Big hearted, tough skinned farmers
In South Africa, entrepreneurial go-getters thrive despite uncertain economic, political climate
By Mike Wilson, AAEA Immediate Past President
“The softest part of your body has to be your teeth if you do business in Africa,” quips Mike Bosch.
You think you have it tough running a farm business? Try doing it in South Africa, a country with 11 official languages, difficult weather, a polarizing political climate, and one of the worst economies on the planet.
Yet, it’s also a wide open land of opportunity where farmers find a way to do business – and make a difference in the lives of neighbors less fortunate.
That’s exactly what Mike Bosch is doing. Bosch, who raised cattle with his father Pieter as a youngster, developed his own chicken breed nearly two decades ago. He crossed three indigenous breeds to create the Boschveld, able to withstand the harsh, dry African climate.
“My breed has three traits: hardiness, hardiness and hardiness,” he says with a laugh. Now he has 50,000 chicks and makes a good living exporting his free-range chickens and fertile eggs, mainly to other African nations. His free-range setup is open-air – no artificial heat or cover.
“There are no curtains,” he says. “They run outside 365 days of the year. There is no biosecurity, I don’t make people take showers. In this area there are lots of predators and guinea fowl and where do they shower? Who are you bluffing?”
Bosch says many of his export customers will buy 4,000 hens and 1,000 roosters their first year, then flip that ratio in following years. “Because of inbreeding in rural Africa, the hens are smaller and smaller,” he explains. “The minute they put a big Boschveld rooster with those inbred hens, there’s a genetic explosion that takes place. In six weeks the chicks are as big as their mothers. People have more meat and the hens lay more eggs.”
A GOOD CAUSE
Today Bosch puts his chickens to good use in a project that goes beyond exports. He developed a clever system to help thousands of disadvantaged African families rise up out of poverty. He realized that poor families face two basic problems: food and energy. Corn yields are a tenth of U.S. yields due to low fertility.
“Many people in rural Africa and South Africa still have no access to electricity,” he says. “Often they work with fires. They can’t even afford candles.”
After thinking it through, Bosch developed a mobile chicken run ‘kit’ that could produce light, power, fertilizer and food. The 150-lb. 10×20 ft. cage can be built in half a day and comes with 80 chickens, a solar panel, LCD lights and battery pack, along with vegetable seeds. The family can get as many as 40 eggs a day, so there are plenty to sell to neighbors. After a month the cage is moved and vegetables are planted into the nutrient-dense chicken manure. The solar panel and battery runs 4 LED lights and power to charge 13 cell phones or a laptop. “If a child has to do a project, now she can use the internet,” he says.
Bosch completed a 12-month trial in Zimbabwe with three housewives in rural areas. “We gave them the chicken run, seed, and chickens. The three ladies sold eggs, chicken meat, vegetables and solar power – charging 50 cents per cell phone. They averaged income of $250 a month.”
The kits range from $3,000 to $7,000 depending on cage size, vegetable packets, six-month supply of chicken feed, two-year replacement stock and available training. Bosch has sold 5,000 of these units in just a year, mainly to NGOs working across the continent.
“A lot of Europeans come to Africa with great ideas for solving poverty, but they fail because they take a top down approach,” says Bosch. “You have to start by finding out what people want. This is a bottom to top approach to bringing people out of poverty.”
South Africa is a land where a smart and savvy businessman will make a profit – if he or she is tough and inventive.
“The softest part of your body has to be your teeth if you do business in Africa,” concludes Bosch. “In Africa if you go soft, you’re dead.”