White Zimbabweans bring change to Nigeria
Farmers kicked off their land by President Robert Mugabe have made new lives – and raised the local standard of living – in Nigeria.
from the May 2, 2008 edition
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The Zimbabwean farmers are all too aware how key Mr. Saraki's support is.
Another group of Zimbabwean farmers who set up in Nasarawa State, east of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, are close to abandoning their Nigerian venture.
There, farmers have not had strong support from the state authorities, a promised bridge to link their farms to the nearby capital has not been built and agreed-upon bank loans have not materialized.
But Saraki dismisses fears that the commercial farms may stumble with the end of his tenure in three years' time.
"I think the project has sold itself," says Saraki. "When we started there were a lot of people who did not believe in it. But I think by now, when we are employing about 3,000 people in Shonga, they are the ones that are going to defend it."
Oyewo, who is a university graduate and ne w to farming, says it's not just farm employees who are learning from the Zimbabweans. "Even local people have been encouraged to seek advice – and get it – from the farmers," says Oyewo.
In the long term, veterinarian Abubakar Kannike sees great potential for collaboration to develop a new breed of dairy cow that could be exported throughout West Africa.
"The future for us is to develop our own dairy breed mixing the hardy local Fulani breed with the Zimbabweans' high milk-producing Jersey cows," says Mr. Kannike.
The lessons go both ways
But the lessons aren't all being passed in one direction. The Zimbabweans are learning how to deal with a new climate, a new way of doing things.
This area of Nigeria is a far cry from the cool sunny plateaus of Zimbabwe. It's relentlessly hot and close enough to the Sahara to be shrouded in dust-laden desert winds for months at a time. And in the low-lying tropics, farmers and their families are learning to cope with malaria.
White farmer Hunter Coetzee is paying close attention to Nigeria's weather patterns, earning a reputation among the rest of the groups as something of a meteorologist.
One of the steepest learning curves, farmers say, has been unearthing the hidden corrupt practices that mar Nigerian society.
"Our first year farming here, we bought our fertilizer off the market," says farmer Irvine Reid. But when the yield was disappointing, they sent a sample of the fertilizer off for analysis. "There was next to no fertilizer, so little of the active ingredient in there, that we may as well not have bothered."
But after a traumatic and often violent departure from Zimbabwe, the commercial farmers are learning about West African hospitality. "Everyone's been very welcoming," says Reid, "and that's really nice."
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