6 minute read
My Life As A Fulltime Farmer
Career in Agri-Business
The past year into 2022 2022 has proved to be a great year for women in business across the country
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When beautiful boys and a full-time farmer.We were privileged to have a chat with her.
IM: How did you venture into farming, share a background of how it started?
MG: I found myself on the farm after a traumatic personal experience. I was going through a divorce; I didn’t know if I was coming or going and really needed solitude to kind of figure out the . next steps of my life.
I got to the farm in September 2019 intending to only take a breather for a week and come back and to this day l just never left !
IM: What sort of farming are you into and did you have to go through any outsourcing of funding to start up your farming projects?
MG: Our farming venture is fully commercial farming. We started small in 2019 just managing to do 11 hectares of commercial maize in that first season.
We have now grown from that first 11 hectares to 70 hectares in this coming summer season. Our crops have also grown in diversity. We are now doing horticulture (cabbages and tomatoes), sugar beans, soya beans, green mealies, tobacco and seed maize.
We also have a small cattle project that we recently started, and we will be venturing into goat farming and poultry.
IM: So, what kind of farming are you into and did you get to go to school study agriculture as a business or passion helped?
We initially started in 2019,we self funded from my own pocket with the help of my siblings and my mother.
We then went on to be contracted under command agriculture which is government funding.
As we diverse and grow we have had the privilege of being part of a strong network of farmers, companies and banks who support and finance out growers such as ourselves.
IM: In your own opinion does one have to compulsorily go to an Agriculture school to make it in this Business in Zimbabwe?
MG: “I have no agricultural education. It’s all been passion, a lot of reading and research, the internet must be your best friend. A strong understanding of money and how money works.
Finally, a strong team who have experience and knowledge of what you are trying to achieve..
Michelle checking on some cabbages at the farm, one of her main vegetable produce.
MG: I think it’s always important to be well equipped and educated about any business venture you may want to venture into.
I feel like if I had had some sort of agricultural training it would have saved us a lot of money we wasted on trail and error. But the internet is your friend, lots of training tools can be found there, lots of videos.
• An accounting and management background is also imperative for any start up.
• You must understand how and where your money is working.
• You must understand pay back periods and interest on loans before you commit yourself.
• You must understand profit margins .You also must understand that farming is a business, and any business must make PROFIT..
IM: As a female in the farming industry what are the challenges you have faced, or you are facing in agribusiness, what advice can you give to those who want to become full time professional farmers?
MG: Biggest challenge I have faced as a female farmer is stereotypes. Our society tends to stereotype certain professions in boxes for certain genders.Also, the ideology that if a woman is doing well in a certain field, she is someone influential daughter or wife.
The biggest advice I would like to give anyone who wants to do any sort of business is, “ do not mix economics/business and politics.”
Yes, there is a correlation, but your political affiliation has nothing to do with which area of business you can venture into.
Your gender has nothing to do with what field of business you want to venture into and lastly your background does not determine your future. You can be whatever and whoever you want to be.
IM: How do you maintain your clientele given the rate of competition in this field that you are in?
MG: We are blessed to be contract farming for 80% of the crops that we grow. What it means is we have secured the market before the seeds go into the ground. This is extremely important in our field of business because most of what we grow is perishable.
The 20% we grow only when we have researched markets, seasons and times and we grow knowing that there is either a shortage of this commodity or we anticipate that in the time it comes out the field there is a ready market.
This is mostly our horticultural produce like our green mealies, tomatoes and cabbages.
IM: What can you say is your main business secret?
MG: My main business secret is easy. CONSISTENCY, COMMITMENT and PASSION.
You must be consistent in what you do. Remember its a full-time job there’s no time to wake up just not feeling like working.
You must be committed, and this means even when you are making a loss be able to look ahead and keep planning ahead past that loss.
Lastly passionate, you just must learn to love what you do. Once you have passion..I promise you half the work is done.
Michelle Gwatimba receiving an award for being one of Zimbabwe’s influential women in Project Management; Commercial Farmers at the 2022 Awards Ceremony.
IM: What can we say are some of the fears that you have in business?
Fears??? I fear nothing. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.Setbacks come along the way as expected in anything in life really, but we wake up the next day and we try again, and we try harder.
There is nothing to fear really, I am in the business of feeding the nation, contributing to hunger eradication in my country and my community, I am here to change the narrative of the girl child, ending child marriages and ending gender-based violence but showing young girls that your brain and your hands are all you need to change your situation.
I’m doing all this while making money and building an empire and le gacy f or my children.I’m not scared. I’m excited.
