Welcome to #TheZimBeefReport

My name is Augustine Maungwe. I always like to describe myself as an Agripreneur currently stuck in a hotelier body (sloughing process is already in high gear though). I am a co-director in a diversified agribusiness (at least on paper and vision) whose current core business is cattle ranching.

Uphondo Cattle Company is our name. Uphondo is a Ndebele term for horns, traditionally the horns are used to define the “beauty of a beast” thus we chose the name in order to help us connect with our roots. The company has dreams which with hard work and sacrifice can all be achieved. We currently run a Brahman and Brahman cross stud and commercial herd of animals. One would be quick to ask, “why Brahman”, but that’s a story for another day.

For us, it all started with my maternal Grandma (God bless her cotton socks such a specimen of beauty 😊) gifting my older brother a cow and thus a seed was planted. Enter my Uncle (he is a Father NOT uncle), he offered us to move it to his farm in Bindura and from there on we have growth to where we are now and aspire to reach even greater heights.

The passion for farming did start from an earlier stage for me personally. I remember in my Secondary school I used to do voluntary work at the school garden during the holidays. The school is Induna High school in Bulawayo and my then teacher Mr Mapfumo (I understand he is now somewhere in Kadoma). I would tend to the poultry projects, crops and vegetable fields and we later introduced a piggery of which I was part of the core program. As much as it was for the income, it’s with the passion that all was undertaken. I remember sometime during my “O” level final year, which was the height of the land redistribution program, I asked my father to get me a farm as I wanted to quit school to pursue full time farming. It goes without mentioning saying, how much I was ridiculed and told of my degenerating levels of sanity (wakupenga iwe). It came from a good place that much I know, from a place where a father aspires for his kids to do better and achieve more. Little did he know I shall one day retrace those dreams and live them to fruition and he still would be proud of me/us.

From this passion and hunger to succeed thus a need/desire to create where I share not only my journey but my passion and most importantly valuable information sharing with fellow “comrades’ of the struggle. Information is power and it can be more powerful when shared. This blog is meant to try share valuable information and insight relating to cattle farming and the beef value chain in Zimbabwe as we journey towards rebuilding our national herd.

It is not as an expert that I share information rather as a passionate agripreneur, who hungers to succeed whilst carrying other like minded individuals with him along the way, information which might prove a valuable decision making tool. I also desire to spark constructive tete a tete which would edify us as Agripreneurs and or players in the agricultural value chain.

Farming is a journey whose final destination can be argued as undefined. Though along the journey there are checks and balances and achievements that help define our course. Consumer appetites and demand is forever changing, challenges themselves we face on a daily basis are forever changing as well. Thus to an extent as players in the beef value chain we can be defined as chasing a moving target. From a desire for sustainable foods, to population growth with a simultaneous reduction in productive land, to disease epidemics etc etc the speedhumps are forever mushrooming and in all that we endeavour profitability. The ZimBeef Report, toils to provide some valuable tools to achieving profitability. I hope you find it valuable and enjoy the journey albeit might be bumpy at times. In safari guiding avenues they don’t call it a bumpy drive, rather, “an African massage” littered journey.

In isiNdebele the saying goes, “ubuhle bendoda zinkomo zayo”, which loosely translated would imply, “the attractiveness of a man is determined by the size of his cattle herd”.

Lets makes ourselves look “prettier”.

WELCOME TO #TheZimBeefReport

HAPPY FARMING……..#Uphondo