However, Alpha Moesi, owner of Phofu Sorghum Milling Company in Tonota and one of the few women farmers in the country has made it her major source of income.
The milling company processes sorghum called Phofu sorghum meal and maize for samp. The company also processes maize meal and packages beans and peanuts. Phofu is the totem of Bakhurutshe, Tonota people and she says it was appropriate to name her company after her in-laws’ totem. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and she explains that there is a meaning behind her name besides the obvious Greek meaning - first.
However she is not the firstborn child of the eight children in her family. “I was born with six fingers on both hands and my father, who was working for a Greek businessman at the time, told them about me. They informed him that in their culture they believe I will do a lot for him when I grow up,” she explains. Moesi says when she got married to Prince Moesi - a transport businessman - in 1982, her mother-in-law gave her a piece of land as a wedding present.
“I ploughed every year and kept each year’s harvest which I sometimes exchanged for goats or other food,” she says. As she farmed in the early 90’s, she also worked as a bank teller at Standard Chartered Bank.
Moesi said that she enjoyed farming and most people were stunned by her passion as they considered it a job suitable for older people, specifically men.
“This did not slow me down and I was determined to plough my land though at the time I did not know what I was going to do with the harvest that kept on increasing.”
Around the same time, her child became ill and she was forced to quit her job with the bank and take care of him. She had earlier on quit her studies at the University of Botswana while pursuing a Bachelors degree in humanities.
The mother of five said she was now unemployed and decided to open her first business, A&P Auto Motive and General Supply, which sold vehicle parts in Francistown and also supplied the Zimbabwe market. Though she had this business, she continued farming, and every year yielded more harvest but was forced to leave the spare-parts’ business and concentrate on her first love - farming.
“At the time, South Africa had just celebrated its independence and the Zimbabwe market I was supplying with spare parts preferred to buy directly from South Africa, thus crippling my business. I was left with no choice but to close in 1995”, she laments.
Moesi says that when her stored harvest increased, she bought a threshing machine to process the sorghum. There were not many milling houses in the Tonota area during that time and a colleague recommended she buy a mill.
“I managed to attain an FAP loan and my milling company was born,” she says. Phofu Milling Company opened its doors for business in 1996 and she sourced the sorghum from Pandamatenga farms, other small farmers, Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) and even from South Africa and Zimbabwe.
“Phofu Milling processes and packages the sorghum ending up with the final product called Phofu, Boupi-jwa-Mabele,” she explains. The maize they process for samp is supplied to primary schools around the country. Moesi loves operating her own business and wants to take commercial agriculture in Botswana to another level.
“When I was young I used to sell cabbages to our friends when I felt there was more than enough, so that we could buy things we needed at home,” she reminisces. She is now an accomplished commercial farmer and businesswoman. Guinea Dema, a senior technical assistant officer in the Ministry of Agriculture at Tonota confirmed that his department works with Moesi, assisting her whenever they have new developments in their department.
“We chose her for the NAMPAAD pilot project which aims at encouraging people to plough for commercial reasons, using the modern row planting method,” he says.
Even though NAMPAAD recognises 150 hectares of land as suitable for commercial farming, Dema said that Moesi’s land, which is 10 hectares, was chosen because she is one of the most active farmers in the country and they therefore encourage her to plough her own sorghum since she has a milling company where it can be processed.
“She has therefore harvested numerous bags of sorghum and beans though it has been a dry season,” he said.
Moesi expressed pride that despite the drought, she has harvested 100 bags this year, though she normally harvests between 200-300 bags. At the moment she ploughs high breed sorghum called Botswana Sorghum High Breed One, which is able to yield more harvest than the normal one most people are used to. She says she will continue to plough and process sorghum because it is Botswana’s staple food of pride, which should be treasured and preserved to be passed on to the next generation.
She exports Phofu to South Africa and recently made an agreement with the South African owned wholesalers, Trident Holdings to supply them with the product.
Her milling company can now do any tonnage of work and her machinery suppliers and advisors, Rural Industries Innovation Centre (RIIC), in Kanye are no longer able to help her as she had to source outside consultation with more experience, given her bigger, more complex productions. Soon she will have an automatic computerised milling system.
“I had an expert from the Netherlands here for a month advising me on how to expand my business in order to cater for the new market,” she says.
As her business continues to grow, Moesi has studied several agricultural courses in order not to rely on other people to help her, even with simple business stuff.
“I am currently studying for an MBA with a South African Institution because I need as much knowledge as I can get to take my business to another level,” she says, explaining the importance of education. Moesi says local financial institutions need to change their attitudes towards farmers, as they do not recognize them.
“The risk involved in farming makes it hard for farmers to get financial support from these institutions”, she said.
She also expressed concern that National Development Bank (NDB) gives financial support to commercial farmers with a minimum of 150 hectares of land but the Tribal Land Administration Board gives farmers a maximum of 16 hectares of land, which is far less than the minimum set out by NDB.
Moesi says that when one ventures into commercial farming there is a lot of work involved but Batswana do not want to work labour intensive jobs. She explains that this makes it difficult for her to grow her business because she trains people who later leave her. Currently Moesi employs 25 people in the milling company alone but still needs more on the farm, but is unable to find more staff, as many people prefer to work office jobs, She stresses that the competition is very high for sorghum meal as they are competing with South African producers.
At the beginning of the year, most mill owners approached the Ministry of Agriculture to request for the closure of borders to deny sorghum meal entry into the local market as they felt they could produce enough to cater for the local market. The government allowed 50 percent to be imported while the local millers produce 50 percent.
“This has not been possible as most hyper supermarkets are still importing more than the stipulated percentage, which they are selling at cheaper prices thereby putting us, local millers under pressure to reduce our prices,” she says.
