Thobani's Talk
Talk objective
message
Partnership being the strategy to growth and acquiring of technical expertise
Benefits
technical skills sharing
sharing of winning methods
sharing of risk
access to help via association
Review
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opportunities to markets that would ordinarily take long to access
More capital to expand on business
Conclusion with powerful ending. End with a quote, a stat, a call to action or a moving short story.
access to infrastructure that i ordinarily would not have i.e storage
Summarise - Bearing our disadvantages in competing, we sort to align ourselves stretegically with high caliber technical partners to overcome challenges of lacking expertise, necessary infrastructure at times, access to associations to share best practice and access to short term unstructured credit facilities. Results are telling with yields and quality of produce in our 1st year of cropping. Cooperation and partnerships has been the business and a quicker way to bridge the gap to sustained commercialisation for us.
expertise know how on crop farming, access to other farmers to share ideas and solutions to challenges on field
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Body of talk
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Point 3: Informed decision on production plans and closer alignment to markets
Provide solutions to challenges @ hand as we experience from engagement with immediate stakeholders
issues of mechanization
Quicker reaction to developments on the field
issues relating to disbursements of funds
access to short term credit facilities i.e. contracting & chemicals where there is a shortage
closer to market demands and trends
able to adjust crop dependent on profitability and demand
Access to increased ha due to joint ventures
greater synergies as compared to mentorship as there is greater commitment towards common goal of course being profitability and sustainability
Talk title
Audience interest/problem solution
from the financiers point of view, interest is seeing breakeven yields
Continued & sustained profitability within time specific periods
sustained independency over time
secured markets without dependency on financier
expansion & growth
limitation of risk and ensured success
smooth flow of operations and mitigation of operational risk
from the entrepreneur perspective: acquiring of expertise to produce best crop, best yields
sharing of winning methods of production
solutions to shared common issues
access to closer markets - issue being cost to transport
renewed motivation
must be inspirational,real and practical
equally important is making work fun. Maintain relationship of intergrity and frankness no matter the situations.
Be frank and transparent
Bring a positive attitude to work
be accountable & reliable
Maintain respect to team
create a fun & playful attitude on the field however maintain ing a professional attitude
Have a make it happen attitude to overcome challenges and bring acountability
care for each other
be dynamic and keep eye on the main game
allowed to be emotional
Maintain an inquisitive mind
Talk introduction: The talk is about partnerships as a business and operational strategy and how we have employed partnerships to engage and overcome challenges.
companionship
energy feed
Point2: access to resources on favorable terms
Point1: Access to expertise, sharing of knowledge and influence on production plan
The idea of planting wheat was brought about by the mill seeing the scarcity of wheat as a result of drought at the time (production based on relevance). Discussed profitability vs expenditure and viability. Constructed an income statement based on expected assumptions and the results were encouraging enough to give it a go ahead.
Further opportunities to generate income from shared rental of land.
Wheat was an unkown phenomena and so agreed on production profitable targets and and incentives.
Part of the transferring of skills includes desk work, discussions around choice of cultivar, ideal seedbed preparation and expected behavior during growth period from germination to harvest.
Adopted attitude of excellency where menial tasks such as spraying or top dressing would be made to be as seamless as they can be.
The aim being to minimize time the tractor spends on reloading fert or chemicals for spraying much more like in F1 pit stops, however we do this in a fun way.
This builds on attitudes of keeping focus and readiness rather than reactionary
We discuss & share working methods from other farmers. I.E. we noticed poor tillering form our plants as compared to other crops we saw and received advice to apply stress by way of roller or temp grazing on the crop to encourage tillering.
The farm has a challenge of infrastructure, prevalent feature to most black owned farms. No sheds for storage however through the partnership, we were able to store 25 tons of fert with provided security not to mention availability of hoisters for convenience.
Farming as a practice is guided by time frames. 1st challenge was to plant within the recommended time frames as per cultivar however this fell outside the contractors scheduled times. for us. We were able to secure an outside contractor within reasonable time to plant for us. A feat made easy through association. This alone attributed greatly to the success of the crop as it ensured full maturity to harvest
Spraying was too an issue as the preferred contractor was AWOL . Once again we were able to secure an outside contractor for this on short notice as a favor being preferred and sloted in above other clients. The magic was that we paid the invoices on the third month.
late spraying meant higher dosage of chemicals than delivered however we had access to chemicals on account which we later settled from pocket
Production plan based on available market and needs as in the instance of wheat.
expansion plans include vegetable production into potatoes, carrots and cabbage
much of which is inspired by soil type. Sandy soils produce cleaner potatoes with longer shelf life as compared to washed potatoes . This attribute brings with it a premium which makes it an attractive venture to pursue