Nkhota kota Beckons/ A tall tale of rice.

The world is experiencing a serious shortage in the supply of rice, some supermarkets in the UK are actually controlling the amounts of lbs (kgs) bought per person! the basics of supply and demand then would dictate this to be a boon for Africa's rice farmers, so when the big buyers come searching and knocking in the village town centres the prices have to reflect the scarcity of the commodity...... in my cuckoo land I would encourage, no, I would force the village farmers in Nkhota kota to pool their various singular harvests together and sell that through a trusted intermediary who would by virtue of the size of product created by the pooling and more plus a better sense of prices make sure the rice farmer in Nkhota kota yields a better return per 'lb', and for this year 2008 lets pretend rice will replace tobacco's status as our main forex earner.

Why did the likes of Rab Processors become so successful? the villager sold locally at local prices whilst they sold internationally in dollar prices in the markets where they could get the best price, top dollar mate! Poor farmer in the village, poor Admarc, they could not survive, their management and business model were not dynamic enough. Does that make Rab Processors bad, definitely not, just good businessmen, they saw the opportunities and seized them, they waited for the country to harvest, they went around the villages and bought produce, the farmer felt more comfortable as they no longer needed to travel far to sell their produce, the buyer came to their village, then after a countrywide exercise what did they then have, the entire country's harvest in their stocks!! The country had done the farming for them and they bought the produce fair and square. Good businessmen. Very Clever.

Imagine if you will the massive middle class in China suddenly eating meat, cereals and all the status foods you can imagine every day. And if anything has to go by the Italy food UN meet of today, in which Mugabe sang praises of his 'land redistribution' programme, and the world does indeed experience severe food or even mild food shortages as forecast, my my!! a whole massive international market waiting to be fed (Dollars!!!), then Africa's food crops/ animals, grown to satisfactory Eurozone specification will be 'green gold' in the next few years, so I prophesise a rush by foreign entities to buy African land, sudden growth in farm numbers and commercial farming, artificial rain where possible, deliberate river diversions, lower unemployment rates, lower crime rates and higher taxation on food crops. So what are we waiting for? lets go farming! all we now need are good rains and constructive deliberate policy to empower the local african farmer to do more than carry just a hoe, we need to mechanise him, make him understand a P & L acount, we need to make him 'more' and he doesnt have to spend 4 years in Bunda Uni for that.

Suddenly it becomes clear why Mugabe is such a pariah to the British political set-up, he disturbed a critical link in the chain of food supply to the motherland, by taking away the land from the British farmer he deprived the British public of a steady guaranteed source of fresh food, Zimbabwe was a solid British farm in Africa, processing units, whole businesses prior to the market shelf were disturbed, the number of cargo flights between Harare and London fell etceteras etceteras, it must have been a multi-million pound loss, it still is for both Zimbabwe and 'Britain'.

Back to Malawi's parliament and they are still bickering and running around in small circles, and the bankers, they'll still only lend to the already rich- history will not be kind to us. Another lost opportunity. Reminds me of an old Queen (Freddie Mercury) song's lyrics- 'I am a great pretender, I pretend too much'.