 about the five things you should know before starting to buy your form or deciding to buy your form. And before I go into those five things, I just want to encourage you to really ask questions, pick my brain, challenge me in anything that I say. And most importantly, this podcast is for you to get the answers that you need. So feel free to ask any questions. And just to remind you that all these podcasts lives would be posted on the private property social media pages on Facebook, as well as YouTube post the live. So you could watch the videos at any time after the live. And yes, please. And also just continue to comment and we'll answer any questions that you have. But I want to start on today's topic. The five things you should know before starting to buy your form. And just the first point that I would definitely suggest is that you need to know your why. Why is it that you want to buy a form? Why is it that you want to do? Yeah, start farming or be in the agricultural sector. And also what is driving, what is the driving force behind the decision? And if it's a farm that you've inherited, you know, it's all about deciding, do you want to pursue this journey or not? Do you want to sell it? Do you want to give it off to someone else that could take better advantage of this asset? But if you're buying a farm, I think you should know your why simply because that why, whatever that reason is, is what is going to get you through your farming journey because farming is quite a difficult industry. It's very unique and also very complex as well. However, it has high rewards. So you need to know your why you need to know your goal, you need to know your purpose. In addition to that, that is the reason that this knowing your why is going to help you be a good leader for not only yourself, but for your team members, service your client's vector. And it also gives a direction in terms of are you on the right path with achieving your goals, the strategy that you had before, are you aligned, are there any things that you should consider or change or modify to adapt to reaching your goals? So know your why. I know that sometimes a lot of people look at farming and look at farmers and look at the beautiful pictures of crops, cattle, whatever it may be, and people may admire that were inspired to become a farmer one day. But as I always say, farming is a business. And then behind the scenes, certain things are different. And I suppose as farmers, sometimes you don't really always communicate these things. So you need to know your why and it needs to be a passion. It needs to be something that you really want to do and that you cannot imagine yourself without doing it. So know your why because that will get you ahead of the difficult times and also can be very rewarding if you're able to achieve those dreams. My other one is to the other factor that I strongly believe that you should know before buying a farm is that you need to be mentally fit. The reason why I say you need to be mentally fit is because a lot of farmers I meet are very resilient individuals and they've built strong and tough characters over the years. If you know that you're a person that easily gives up, that easily does not rise up to the challenge, then I don't think farming is for you. Then I definitely would suggest do not go and invest in buying a farm. And the reason why I say that is because so many things can happen in your farm business every single day, even if you've planned for it, even if you've planned for the risks, even if you've planned for those opportunities, a lot of things can go wrong. And that requires for you to take strong and active decisive decisions that will help you move over to the next step or solve that problem or rise up to the occasion. A simple example could be you might be in the peak of your production period cultivating certain crops and then your most important resource asset, let's say a tractor in this example breaks down. How are you going to rise up to the challenge? Do you have a mechanic in-house you could fix that? Where are you going to source an alternative tractor within that point in time? This could might cause a disruption in your ability to supply to your clients on time as well. And so you need to think on your feet and make quick decisions. Another example that I could bring in is that you could leave your plants well irrigated, well planted at the end of the day, you know, you coil it a day with yourself and your workers and everybody goes home. And then at night, sorry, and then in the next morning at dawn, frost comes and really destroys all your crops. You could find yourself in a financial backlog or in a financial distress business simply because all of your crops, all of that investment has really been hit by frost or hail storm or whatever the challenge might have been. And you find yourself in a very difficult financial position. How do you pick yourself up from there? If you're an individual that easily gives up, then really within that specific problem, you won't do well. You won't solve that situation very well. And so this is where the resilience comes in. The tough character comes in. So definitely before buying a farm, you need to know that can I stand this? Can I stand the challenges? Read up about the challenges that farmers face. One other example I know which is dear to my heart and we just recently spoke about it with Woodcladding, which is a farmer that we had on this podcast about a few days ago. And she mentioned that, you know, she's a farmer that forms high value crops. And part of her crop selection was herbs that she had planted. And little did she know that in a few months time or in the following year, we would be hit by a global pandemic. And what she found or experienced on her farm is that during this global pandemic, nobody wanted to buy herbs, her basil, her rocket, her wild rocket. Nobody really wanted to buy her herbs. And everybody was focused on buying the essential needs, essential food, essential crops to sustain their livelihoods. And she found herself in a very difficult situation. Again, she lost some money because she couldn't sell those crops. But her business model had to adapt and change within that time and go into planting crops that really would require a lot of demand or sorry, the plant crops that the market needs a lot of demand from at that point in time. And so had she not been a resilient farmer, a farmer that can think on her feet and, you know, apply some business model or business thinking into her problem, she wouldn't have gotten far and she wouldn't be where she is today. And so I think you definitely need to know that you have to be a mainly fit individual. You have to be, you have to know yourself well enough to know that with any crises or any challenge, I can rise up to their occasion and really make it work because if you can't do that, you will suffer great losses, not only from a financial point of view, but from a personal point of view. And that could be detrimental in your business. The third topic that I want to touch on is definitely being hands-on. I have written blogs about this, I've spoken about it quite extensively and I really feel that as a farmer, you need to be hands-on. I've had people come up to me and say or write me emails or messages and say, I want to farm, but I'm kindly pursuing my corporate job. I love what I'm doing. It is my passion, but I also have a passion for farming. How do I start? Where do I start? And I always, it's quite a difficult thing to tell people, but I definitely think it's important for you to be hands-on. The reason is that farming is an investment and you really don't want to go around spending money that you're just going to throw down the drain. You really want to make sure that this money or rent or cents or a couple of thousand rents that you're putting into this business can yield some sort of return and investment. So if you're not hands-on, if you're not able to be there and look after those operations, clients will take advantage of you, employees will take advantage of you, people in the neighboring communities will take advantage of you because they will know that this farmer or the business owner is really not serious about his or her business. And therefore, I think we could get away with doing a lot without being held accountable for it. A number of farmers have felt this pinching. To give you a small reality is that my neighbor, very close to my farm, has been farming on this particular land for six years. This farm particularly is not his primary business. He has another business, but today he's selling that farm. And the reasons for him selling that farm is because he says that over the past five, six years, he's really not made a good return on investment. He's lost significant amount of money. All the parts that he had planted and sold to the market, the money that was coming in was really paying operational costs and employees. And he really didn't get anything out of that investment at the end of the day. But he's been spending time and effort having to drive to the farm on weekends at times where he could have spent with his family just to look at operations. And sometimes he would find that when he got to the farm on the weekends, he would see great disappointment in the crops. The reading wasn't done, the fertilizing wasn't done. There were a couple of infrastructural damages on his farm. And so because he's not there every day, obviously things would go wrong. I think as a business person, you have to set the standard. And most importantly, do this for yourself. Be hands-on for yourself because you need to know the ins and outs of your business. If you're just leaving the responsibility to other individuals, how are you going to performance manage them? How are you going to know at the end of the day what you're producing, when and how much money you're getting for it? So definitely be hands-on not only for your business, for your employees, but for yourself. You need to know the strategic decisions for your farming in the next season or in these next coming years. So definitely, I really would recommend you to definitely be hands-on. The fourth topic I want to go through is that it takes time to realize your return on investment. You know, some businesses are quite simple in the sense that you can develop the product and go sell it to your clients and then get paid within, you know, a couple of weeks or days. And the time, the lead time it takes into developing that product can be four days, can be a week, etc. With farming, you know, based on specific crops, it could take three weeks, four weeks or six weeks for them to mature, even going to three months, for example. From a fruit tree and super fruit perspective of fruit farming, it definitely takes time to grow citrus, grapes, for example, apples, for example. And so it takes time and that time could be a matter of years, three years, four years, whatever the case might be. And you need to understand that during that time, you still need to keep your business afloat. You still need to pay employees that come onto the farm and prune those trees and prune those trees and spray those trees and water those trees. There's a lot really that goes into play whilst prior to you harvesting any crop of some sort, going to livestock as well. The same goes with cattle, you know. Some breeds only, for example, studs or breeds only produce cars once a year. And only one, you know, with sheep is a different thing, goats is a different thing. But even then, it takes a couple of months before, you know, your cows can produce any babies. And so you still need to sustain your business prior to you making that sale. And so yeah, it really does take time to realize your return and investment. And vegetable production is very intense and it's quick. So even then, there's a lot of infrastructure that would go into having to improve and develop your farm further so that you could stay ahead of the curve when selling your products to your market. So, you know, some may think that, oh, you know, spinach only takes like, say, four weeks to grow and recover two or three weeks to grow. And therefore, within three weeks, I've got my money back, even though the money comes within the business, there's still certain improvements that you have to make onto the farm. There's expenses that you have to pay some budgeted for some unexpected that you still need to have to pay and put priority on so that your business can sustain itself and can thrive at the end of the day. So sometimes, you know, it depends on you as a business person and obviously speaking to your content, it takes time to realize those profits. So make sure that you're making the right investments. And before buying the farm, make sure that this farm is in line with my growth strategy. Don't go buy a farm of a two-hectare plot, for example, whereas your dream and your vision is to aspire to grow maize in one day be a commercial maize farmer, you know, you can't really make a good ROI with two hectares of maize. So therefore, speak to experts. As I said in the previous video, speak to experts that could guide you prior to making that investment. Is this investment worthwhile? Is it aligned? Is it aligned towards my growth strategy, et cetera? And so these are the things that you have to take into account. So it definitely takes time to realize your return in investment because sometimes the revenue and the income that you receive from the business needs to go towards other expenses. And so typically I know the conversation in the farming community that when you go into farming, you really don't make a profit within three years. After three years, then we can talk. And there's some farmers that could tell you that, you know, in the first year of farming, I made a profit or doubled my profits in farming my tomatoes, for example. And in the second season, I lost all that money simply because there's so much uncertainty around farming as well. You know, today, we're going good next year, we're faced by a global pandemic, which can completely destroy your business model and really make your crop not wanted by the consumers because it's not really a crop of choice. It's not a priority or demand for consumers at that particular time. So even though you might make money in the first season, the second season might be a different case. And so yeah, I think definitely prior to making that investment, do as much research as possible, know that you in it for the long run, this is a marathon and not a sprint, and that you need to be patient. And if you make the right decisions there, then, you know, you are really setting yourself up towards great profit and success in your farming journey. The other, the final and last tip that I'm going to make about this particular topic that we're discussing today is that farming is not cheap. You know, a lot of our imports from an infrastructure point of view are imported. It's another point that I mentioned, so relating to the previous video is that, you know, the Rand-Dole exchange is currently affecting the industry as a whole. And a lot of the things are not produced locally simply because sometimes some of the things are expensive to produce locally. So you find yourselves as a farmer having to import a lot of products or deal with suppliers that can provide you a product that is at an imported price, not necessarily cheap at some times. And so farming is not cheap. There's things that you constantly have to put into your farming business to help keep your business alive, to sustain your business. Right now, with the scheduled power cuts that we're experiencing in the country, these are, you know, pose a major threat or an increase in our operational costs as farmers because we constantly rely on energy or power supply to maintain our businesses, especially if you're in a very intensive production, you know, to keep the pack house running, your cold room running, to keep products at the right temperature so that your clients or your market can receive it in good quality. These operational costs increase every single month, increase every single year, you know, the price of electricity goes up. And even though you want to maybe change from an electrical connection to a solar power connection, that investment is quite steep as well. So you need to plan and budget ahead. And if you find yourself in a position about who do you talk to, where do you go to for such information, speak to other farmers, give them different scenarios because they have definitely would have walked a path before you, especially if it's farmers that have been farming for many more years, speak to your agri specialists in the banks, the different professionals within your input supply companies that you buy from, collect all that information. And these are the right individuals that could really help you in terms of how to forecast in the following seasons, what are the right investments to make right now so that you don't lose out and lose a lot of money. And so when I say farming isn't cheap, you really need to plan ahead and make sure that is this production right for me before going out and building a farm that has greenhouse tunnels or before investing in silos, for example, figure out is this going to work for me? Is this infrastructure going to bring in money for me? You know, you might speak to farmers that will say you need a cold room, but really does your current operations need a cold room right now? So these are the things that you need to really ask yourself as an individual, as a business person, as a farmer, in terms of will it really bring money into my business or not? And therefore, prior to making that investment, interrogate those decisions. Draw off the small business plan for yourself, a risk management plan for yourself that you could always bounce back to and make sure that with whatever you're investing on your farm, it's going to yield great return on investments for you instead of making unnecessary purchases. So just to sum that up for again for you is that the things that you should know before buying a farm or investing in a farm, what is starting to go into farming in that case is that you need to know your why. Why is it that you're doing this? Is this a passion? Is this a hobby? Is this something that a lot of friends are doing that maybe you also just want to do? You need to know your why and you need to know your purpose. Secondly, you need to be mentally fit. You need to be a resilient individual. If you're one person that really gives up and really doesn't rise up to occasion or challenges, then I don't think this industry is for you. It is a business at the end of the day. So sometimes you really have to be a professional and a leader, not only for yourself, your employees, but for your clients as well and make good strong business decisions that could benefit all parties along the value chain and within your operations at the end of the day. You need to know that being a farmer requires a lot of time and patience and really requires you to be hands-on. You need to know what happens into your business before you could set out responsibilities and give other people tasks. Most importantly, you need to know how to manage them. So if you don't know what duties that are required on a day-to-day on your farm, how you're going to expect people to manage or execute certain tasks that you've set out for them. So you definitely need to be hands-on. Also, the fourth one is that you need to know that it really does take time to realize profits. There's a lot of investment that needs to go into your farming operations in the beginning, a lot of capital outlay. So therefore, budgeting and planning for those resources is imperative. The last one is that the last one on the five topics that you need to know is that farming is not cheap, you know, but then again, a lot of people might say, you know, expensive is relative or cheap is relative. So when I say farming is not cheap is that you need to make be sure that what you're investing in in the first years within your business can take you in your business journey for quite some time and then it can sustain your farm. So don't make unnecessary investments and these could cost you a great deal if you do make unnecessary investments or listen to too many advices and too many people that really make your decision-making process unsure at the end of the day that makes you doubt if what you're doing is the right thing. So definitely know that farming is not cheap. It can cost you a lot, especially if you make mistakes. And yeah, so thank you so much for your time today. Feel free to ask more questions again. I really encourage that. It's nice to stay connected and engage with you guys and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Nonetheless, thank you for watching and I will be joining you next week Tuesday with a guest and be sure to look out on our social media for what our next topic would be and who our guest will be. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.