 Good evening. Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mbali Malko, and I'm your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays. Thank you so much for watching us this evening. And we've got another amazing show all about traditional farming methods for crop rotation. So if you're looking for a number of ways to rotate your crop, and obviously smart ways at that to ensure that you increase your yields and that you farm just using the maximum amount of space that you have in your land and farming efficiently with different crops, then I think this show is for you. And tonight we're joined by Lofi Smits, who is the founder, who's pretty much a farmer and founder of the friendly Butchery. And we're going to talk about crop rotation, traditional farming methods, and a bit about his enterprise and how he started and how he's grown his business till date. Lofi, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing? I'm fine, Mbali. It's a pleasure, you know, to have you. Awesome, awesome. So Lofi, tell us about your farming journey. When did you start farming? Are you a second, third, fourth generation farmer? And give us more insight around the friendly Butchery. My father bought the farm around about 89, but I grew up on a farm which is basically next door to the farm that I'm on. And I was born there and grew up and so on. So I've been in the farming business for many years. And then I started farming in 1996, which was a farm for my father. And then I got to the type of farms in the region. Then in the five years and a few very funny years where we had a lot of crop losses due to heatwaves during the five years of the week, I started realizing, you know, we've got to do something. We've got to change our methods and ways of farming. And that's when I started doing, going from a monoculture, I went over to, I went and I started doing medics. Medics is clovers where I do the clovers in the one year and the following year I will do the wheat on the specific same land. So I went on a rotation and it's been brilliant. It has been, it's been, that happened to me because it's nice thing about the medics is it's nitrogen fixing. And you can carry so many animals on a hectare. I mean, I have dormers, you know, which originate from Alcamburn. It's a meat, a nice mutton. And I run, I can run four twin dormer hues, meaning four hues with twins on a hectare. And it's just amazing. I mean, the quality of sheep that comes out of there, within a hundred days, I have my lambs marked ready off medics from their mother. So, you know, basically in a hundred days, you know, I can be in the market, which is my life saver. And because of that, because I was running the sheep, such good success, you know, on the medics, I started thinking about myself, you know, it's a place so much for, for any, or sheep, specifically mutton or lamb, you know, in the supermarkets. And it's always been just, you know, a dream of mine to start my own butchery. And then two years ago, about two and a half years ago, I got to the point where I applied for a license and we started the friendly farmer butchery. And it's, and it's absolutely amazing. My wife does all the admin. I'm the block man. And it's, it's just amazing. It's just picked up and I've gone with it. And I was very fortunate that my, my late mother, she's from the Kuru area, Richmond area where she grew up. And always as a kid, you know, whenever we worked meat, I used to go and help her. And she showed me hell of a lot. And I'm actually using sort of all my recipes and so on this, you know, from my late mother's. You know, something, something special. And I really, I, it's been, it's been a long time coming that I wanted to start a butchery. And like I said, two and a half years ago, we got going and we do deliveries. We don't have any on the farm shop where you can come and buy due to security reasons and so on, you know. And so we do the, we do the deliveries. We do tap down. We do polls. We do polls everywhere. And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been wonderful. It really has been good. I certainly saw hell of a change in my soil after going with the medics. It's amazing how much life returned to the soil. And also with, with this change that we made, we went into, we started doing, we got planters where we use the shank. So we, we try and do minimum disturbance of the soil. You try and keep as much moisture as well when we are doing the wheat here. Like I said, the one year is wheat. The next year we have medics. The next year we have wheat again. And I also do other rotation crops as well. I use oats. I do a lot of oats. And some oats we do for Oatay. The other oats, you know, I'm at the moment, I'm actually busy harvesting oats for seed, you know, for, for, for the co-op around here. And, and getting a very good yield, but it's important to, to plant or, there's always a lot of people who are gluten intolerant. So there are many wheat kernels in your, in your oats. So it's, it's very important. That's what I'm doing oats at the moment. Also, we have now the last four years, we've started with regenerative farming. Where we take our soil and, and, and we started doing cover crops, you know, obviously, you know, my medics is, is of such nice quality and it's, it's, it grows, you know, in abundance, you know, a hell of a nicely. So that to me is also a cover crop because in the summer and when the medics goes down, it goes and lies down, my soil is basically covered, you know. And, and we do, we also bring it in other cover crops. We, we do a little bit of this and then we sow it into the land of the best and own some rain so that the medics can also come through and, and, you know, leave its burrs and everything. And, and I'll find it absolutely amazing. It was incredible to see it's started in its own life. How the earthworms came in and started burrowing. And I always say to the people whenever I walk there, I always say, look at this, look at this earthworm life because those are my plants. Those are my, is what, what is, you know, doing the thing. And, and I think I personally, that's the way I've gone. And I'm, I'm on a rate of, of 38 kilograms of nitrogen there are people forming right next to me on the old monochrome going in at about 110 kilograms of nitrogen on their wheat labs, you know. So, I mean, that sum is very easy to make, you know, you can just see what, you know, what lies in it. And I've in fact just finished harvesting my wheat for this year and it was an amazing crop. I must, I must say that for the last six years, we've really had tough times. So we've had droughts last year, it wasn't too bad, but we had a bit of, of frost, you know, during the flowering season. But last six years was really, it was tough, but this year was amazing and I'm, I'm sorry. Yeah. That's great, happy for you. You would stop me if I talk too much, eh? No, it's okay. I mean, we want information, right? And my question then is, you know, it sounds like you've, you know, dabbled a bit in a number of different crops, you know, for the purpose of crop rotation. And when you're going through these processes as a farmer, you know, who are the people that you sit down and talk to, to assist you to say, like, who made, made you say, now you need the specific crop to rotate with wheat, wheat, for example, sorry. And how did you come about doing that research, you know? So just in case maybe people in the audience thinking, yes, I want to do crop rotation, but I don't know what to rotate my crops with. So how do you find a good companionship with the kind of crops that you're farming, which first of all was wheat, so that you could, you know, rotate and obviously grow your enterprise. So at what point did you make that decision and who are the type of people did you liaise with to maybe see if this idea would work or not? Yeah, down here in the Western Cape, you know, I always say in the area that you are farming, you know, what they do there is a success like agriculture, the Western Cape Agricultural Union that they have a very close to us about 30, 40 kilometers away. They've got a farm there where from Elsenburg, they do a whole lot of trials, you know, doing basically canola, doing lupin, doing oats, doing the medics, different variety of medics. And then the rotational crop and then you have companies like Agricoll and you have Barenburg, you know, that come and they do it on this farm that is owned by the Western Cape Agriculture from Elsenburg and they all do their little trials there and all different type of trials, you know, and then what they also do is, and it's called a skogdach, it's normally in September, beginning of September, they have a farmer's day, everybody's interested, comes along and we have a look, what are the varieties that are doing good? What should you do next year for your area which to me, that's basically where you learn a lot of things, you know, because you can see what happens. And I think that's the important thing about it. Also, I have a company that I do, you know, the guy helps me with my fertilizer and, you know, what to do and so on. I don't know about this, you know, we may minimize our risk, you know, and I think that's the biggest thing of all, you must minimize your risk by going in with the least inset at the best outset, you know, and the best quality and I think that is very important. And quite honest with you, I think there's a little bit of a, you know, if you see the quality of weed that we get from our medic system, you know, and we specifically, I also do, my fertilizer is, I try and do biological farming with my fertilizer, where I use a chicken and I get my, I get the plant where we, you know, the amount of phosphorus amount of potash and then, of course, nitrogen. And it's all in a little fertilizer, little pool, little chicken, you know, manure pool. They do it in a pool form and then we sow. But to me, the biggest disappointment is that as a farmer, I don't get, because the quality of weed that we use doing biological farming, you know, from Malaya, I think that's, but I think it's something that's going to happen soon, you know, where people are now starting more for the quality of weed that they get has to other weed that has, for instance, you know, had a lot of nitrogen and so on. I mean, it's just a bit of quality, you know? So hopefully that's, and also, we, you know, we endiastrates for next year, you know, with the, so unbelievably high. So fortunately, you know, I'm on my system of farming, where I go with the low end sets and I just bring my rust up and that I do with my friends, this friend of mine who, you know, who does my fertilizer. And then of course, you know, we use pesticides, we have to, and then I try and lay away from things like Randa. I try, I don't always, but I try my best, you know, to sort of keep that out of my system. Yeah, yeah. You know, typically traditional farming is, sorry to interject there, typically traditional farming is, you know, heavily reliant on pesticides and chemicals and fertilizers. And it sounds like you've obviously adopted like a biological approach, as you've said. Do you think that you've seen a significant amount of operational reduction in terms of the expenses that you would have ordinarily paid for when, if you had gone, you know, the traditional farming methods, now that you've adopted a more of a regenerative farming or biological approach, as you've put it. So do you think that with going with a different approach, maybe deviating slightly from traditional farming methods to rather care more for your soil? Have you seen a change in your business operational expenses where they've have reduced perhaps? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, without a doubt, I mean, my diesel, my, you know, my fuel accounts, I think has been halved from what it used to be, you know, and my fertilizer, I mean, they used to be good in here with, you know, 60 tons, you know, full of fertilizer. I have one truck of 30 tons that comes in and does my, and it's amazing, you know, it's, you know, from those years to now, I would say, I think there was a reduction of about close onto 40% in usage of fuel. And fertilizer, definitely. Yeah. What do you think from your, from your experience causes the shift for farmers to think slightly differently from traditional farming practices? Is it things that happen in the economy or, you know, like high fuel prices or high input cost prices? Or is it because maybe over the years, farmers are starting to become thinking, yes, definitely much more long-term to say, how do I preserve my soil? And therefore, how do I find companion plants to ensure that my soil, you know, could last generations to come if I'm still, you know, producing in this one specific farm or piece of land? So what do you think causes the farmers to make that shift, you know, to focus a lot more on the production practices? Is it the economy? Is it the push from high input costs? Or is it just, do you think that farmers are becoming slightly more conservative rather with regards to the environment, et cetera? And, you know, people are starting to just make certain changes. Yeah. Rolly, I think the thing that is really hitting home now is the weather, you know? Yeah. And it's been amazing the last five, six years to see one global warming and I believe in global warming. I have experienced it myself. We have a September month. It's very, very important. That's when just after the weeks flied and it must set, it's a little gray, you know, must get set now. And we just haven't had September months. We just don't have rain in September again, you know, lately. And I put it down to global warming. And global warming has made it that you must absolutely at all costs. You must try and preserve as much moisture in the ground as possible. That means you don't open it up. You don't open it up. You must serve your will as well as possible. And I think that together with the costs of insect costs and everything, as really I think for me, that was my game changer because I just thought to myself, I just thought my own eyes that if I wasn't going to make a change, I wasn't going to be on the farm for real. So that is what I did. And I go with the lowest insects as possible. And I try to make the profit more just, I mean, at the end of the day, that is what it's about, you know, making a profit. And yeah, and that's what's changed. And incidentally, you know, I would really change my mind as well. I can remember, you know, when you drive a lots of fence, you don't, on the fence, there's like a half a meter, this side half a meter, that side that you never work there. And everything that grows on next to the fence, you know, it always looks lush. And if there's a little wheat kernel that falls there or a medic, it grows with so much power and white. It gets disturbed, you understand? And that is why I say, I try and just, as little as possible. I don't burn my lands. A lot of people still around here, they burn the stubble because they're doing the murder culture culture. And it's like the rotting persists to take place. That's why they got to put on like close to 100 kilograms of nitrogen. Whereas I go, I don't burn it at all. I don't disturb it because my material must go into my swell. And that's the only way that you're gonna get your carbon up with content in your swell. And all the content in your swell goes up. Then the penetration of water is so much better for the swell. And that's what set me up. I think all those things together, you know? Yeah. Yeah. My last question for you this evening, Lofi, is, you know, you've mentioned monoculture, right? And for anybody listening and thinking, wow, there's monoculture and this crop rotation. And you're farming wheat, you're farming medics, you're farming something else in between that, all for the purpose of crop rotation. Is it fair to say that the crop rotation practices and methods become slightly more expensive as opposed to monoculture? Because in monoculture, you're controlling expenses, you know, year after year, you're farming a single crop where you can control your expenses, control your input costs, whereas crop rotation, each crop requires something different and it could be different fertilizers, et cetera. So is it true, maybe, to think that maybe crop rotation will be slightly more expensive than monoculture or does it not make a difference at all? No, no, not at all, especially what I'm doing with my medics, you know, my clovers. What I started in the year 2000, never did the quality of my lands because I let the clover develop the first year, the second year it gets wet, the third year when it's clover again, you know, it comes up naturally in the winter. So it's a once-off, it's a once-off thing, it's quite expensive, the seed, because everything comes from Australia, you know? And so it's quite expensive to start off with one, so if you just look at it and it's done, you look after your phosphate and so on, which you correct in the year of the wheat, you know, where you put your phosphate stone and so on. And if your pH is fine, then it's a once-off thing and it's just that every second year you have this most amazing medics, you know, that you can either harvest or you can use it for your animals to graze on. Oats, to me, is also a very, very nice rotation crop. Oats have an amazing root system, which I think it's conducive to, I think, magnesium gets, you know, put into the soil, which takes a lot of the, I don't know what the English word is for all, it's a lot of wheat, yeah, normally, you know, is amazing. It's, you know, it's just such a nice betel leaf and it's easy to use as crops, which is amazing. I like to do the Japanese radish. It's like a whole radish, a huge, and it breaks up your soil, you know? So if you have compact soil and so on and you do the radish, it breaks the soil, it's like a twine, you know, that when you plot, it sort of does the same thing, it loosens up your soil. That's also very nice. And then lupins, I forgot to tell you about lupins. Lupins also, it's got a nice pen root, so it also penetrates that soil, you know? So it loosens the soil and it's also nitrogen fixing, you know, which you're following here, you know, you can cut back on your nitrogen application to your wheat. And yeah, that's it. And what is amazing is, I wish, you know, I wish, this one more thing, I wish you could see the sheep on the medic lander. It's amazing how the men, I think they have on their legs, nice thing, bone structure and everything. It's just, to me, it's the best thing of the slice breed. And really, I, you know, I enjoy it. It works. Because then, you know, your livestock can definitely benefit from it and your butchery can also benefit from it. And that's, I like the fact that at every process, you keep adding certain value into your production and into your agribusiness. But thank you so much for your time this evening, Lofi. It was great chatting to you. And I just want to say to the audience, just, you know, apologies for this connection here and there when you was, when Lofi was speaking, you know, connections not always the greatest at farms. But yeah, Lofi, thank you for obviously bringing that wisdom and various crop advices in terms of rotation and different crops that one could use, obviously, to obviously improve the texture of the soil to prove the composition of the soil, nitrogen, et cetera. So yeah, thank you for coming onto the show this evening. That's great and all the best for your farming as well. I hope all goes well, eh? And I hope the rain comes, eh? We're all over the country, yeah? Okay. Thank you so much, eh? Thank you, you definitely need the rain. If you missed this conversation, we're just speaking to Lofi Smiths from the friendly farmer butchery. He's a farmer in the Western Cape and we're speaking about traditional farming methods that one can adopt for the purpose of crop rotation. And Lofi informed us that he's a weed farmer, but also has, you know, dabbled a bit in medics, enclover, and also gave us some gems about, you know, planting radishes to improve your soil and what it does to your soil from farming. And all these have obviously created a great impact in his business because he has now reduced his input costs. And also we all, I think just trying to win it where climate change is concerned as farmers. So if you missed this conversation, you can catch it on the private property YouTube channel under the farming podcast playlist. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop them into the comment section and we'll answer them to the best of our abilities as well. And Yaa, keep supporting the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in this evening. I will catch you on Thursday at eight o'clock. Take care.