned it but on our consultancy trip I met up by chance with my old friend Mona Moorcroft who was accompanied by Michele von Memerty at Vanduzi on the day. As we were not satisfied with our boarding and Mona had recently been widowed, I suggested she look at setting up her house as a bed and breakfast which she did successfully having to give it up only last year due to poor health. In those ten years, while it was open what fine evenings I spent with her, Michele and Scott along with Han and later Rossane Whalley. Mona was a fantastic cook, popular hostess and the holder of all the local gossip and news.
I am waffling on, sorry. Anyway, as soon as we arrived in Chimoio and started to visit the so-called wonderful success stories, be it all they needed was further funding, we felt like one of these people who order a mail bride on a photograph. The goods did not match the advert. In fact, there were very few successes, with just a handful of the fifty-odd farmers who moved there under the tobacco scheme. Those that remained were tenacious being only about four in number. Monty Hunter had a consultancy there having set up the horticultural business taken over by Sainsbury’s while his wife Beryll had her own business. The two most active farmers were Chris Serfontein and Kevin Gifford. Other ex-Zimbabwean farmers in the area were the Benades, Malcolm Clyde-Wiggins, Gerard Breytenbach and a few others, some busy exiting having lost everything. Gerard and I at the end of the war had been in PATU (Police Anti Terrorist Unit) having originated from farming in my home area, Darwendale.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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