 Well, I know you want the heartbreak story. I really want to know. I know you want it. That's why I have to bring you on the side. So that when you start crying, I'll just take the tears and add it to the down. There's a lot of crying that has already happened here. Oh really? So there's a lot of tears of mine. I think this damn is probably full of my tears. But not only tears, not only of sorrow. There's a lot of tears of gratitude, of happiness. You know, the things that I've achieved that I didn't think I could achieve over the last three years. Would you say that the heartbreak changed you? A lot. It showed me that, you know, I have more strength than I knew. I had to pull myself together. Like I said, I'm a mum. So I have two beautiful boys. They needed me. Who broke your heart? Who broke my heart? My name is Michelle Guatimba. I'm 35 years old and I'm a commercial farmer in Zimbabwe. In our farm, we are on 150 hectares. We concentrate on mostly grains, legumes and very recently we started and ventured out on horticulture. There's beauty in farming. There's beauty in seeing something going from nothing to something. I think it's more, especially as a woman, you can relate more. Especially if you've had children because I have children. So you can relate from literally starting from seed to then something sprouting into something you can see, you can touch. And obviously you can sell for profits. Are you making money? Truth be told, because we've been doing this for three years. The first two years were hard, inception, because when I did come on this farm, there wasn't much going on. So a lot of our resources have gone into clearing land, putting up infrastructure. And we've also had a lot of trial and errors. But finally, we see the results. We finally started seeing profits. Now that you're seeing profit doesn't mean that it's capital intensive from the start. It's not as capital intensive anymore. Because the bigger things like the water pumps, we've already acquired those. So now our projects are not as capital intensive as they were the first two years. Tell me something about yourself. Who are you? I'm Michelle Gwai Teemba. Born and raised in Harare. Went to school at the Dominican Convent in Harare for high school. And in a place called Motari for A-Levels. And then went off to Malaysia. Oh wow, you lived in Asia too? Yeah. How long did you stay there? Three and a half years. I did my Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems. And you're going to be a song! What happened? I don't know, I grew green fingers. I grew green fingers. I like working with my hands. Like I said, I wasn't happy with computers. I literally realized that computers were not for me like a year into the degree. But you know your parents had put so much. And besides like you know I'm just going to finish it. But at that time I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Because for the longest time I'm that child. When people ask me when I was young. Like what do you want to do? One day I want to be a lawyer. The next day I want to be a policeman. The next day I want to be a dance. I was never sure of what I wanted to do. Can I ask you a question? But you never thought that one day you'd be a farmer. No. Why? It's not a thought that ever crossed my mind. Because in Africa we think farmers are poor people. No. My father was actually a farmer before me. But it's not a career path that I thought I would follow. Do you understand? He didn't. He did it as extracurricular activity. So it's not something that it was like instilled in my head that you know what. This is going to be something that I'm going to do for probably the rest of my life. No. It just never, never dawned on me. Never thought about it. Never discussed. But I heard that Zimbabwe's economy relies on farming. You didn't know that before? I can explain. We used to be the bread basket of Africa. We were on our way back to being the bread basket of Southern Africa. But there's a lot that has happened. There's a lot of regime change that has happened over the past 20 years. So from being the time that we did grow up and into adulthood, there's a lot of instability if I may say so. So we never thought, I don't think we ever thought our economy would go back to agriculture. How much did we sell the cabbage? And because it's wholesale, I think we're looking at maybe a dollar for four, a dollar for five. Obviously depending on the size, once it's time to sell. But yeah, that's the range. Wow. You have 32,000 of them. Yeah, 32,000. So which means you're making 32,000 dollars. No. We're actually probably going to make around 6,000 dollars. 6,000 dollars? Yes, because one dollar, we're saying we sell maybe four or five cabbage. Four or five cabbage. I thought it's one for one dollar. So from this, we're looking at about 6,000 dollars. The setup amount that we've used so far, I think until the project is done, we're looking at nearly 3,000 dollars. So a profit of about, I said our profit margin that we're working with is 2,500 dollars. But you see, this is on one hectare. I have 150 hectares. So obviously it's not, we're not going to have the same crops and profit margins. Yeah. It's different. But yeah, you asked if it's lucrative? Quite. You won't really inspire your farming journey. It's three things. One, a very personal heartbreak. No, no, no, don't jump onto that question. Who broke your heart? Who broke my heart? Someone. It was a series of events. I know you want the heartbreak story. I really want it. I know you want it. That's why I had to bring you on this side. So that when you start crying, I will just take the tears and add it to the down. There's a lot of crying that has already happened here. Oh really? So there's a lot of tears of mine. I think this damn is probably full of my tears. But not only tears, not only of sorrow. There's a lot of tears of gratitude, of happiness. You know, the things that I've achieved that I didn't think I could achieve over the last three years. So yeah, so all sorts of emotions have been experienced here. Before the heartbreak, you never had a farm? No, the farm, like I said, it belonged to my late dad. But when he passed away, there was nothing going on here. My mom has an office job and my siblings and I were overseas. And then I came back first. Then they came to Zimbabwe. But most of my siblings are still overseas anyway. There's no operation going on here until we got here. Would you say the heartbreak changed you? A lot. It showed me that I have more strength than I knew. I had to pull myself together. Like I said, I'm a mom. So I have two beautiful boys. They needed me. And I needed to pull myself together and I needed to sort myself out. And carry on for them. I have a beautiful mom, a single mom. So yeah, now that my dad is late, you know, she needs me as well. My siblings needed me. So I needed to pull myself together, work hard. And yeah, carry on. Wish I did work hard. I don't think you still think about those days anymore. You've moved on. No, no, I've moved on. Ah, no. Those days, if I was to talk about it, I would cry. That's why I brought you here. Yeah, no, no, there's no crying here. No more crying? No. And then we should have done that in the farm. No, no, no, there's no crying. There's a lot that's happened. There's a lot of growth. Like, you see, right now we're sitting on this pump. I love this pump. I'm actually here to give it a name because I give everything names. It's a 100 horsepower pump. It carries water to the center pivot. The one we passed on our way here. So we've just put this in this year. We've only done one cycle, one season of the sugar beans. We should start, we're starting a land prep for potatoes next week. So in August we are planting potatoes. So there's big things going on. I'm glad to hear that. And I think we need more hard breaks in the system because when you have more hard breaks in the system, we'll have more farmers. A lot of disappointments. So I needed an escape. That was one of the things that brought me here. Secondly is my father passed away 13 years ago now. And I've always knew that I was the legacy holder. So everything he did, I wanted to carry on. And one of his passions was the farm. So when we were younger, we had a smaller farm in a place called Shamba. But as he did well, he finally got this one from land reform from the government. But he didn't get a chance to farm on it. He only did one season, but he was already not feeling well. And the next year he passed away. So because I really wanted my father's legacy to carry on. Not only with the farming, even with some of his other businesses and enterprises that he had. But yeah, my passion then came here. The third one. I know you want me to go back to the first one, but the first one is done. The third one. I think I've always had an urge to help people. But what better way to help people than to feed the nation? There's no better way. You understand, everything starts with agriculture. Everything starts with food production. And then we carry on. So with 32,000 cabbages. Hypothetically speaking, if we have 10 people eating one cabbage, I'm feeding 320,000 people from one small patch of land. So yeah, if you look at it that way. So I really, I love my people. I love my country. But are you doing this alone? Yes. Hands on, I'm alone. I have family who have helped a lot in financing. My siblings and my brother's in love. My brother in love actually. My mom, because obviously she's the owner of the land and she comes here a lot with me. But hands on and more technically, it's me. And yeah, Mr. Mazond, I think you saw him, who's our manager, who we've brought on, who works his magic. Because he has more know-how. Because I'm not qualified. I have no agricultural education. I have passion. But are you learning from the job? No, no, no. I'm learning. I can do this, like now. But before, like I knew I wanted to, what happens is I always have these ideas. Like, no, I'm thinking there's two cabbages. And I do a lot of research and obviously with the internet these days you can. But hands on practical. You always need somebody who has that know-how. Because you know, not only do we do this, we're also doing tobacco. I think you saw the field. That's the one that we've cleared. We started tobacco last season. We tried just on two hectares. It did so well. Looking into doing between 5 to 7 hectares. And just grow it as we go along. So the tobacco I'm learning, with the maize which you saw which is in the field as well, I can do maize in my sleep. Like, I know, I know my maize. You're trying to tell us that you're a pro. When it comes to maize. I'm a pro. Michelle is telling me that you're the one doing everything. Yes, please. I'm the one who's doing all these things. Wow. It seems you have a lot of experience in farming. Yes, I have quite a lot of experience. How long have you been farming? I've been in the farming sector for at least, it's now 38 years. Wow, so I'm just a farm guy. A farm guy, do you have your own farm? At the moment, I don't have a farm. My father was working on the farm. Okay, so you're working with your dad on the farm? That's right. Wow, so now you manage this farm? Yeah, I'm managing Michelle's farm right now. I want to ask you a question, yeah. 30 years of experience in farming. What are the major challenges that you faced? Mostly, like right now, the most challenge we are facing now is some farming inputs, equipment to use on the farm. And the most one is the stalling of some transformers so that the major challenge we see... They're still transformers? Yeah, they are stealing some transformers if you don't put some guard there. So if they steal those transformers, it's a major challenge. You don't farm, you don't do anything, you don't irrigate. Zimbabwe experienced drought recently. There was no rain in Zimbabwe. Did that affect farming in Zimbabwe? Yes, yes, please. So what were you guys doing to change that? Yeah, we were on that dry spell which came. We are experiencing an irrigation mostly. So we don't wait for the rains. We are just going on, I mean, doing the irrigation. That's why I said earlier on that we are having a challenge of some transformers being stolen. Because that's the transformer you're going to use to pump the water to the land? To pump the water to the land. The adverse to those who are now starting farming, they should be eager on what they are doing. They should not play if they get those farms. They should do... They should do some farming. They should see what crops they can plant so that they can get into the proper farming. They don't just say we are going to farm or they farm things which are just useless. They can farm things which can feed the nation. When you say feed the nation, which means you don't believe in farming and exporting? We can do the farming and do the exporting but we also need to feed our nation. I don't think the only purpose of this water is for you to come and sit here and cry. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is our water source. For irrigation purposes? Yes, for irrigation. So all I can say is we are not waiting for the rain like in the rest of Africa. We are actually irrigating. There is a new facility to be put in this year at the beginning of this year. This is the control box. It controls, obviously, it takes electricity from there. A lot of gibberish happens inside here where the magic happens. It pushes an instruction to the pump and then the pump comes to water from there right through here. This is where our main line begins. We have an underground main line that travels for about two kilometres, I think. You notice that it's quite clear. We're taking water from about two kilometres away. So all the water for the pivot is all taken from here. I think it's a 90-inch main line underground all the way for two kilometres. Is this damn natural or it's mermaid? I think it's a natural dam but a lot of modifications were made to it. Is this for use for saza? Yes, this is what we use for saza. So you plant and sell it to people who make saza or you're going to make the saza yourself? Well, all the maize of the country goes to the government, all the maize that we grow because for security reasons you sell it to the government. But do you know that government prices are always no good? They're not, but... Sell it to me. No, I'm patriotic. Hey! I'm patriotic. Okay, but why? Is it a law for you to sell your maize to the government? For food security reasons. To feed the nation? To feed the nation. That's amazing. But also because we are funded, like with me, I'm funded, I'm government funded for this particular project. Oh, for the maize project? For the maize. The government gave you money? Not money, they give us inputs. So they'll give us the seed, they'll give us the fuel, they'll give us the chemicals. But they'll obviously charge us and then once I harvest, which once we've harvested this, we deliver. They take whatever tannage covers the loan and then the rest of it, they pay me out. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's more like they're giving you a loan. Yeah. You pay back. The loan. Yeah, once the season is over. You know Zimbabwe used to be the food basket of Africa. Yes it did. Of Southern Africa, yes. Southern Africa. Uh-huh. It used to be. Which means now it's not. No, it's not. But we're on our way back then. What measurement do you think the government can do to bring that back? I think what they're on the right track, finally they are supporting agriculture, especially because before Zimbabwe's black Zimbabwe's anyway, we're communal farmers. They were doing small plots of land just to feed their families. But now we get a lot of government assistance to do bigger projects. So once we have access, do you understand? Now we can then export to other countries. We've come a long way. We really have. We're not at a point of exporting it. But I think in the next few years, if we carry on the way we're going, I think we're on the right track. Yeah. The biggest challenge. Uh-huh. Access to these loans. Access to loans. Access to inputs. I don't think it's a Zimbabwean problem. I think it's an African problem. Because our leaders are not investing. In agriculture. Like look at it this way. Right now there's two crises that has just happened the last few years. We've got the Russia-Ukraine war. Uh-huh. And we've got COVID. COVID. Both crises have had a huge impact on food security all over the world. But we have vast pieces of land. And this is our time to capitalize if our governments will give us enough funding to not only do projects where we can feed our nation, but also to do things that we can export our excess. So I think that the gold rush now should actually be more land and people should rush to get land because with Ukraine and Russia down I'm not really sure of the statistics but we know Ukraine and Russia have fared so much. Nearly the majority of Europe. But I don't think Ukraine, Russia and Russia affect us in Africa. No it doesn't affect us but it creates an opportunity. We can now export food products to Europe to anywhere else. Do you understand? Like, I think most of the wheat in Europe was from Russia. But now we have an opportunity because look, I know you are suffering with the cold in Zimbabwe. But you know, we do a lot of wheat. Unfortunately, I didn't do wheat this year. But... Wheat as in marijuana? Wheat. Wheat for breads. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. At the moment we have 27 left. We've grown our herd to nearly 40 at some point. But what we do with the cattle is we pinferton. So once they are of age, we put them in pens for about 70 to 90 days. We feed them on food that's highly nutritious and we sell them out for beef. Wow. To slaughterhouses. More like the mixed farming here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't mean I use the same manure for your crop. We use the manure from the cattle in the gardens for the vegetables. And we've also tried, last year we actually tried to use some of the manure in a patch of maize. It did very well. But the thing is it's so labor-intensive and we don't get enough manure like now that we are doing such a huge acreage. We don't have enough manure to put onto 20 hectares. But we do, we are using the manure for that. Yeah. But is the cattle business profitable? It is. It covers our costs when we need to. I can say it's readily available cash. Like for example, if we need money for the day-to-day running because obviously you know with things like maize it's eight months that you have to wait 10 months. Same with tobacco. But yet for the cattle if we're paying for it for about 70 days then we sell. And yeah. What are they doing? We're grating sugar beans. It's seed sugar beans. So it needs to be grated. It's on contract. We grate on contract for a local company that then treats it and sells it off as seed. So when it comes out of the field it needs to be grated. The beans that are going to go into seed they take out the dirty ones, the spoiled ones and leave just the clean ones that can go off for seed. Are there permanent workers? Majority are. Majority are. We do take some workers when we have lots of work like right now. We're trying very hard to employ as many women as we can especially for the lighter work which is like the grating because you know they also deserve to be employed. It's not only laborious work that we have here on the farm. Makadini? Mans maradini, maradini! Like you don't understand me. Makadini? Yes, maradini. Oh! Makadini! So what is a final product after them? The final product, let me show you. So you sell this to the company? Yeah, the company we we will deliver we will deliver this for seed. Let me ask you my final question. Do you think agriculture is the future? It's the present and the future because if people are not eating then people will relinquish to live. People need to be fed. So how do we how do we operate without agriculture? What are you going to tell younger entrepreneurs who are looking forward to venture into agriculture? Based on your experience? It's not as hard as people think you understand. It's unfortunate that you guys have come in maybe in winter when we don't have a lot of work. It's not like we're going into the farm so we use a lot of machinery. It has evolved from the way that maybe our forefathers used to do it. It's more about smart farming smart partnerships and you do partner with some people who have more know-how than you. It's not as capital intensive as maybe you'd expect. I think I explained to you with the maze it is for the government. So we are contracted with them. We have a contractor for the sugar beans. So you need to make smart decisions. If you hear the name Africa what comes into your mind? Who are beauty? Royalty. Royalty and everything in between. Because we are royalty. We all come from households we are from Ghana. You especially know there's royalty here in Zimbabwe we also come I always tell people I'm a rosary princess because I come from a clan called rosary. So we need to now hold ourselves with such esteem. You understand and know that we don't always have to be the followers we don't always have to be in the shadows. Not everything terrible is associated with Africa. And this is our time to rise. There's so many Africans watching us right now if you have a message for Africans Let's be true to who we are to where we come from let's carry that no matter where we go either we go to any other continent let's have pride let's have African pride I think that's the biggest thing. And if you had a chance to change Wellington in Zimbabwe what would it be? There's not much I would change I love the people here I love our weather even the maybe winter so you know like I said I'm doing patriotic you don't like the weather you know you struggle to be cold so there's not much I would change it's home it's what I know and it's what I love To her Zimbabwe is perfect quite on our way to perfection I have no idea about that by the way we're on our way but I want to tell you guys thank you so much for watching we can leave a comment as the help me I'm not saying it help me I'm not saying it