 Good evening. Welcome to the farming podcast brought to you by Private Property. My name is Mbali Nwoko, your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8pm. Thank you so much for joining us and supporting the podcast as usual. And like I always say at the beginning of the show, please like, share, and comment. We have fantastic guests every single week that are here to share their stories that are here to educate and inspire you throughout your farming journey. And if you have any questions for our guests on the show, especially for our guests tonight, please feel free to comment because we love engagement. And yeah, so I just want to get straight into it and introduce our guest. It's going to be a fantastic conversation because he's a first generation farmer. So, you know, it will be lovely to hear all the lessons and the journeys that he's gone through in the many years that he's been farming. He has a family run farm. And so it will be interesting to also know how he's managing this business with his family members, you know, doing business with families might not be very easy for many of us, but he seems to get the formula right. And our guest this evening is Jason Cullen, the owner and co-founder of Ganyco. If you don't know of Ganyco, please follow them on Instagram. They've got a lovely, lovely page. And I'm quite excited to hear about their story. And our topic for this evening is organic food markets. Jason, thank you so much for coming on to the show. How are you doing? Oh, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. Doing very well. Thank you and looking forward to this evening. Likewise. Thank you. So tell us about Ganyco. You've got a beautiful story. First generation farmer. You didn't know what you were doing. What made you decide to go into farming? It's a very good story and a very good question. Thank you for asking. So yes, we are a family run farm and the history goes and this is the genuine story. The property that we own here has been in the family for 30 years, but it was fellow land. A little felt with God's grain all over. And I tell people either, you know, we were having a family discussion one night saying, what should we do with the property? We wanted to change our blast hull as a new young family as well. And either geniusly or stupidly, someone said, hey, should we farm? And clearly the blossom one was good. And we said, yeah, why not? How difficult could it be? And so we started farming and we brainstormed like, what should we farm? None of us have done it in our lives ever. My wife and I previously had a pot plant that died every year and that was the extent of our farming. And then we brainstormed and said, okay, what's good market? What's a high value crop? Everything. You know, all the questions that farmers have. And we finally, it was a toss up between picamuts and pomegranates. And again, geniusly or stupidly, I'm not too sure. We said, let's go for pomegranates and not knowing what that entails. But then we all say as a good business, like anyone said, well, how do we be different? No, there are many brilliant genius farmers out there. And there's quite a big pomegranate farming community in Cape Town, you know, massive reaction, quite small. So to those that don't know, we are five hectare farm. So to most farmers, that is just the plot. That's nothing. That's not farming. You know, but for us, that's huge. And that's something, you know, daunting. So we said, let's be different. And let's do organic farming, which at the time, obviously, we don't know what that means either. We just thought, okay, let's try that. No one's doing certified organic pomegranate farming. So let's go for that. You know, so we went for it. And we recall ourselves Google farmers because we Google everything. So how to plant a tree? How do you, what compost does a tree need? And and to those of you and your listeners out there, sometimes Google is amazing and sometimes Google gets wrong because it doesn't know South Africa and it doesn't know how to hang. And you know, so you make those mistakes as you go along the way. And then maybe just to give you our side thing, why we did organic, not only from a business, being different perspective, but my wife and I to learn farming when to go visit other farmers. And it struck us that when we went to go visit farms, sometimes the farmers would say, listen, you can't come now because we busy spraying. And it's quite toxic to food. You know, and we don't not to say we disrespect farmers that use chemicals because we respect every farmer. Any person that's in food production, we salute you because everyone needs food. You know, so thank you to all farmers that make food. But it did strike us to say, wow, this food is that's going to Woolworths and pick and pay and check it's whoever doesn't matter. That food at that very specific time was very toxic. And you couldn't even walk the fields, you know, and we met peach farmers that spent 100,000 random month on chemicals that was going to Woolworths or pick and pay. And we at the time were starting to get children. My wife was pregnant. And we said, can you imagine? And we'd ask farmers, you know, do you do you eat your own produce? You know, it sounds like a silly question, but it was a good question to ask. And a lot of them said, you know, they were hesitant. And they said, sure, but we actually have our own veggie patch or we have our own trees that would feed our family. Because no one quite frankly wants to spray crops. It's a necessity in certain instances. But it's something that we forced him to know. And we just made the decision that's not. It's going to be tough. It's insanely hard to do. But we did it. And that's why we started organic farming. So if we take anyone on tour, any kids are around, it doesn't make a difference. They can pick whatever they want whenever they want. And they can eat it. And that's how they're organic. We're not the tree huggers. We're not save the whale people. We just I think we those people that are just logical farmers that doesn't make sense or doesn't it. And that's how we honestly approach our farming mythology. That's it, you know. Yeah, you know, Jason, as you're talking, I could just definitely relate about you saying you're Google farmers. And it's very true. You know, the information on the internet could be quite overwhelming sometimes. But I like how how you are so resourceful. And so I like how you're so resourceful. And the story around organic farming, right? So you've visited a couple of farmers, you saw that they're doing they're using conventional farming practices. Now, tell us about, you know, when you just started, so I'm going to take you a few years back, maybe the first, first or second season of planting and harvesting. What challenges did you encounter when starting to grow pomegranates? And then again, you know, halting weather can be quite harsh. We either very, very hot summers, very, very rainy days, especially around November till February as well. And hail is another factor. So and I'm sure a pomegranate tree needs special attention. Now, how did you manage with, you know, fighting of pests and diseases when you've had or experienced very harsh climates? And yeah, and still maintain a good harvest at the end of the day? Yeah, well, you know, do we still maintain the best peak harvest to give you our honest opinion? No, we're still learning as we go. So we're not optimal yet. And how did we manage early in the day? And in fact, 11 years on, it's still the same principle. Every year, season and year, we're still encountering new and interesting things. That's what I've told people about farmers, you know, as ignorant farmers or getting into farming, I used to think farmers just sat back and watch crop, you know, what an easy job that was, you know, but quite frankly, farmers, every business in South Africa and the world, arts economics, and they fight political. But the one thing that some businesses don't fight is weather. And farmers fight all economic or political, and they fight whether it's one of the hardest businesses are frank, quite frankly, I've ever encountered. But how do we fight it on a daily basis? I think for us as a farm, we go to nature because quite frankly, a forest as an example is one of the prime examples of a farm. It survives without man, it produces hundreds of tons of food every day. There's no one telling it, there's no one maintaining it. It produces food and your great, great, great, great grandfather used to rely on nature to produce a crop. He'd never had Google, he never had pesticide, he and if he didn't produce something, he would die, you know, and I think that's what we're trying to observe. So right from the start to answer your question, we just started observing nature and if we had a pest problem, we said like as an example, oh no, aphids are attacking us. Okay, well, we could spray a chemical and it'll solve our problems in a day. But then we'd be dependent on that chemical for the rest of our lives. Or let's what eats aphids? Like is there something out there that eats aphids? And would you know it a ladybug? Aphids, beautiful creatures. Like I told people, they a workforce that works seven days a week. They've never once come to us for a raise. They've never rioted before. They're beautiful. And quite frankly, they work for free. And so we said, okay, and a ladybug eats aphids, we've got an aphid problem. What should we do? And we plant things that attract ladybirds who eat our aphids, which means eventually, years down the line, we don't have an aphid problem. You know, so that's been our approach from day one, all the way through 11 years later. Have we got it sorted now? After 11 years? No, not even close. We still learning, we still get new problems, the weather's changing, hail, we've had to put up hail nets. And then geniously, I'd say, fortunately, pomegranates are very hardy trees. They, they are actually cultivated in the desert in Israel and Egypt. If you go visit their farms, it's rocks, sand, and a tree in the middle of this desert. So in theory, theory, when, which will happen, South Africa goes through a massive drought, we might still be standing, you know, which is amazing. But then on the flip side, as of two years ago, we just said, farming one thing, only nature doesn't farm that way. Again, observing nature, how does nature do? How does a forest do? A forest doesn't produce one crop only. We don't wear the same clothes every day. And we eat different food every day. And your great great grandfather had multiple crops to help his family survive. So we grow we in the transformation of farming our food forest, which just means mimicking nature. So we're not uprooting our pomegranates, we still keep those, but we have 30 or 40 different crops growing between our pomegranates that contribute either to our pest control, or an income for a farm, or helping the soil. As an example, right now, we're about to harvest our sugar snap peas. That is a income for us as a farm, because our pomegranates are sleeping. It's a nitrogen fixer for our soil, and mulch covering our soil as long as we're not. So that one crop by itself is helping us earn an income and survive as a farm, well, with the added benefit of multiple crops, which is incredible, you know, but we still got a long way to learn. Yeah, well, thank you for that. Jason, what does it take to be a certified organic farm? You know, a lot of people say, I'm farming, but my produce is organic. And, you know, when you ask, Oh, are you certified to say no, you know, some people just say, it's organic, because we don't use pesticides or whatever the case is. You know, but what does it take to be a certified organic farm? What, what, what, what does that process involve? Yeah, well, so, so to answer your, well, address the first issue, we love all organic farms. So whether they're certified or not, the person that's growing a little veggie patch on their windowsill is organic, well done for you. And you are an organic farm, you know, the only difference between certified is, unfortunately, some people do say, I am an organic farm. And then you when you ask them, okay, how do you, you know, combat your aphids, they might say, well, I use sunlight liquid and, you know, this spray, well, that's, you know, it's a chemical, you know, and can humans eat sunlight liquid? No, they can't, you'll get very sick, you know. So, so what we do, and it's, it's expensive, and I wish I didn't have to do it. And some days, I do wish that farms had to prove that they, you know, they had to be certified chemical farmers and organic farmers just had no regulation. Because that's natural, you know, but anyway, that's how the world works. So we basically prove to our consumers, we have an outside firm that we pay. And, unfortunately, it's about 20,000 Rand, and which is very expensive for a farm, as you know, your margins are very low. And they are French companies are the one we use is eco-cert. So Woolworths uses eco-cert, many retailers use eco-cert, that's French, they'll come and they'll take a soil sample, they'll take a leaf sample, they'll take a fruit sample, take it away. We don't know which tree they're going to take from or anything like that, they'll inspect it, they'll analyze it. And if any chemical residue is found, we lose our certification for that year, which is hectic, you know, but as a farm, that's just us saying to our consumers, listen here, don't take our word that we are organic. We'd like to let our consumers think we organic, but don't take our word, we pay another company that is not, we're not affiliated to that will say we coming to inspect you, it's going to cost you a lot of money. And if you don't have it right, we're gonna, that's it, we take away your certification. And it stands from lots of things, even, you know, what fertilizers are using is an organic source. If you get manure from a chicken cube, as an example, and want to put it in the farm, what are the chickens eating? It's quite a process and it's quite a thing you have to look down. So people might say, oh, I'm just getting chicken manure and it's organic. That's awesome. I love that. But maybe they're being fed very hectic antibiotics, and that's going into your soil. And that's not a good regenerative culture, because your great grandfather didn't do that. And he was the best farm, you know, to me. Yeah, definitely some food for thought. It sounds like organic process. It's not very easy. There's a lot of things that you have to ensure that, you know, you're doing a thorough, thorough job to obviously be bold and go out to your clients and say, we're organic. Let's talk about the fresh produce market, this organic space, you know, how big or small is the organic markets, particularly in South Africa, you've been farming for 11 years, your farm is certified organic, and you have a pomegranate crop, which is your main specialty crop. So, you know, what does the fresh, the fresh produce market specifically around your specialty crop look like, you know, is a huge demand. I mean, again, we've been living in a global pandemic for almost two years now, you know, and by virtue of being a farmer, we saw like the food prices drop in certain commodities, and other commodities increased, you know, so where you're selling the pomegranate, is it local market or export market? And, you know, how does it demand for pomegranate look like in South Africa and maybe abroad? Okay, so with regards to let's say organic sector first, it's very niche, very small. And most people think organic is just a good excuse to charge more money for a title. And I get why they say it, I get it. I'm not adverse to that. You know, why they said, which is such a pity, because it's, you know, organic actually shouldn't be more expensive. It's, it's it should be equal to conventional, because we save money in certain things and then, and have difficulties on other things. So to me, a consumer should have a choice and organic should be exactly the same price point number one to organic is very niche. No one knows what it's about. We have great pictures of beautiful pictures of farmers holding the beautiful chickens with this behind them. And to us as a consumer that's organic and it's beautiful. And sure, that's how it is. But it is a market employee, which is so sad. So then the market is very niche. When people ask us who the market, it's the consumer that asks where does my food come from? Okay, when I pick up that milk, when I pick up that veg, when I pick up the whatever I read the back label, that consumer generally is our client, and they become more aware, especially during COVID. And then the very sad thing to say is the second consumer we have that demands our food is the sec, okay, the cancer patients, the mums and parents that have ADHD kids and saying, why is my kid like this or why is cancer no longer a all persons disease, you know, and then the quite frank matter is what we put into our bodies is affecting us without a doubt, you know, what we eat is affecting us. So people asking where does my food come from and how does that form form is becoming more and more popular. But obviously, it's very niche, very, very niche, you know, I don't know stats, you probably have a better idea than I do, you know, South Africa's, you know, who are the wealthy in the South Africa made is 0.001%. And all those percentage what do they know about organic farming, 0.0001% of that, you know, so it's very small. But the world wide, which South Africa will get to eventually, I do think people are saying, Hey, man, read the label, and I don't believe you anymore. And what what is this weird thing that comes in my pomegranate cup? What is this funny technical term, you know, and, and organic foods just be this is pomegranate that end. This is 100% honey, the end, it's not infused with glucose and all sorts of weird stuff that we get, you know, or what is the level of poison that's allowed to be on this, you know, acceptable levels? Now, what is all that? Your grandfather never had that, you know, so yeah, so your first question was, it's very niche. Who's our target market? So who do we supply? At the moment, very niche organic places like the Jackson's and Stanton farm table in London, we have people that divide directly from us because we're small enough. And then the big guys that we supply, like a food lovers, we've supplied checkers before we know the talks of Woolworths, the downside, you know, organic, no one cares. So we've, we've mixed our organic certified gooseberries with conventional gooseberries and silver that checkers. And unfortunately, the consumers and underwiser, which is devastating, because we put so much hard work into it. But what can we do, you know, and then we've exported them quite a bit to Dubai in the organic sector, you know, but the Netherlands is like a big, the European market is a big market for organic. And but we just such a small farm that they say, these can you send a container a week to the Netherlands? And we think, you do realize, you could probably supply you two containers for the year, you know, and that's what makes it so hard. So but we'll get there. I think we just have to work a lot harder than huge farms, you know, but I think farming the train now is building a community around the farm. Usually you had the farm, and the community builds itself around it and aunts and uncles and everyone lived around this farm. And right now, where we are in the world, these huge complexes that are built around malls. I wonder it'll be interesting to see one day my shift that the malls, and you can see it in the States are starting to be more empty. And people are starting to connect back to what's real. And maybe they'll be building around farms who knows. Yeah. Before I ask my next question, Jason, we've got a comment here from Svongile Zanele Ngomonde, and she says, thank you for this information. I'm learning a lot. I like the idea of finding natural solutions to controlling bugs. So that's the comment from Svongile here. And so based on what you said with the various markets, etc. What made you decide as Gannico to open up your farm to the public for people to come, you know, have a wedding venue and various, various different activities and picking organic, sorry, organic pomegranates? What, what made you decide to open your farm to the public? And for people to have various experiences within Gannico, which is a great idea just by the way. Thank you. You know what? We jealous of the Cape Tonians, to be honest. Cape Tonians have these beautiful wine farms. They go visit, they learn about farming. And Joe Burgers, we have such a Joe Burgers are such beautiful people, you know, we're such a dynamic crowd. And we bring so much to Cape Town and do them, you know, even though that they hate us for it. But and we, and Joe Burgers want something they want something different. Yes, we've got the malls. Yes, we've got nice restaurants, but we crave experiences. And my wife and myself said, what do we want at the end of the day? And we wanted to visit cool farms and have experiences, not to sit at the mall, not to sit at a normal restaurant. So we, again, either geniusly or stupidly, because it's hard work, we not again have popups on our farm. And it's partly marketing to say, this is what organic farming is all about. And now you get to learn and bring kids along and see where your food comes in. And at the same time, for Joe Burgers to have a Cape Town wine farm that they can actually visit, even though we don't do wine, but to visit a farm because they have tried how many farms do we as Joe Burgers have access to, maybe two or three that I've researched. That's it. You know, it's tragic. It's really tragic. And, and we as adults and as kids want to learn, you know, it's amazing. I'll take people on tours and they said, Oh, you know, in my culture, I used to, you know, cut the chicken and I'd make chicken, you know, pluck off the chicken. And I've never done that myself. But, but now when they take their kids on tour, they're petrified of chickens because they've never seen a chicken before, you know, which is crazy, you know, and we've never obviously done that before, either in our kids never have. But now we have that opportunity because we farm it. So that's why we open it. We write 20 minutes from four ways. Why not? Let's be an open farm, a working farm that people can see. And then obviously, you know, to try and make money as a farm because, as you know, yourself as a farmer, you need to do so many things. Well, when our farming is quiet, well, it's at weddings and it's at photographers and it's at school groups, you know, we need to make money because it's it's very difficult to make money off farm. It's a tough business, you know, but, but you need to work hard, you know. How is the reception being from the public? I love what you're saying about Joe Burgers wanting to visit farms, you know, and there's obviously a tourist, a tourism element to it. How is the reception from the public being when they literally come on to Gannico and stop picking the pomegranates themselves? You know, that's an open market. It's a fresh produce market. You know, you're controlling your environment. You know, what's the feedback from people? You know, are they saying this is amazing? Are they asking questions about how this tree is grown for how long does it last? You know, just share some insights. It's mind-blowing to be honest and for two reasons. One, people are so in awe and never knew that in Joe Big stuff like this happens. One, to selfishly, we learn more from other people than we are teaching them ironically. So as an example, people will be like, hey man, wow, thank you for that information. Did you know that this weed growing here right next to your tree is actually edible? And be like, really? I didn't know that. And they'll be like, hey, I've got a friend of mine who actually does processing. Do you mind if I connect you? Thank you. Thank you for connecting us. You know, so it's we need people and people need farms and we're a team. So everyone that visits us is one of our team members and vice versa. We imparting knowledge about farming, but they imparting knowledge to us because we cannot know everything. It's impossible, but you know, you might visit our farm and say, you know, my grandfather taught me this very cool technique and I'll be like, that is incredible. And do you mind if I show you this technique that we're using? You like, that is insane. I never knew that. So the response is mind-blowing from both sides, you know, which we love. We really love that. So in a selfish way, we're inviting people to come on tour because we actually learning from other people, you know, but to see kids who and my kids included our Netflix bound and social media bound and it's not healthy. We can see it from a mile away to see kids climbing a tree and digging stuff out of the soil and then eating it from the ground that generally they hate veggies, but now they're just eating it. I love that. That brings a special warmth to my heart and I wish everyone could do it. I wish farming wasn't a privilege that you had to own land and stuff. I wish all of us could have that opportunity because it's what we mean to do. We all eat food. That's why we're in common, you know. Yeah, I definitely agree and at the end of the day also, you know, farming has to be a business and not everybody, you know, is entrepreneurial or has an entrepreneurial mindset or can withstand the challenges that exist in farming because very true in what you've said, farmers have to battle economic challenges as well as climate challenges and climate can definitely make or break your business. I just want to ask you the last question before we bid farewell to you. You know, there's that whole concept or myth about if you're farming organic products, you can charge a premium and I think you touched on a bit about it. So is that true? If you're a certified organic, can you charge a premium? And if I was farming pomegranates but from a conventional point of view, you know, would your product fetch a higher price at the market? No. And so as a farmer, no, we charge exactly the same. So our buyers, our retailers would say, listen, I buy pomegranates for X, these match the price, they end. Do the retailers push it up by a rand or two or ten? Yes. Yes, they would. You know, that's not a farmer's issue, unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know. I guess everyone has a part to play but no. And as an organic farmer, I firmly stand by the point of I don't think it's right to charge more money for organic farming. Remember, organic farming is a healthy thing. It's not a privileged thing. So I don't see why people need to pay more for something that's just healthy. It doesn't make sense, you know. And the fact that it's a warped sense because it's something we did all did before World War One. All of us farmed organically. There was no organic or conventional or not. There was no such thing. So I don't see why it should be charged. So yes, it is a stigma. It's a terrible, terrible stigma. But believe me, in Europe and now coming into South Africa, one day you will be walking into a market and you will see organic and you will see conventional and it will be labelled as such and the price will be the exact same. You just have a choice and I know hands down what the consumer will choose, which is awesome, which means I'm hoping that we all learn to farm in a more sustainable, organic, there'll be new terms, regenerative, biodynamic method, whatever new term comes in. Basically just farming with nature. How do we farm with nature and salad is the bottom. Yeah, Jason, where can people find you? What do you have any upcoming events? It's you know, it's a new season now. Everybody's happy. It's spring, you know. So where can people find you? Do you have any upcoming events? Yeah, I appreciate. Thank you, yes. Next month, so yes, we're into our spring season, which is amazing. Constantly on Gannico. So we have our website of gannico.co.za. We're very active on Instagram. Hello, Gannico is our Instagram handle. Hello, Gannico on Twitter. Hello, Gannico on Facebook. We launch events all the time. So I generally don't give it out because it happens all the time. So you just have to follow us. We're doing like next month will be a garden day, flower crowns, how to make flower crowns, how to plant different things. We do anything and everything that's interesting. We've done whiskey tasting events that work through our orchard and how it works. We're doing working with, you know, wine farmers. As you know, we get us a K-town wine farmers and broadcasting it here on this farm. So we don't want to just sit at a restaurant. You're sitting in our orchards, sipping their glass of wine, talking about the wine process and the farming behind wine. And then anything and everything to obviously the wedding private events that we host and things like that. So definitely if you can, please follow us. We just say it's our adventures in life and farming. That is our key. That's what we do. Life and farming. We have kids. We have family. That's actually my wife. That's the true hero of the farmer. I'm just the talker that my wife is the actual true hero in this story. She's the mom. She's the farmer. She just gets everyone together. I'm just in the marketing side, but it's a good team. As you know, farming is a teamwork. So that's where everyone can find us. So if you can follow us and we can't wait to see new and interesting dynamic people visiting us so that we can learn from you. That is fantastic. Thank you so much, Jason, for your time this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I've definitely followed back. So yeah, I'll be looking out for your calendar in events and we'll definitely pop up whether it's this month or next. And so yeah, thank you for sharing some insights and educating us about organic farming and your processes within a GANICO. Thank you. And thank you for your interest and thank you to all the people that support you and listening. Because if it wasn't for you guys, where would we be? Because we are team. Thank you. That is awesome. We were just speaking to Jason Cullen, owner and co-founder of GANICO. Follow them on Instagram, hello, at GANICO. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they have a beautiful pomegranate farm, organic farm that is, and many, many different activities that you could do at his farm because it's open to the public. Please support the business as well. When you go to GANICO, buy some fresh produce, homegrown locally cultivated, and it's organic. So if you missed our conversation tonight, please go on to our YouTube channel under the farming podcast playlist in the private property channel and be sure to catch this episode. Drop comments, if you may, and we will be happy to respond and reach out to Jason if you have any questions. But that's it from me tonight. Thank you so much. The private property team loves you. I bid you a fantastic Friday and a very awesome weekend. Take care.