Saturday, 28 June 1986: Galaun Holdings Feeds a Multitude of Zambians

August 7, 4:30PM, Hillcrest Community, Halfway House, South Africa & August 10, 12:30PM, Pretoria, South Africa

After arriving in Lusaka, Zambia on June 26, I spent six days with Abe and Vera Galaun whom I connected with through Rotary Club.  When I arrived in Lusaka, the Rotary district was having a conference which ended on Friday evening.  On Saturday, after the conference had ended, I went with Abe for a tour of several of his farms. 

Abe and his wife, Vera, started with practically nothing 40 years ago in what was then Northern Rhodesia, a British Colony.  He and Vera now own eight farms covering some 35,000 acres.  He is one of Zambia’s largest commercial farmers employing 1000 people at his farms, butcher shops, and food distribution business.  Abe joined Rotary Club in 1955 shortly after the Lusaka club was formed.  He and Vera have two sons and four grandchildren.  I’d guess they are both around 70.

Water is, of course, the key element of any African farming operation and the Galaun farms seem to have plenty of it.

While Abe and Vera tended to be somewhat reticent about Zambian politics, I was able to pick up a few interesting tidbits in my conversations with them.  I asked Vera my usual question as to whether there is a future place for whites in black Africa.  She claimed Zambia couldn’t run without the white citizens, residents, and expat workers.  Since independence in 1964, Zambia has nationalized numerous companies.  Vera said these parastatals haven’t worked, but the government has been unwilling so far to admit they were a mistake.  However, she indicated that there has been a warming of late in the government’s attitude toward foreign business investment.

I was watching the TV news with Abe one evening when there was a report that an Irish agricultural expert claimed that Zambia could be self-sufficient in wheat production within five years.  “That’s a lie!” Abe shouted at the TV set.  Perhaps the Irishman was speaking theoretically, whereas Abe knows the realities of Zambian agricultural efforts.  He has, after all, been farming in the country for 40 years. 

It is interesting to note that after all this time, Abe and Vera have never become Zambian citizens, although this option is open to them.  Instead, they hold on to their British passports which they likely first acquired back in colonial times.     

The first stop on our Saturday tour was at the Galaun Holdings office in downtown Lusaka.  Vera runs this bustling center of activity, and even Saturday morning was quite busy.  Meat orders were coming in on the ancient telex machine from around the country.  Trucks were arriving and leaving.  Employee problems had to be sorted out.  An African man came in to the office wanting to sell four head of cattle.  “I’m not interested,” said Abe gruffly.  I assumed that four head weren’t worth his time.  As Abe and Vera tended to business, I looked over press clippings and blue ribbons for Abe’s prize bulls.  There was even a photograph of Abe receiving one of these awards from Queen Elizabeth II.  I noticed that the office photocopy machine produced pathetic copies.  Not surprising in a country where foreign exchange for new office equipment is hard to acquire and very expensive.  The first priority for Abe and Vera is, of course, new farm equipment. 

As Abe and I drove out to his farms in his new Toyota Land Cruiser, he explained that Zambia has seven major tribes which speak a total of 70 dialects.  Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda always has an interpreter with him when he visits a tribal area.  While Kaunda can speak a number of the dialects, he wants to be sure not to offend anyone.

We arrived at one of the farms and were met by John Williams, a jolly young English chap who sported a T-shirt with the slogan, “What a Load of Bull.”  John is in charge of Abe’s prize bulls and I met several of them.  There is Vincent, a 1500-pound Hereford, who will be entered in Zambia’s upcoming national agricultural show.  We also saw a 2½-year-old Boran bull who tipped the scales at 1800 pounds.  Abe plans to start exporting semen from these big guys in the near future. 

Next, Abe drove us over to check the progress on construction of a new abattoir (slaughter house).  It was nearing completion and should be in operation shortly.  Adjacent to the abattoir were a group of chicken coops which produce 3500 birds per week for the table.

 

A few of the 400 pigs at the Galaun Farms.  Look, I know pigs are social animals but wouldn’t it be nicer for these guys to have a little more space? 

 

While Abe and his young English farm managers seem to have a good working relationship, he was quite tough on one chap who wasn’t producing.  This fellow’s pigs weren’t putting on weight the way they should, and he was clearing the maize (corn) crop entirely too slowly.  When Abe confronted him about his performance, the sheepish guy defensively said, “Okay, just tell me how you want me to do it.”  Wrong answer!  Abe didn’t care how he did it.  All he wanted were results.  He was hiring young managers to figure out how to best get the job done themselves.  But what really got the young fellow in hot water was when he violated Rule #1 of the "Four-Way Test".  He was giving Abe erroneous maize production figures and Abe was quick to see through this.  I figured maybe the guy had flunked fourth grade math, but Abe wasn’t as patient.  The hapless guy stormed out of the barn where he and Abe had been talking and yelled, “Nobody calls me a liar!”  As he peeled out of the barnyard in his bakkie (pick-up truck), Abe yelled at him to keep on going.  Abe hoped that was the end of him, but he came back the following day.  I doubt that he lasts much longer.      

We also went for a ride with one of Abe’s African supervisors, and the two of them tried to figure out why the winter wheat crop was doing well in some fields but poorly in others.   Finally, we visited a dairy with automatic milking machines.  In addition to milk and butter production, we watched large blocks of cheese being produced and stored. 

This irrigated field at the Galaun Farms appeared to be quite productive.

 

In all of Abe’s interactions with his men, he was full of questions:  What’s wrong with this field?  How many tractors do you currently have running?  Was this field disked? 

Before we left the farm where the errant manager was presumed packing his bags, Abe met with several of the African supervisors to make sure that the operation would continue running with a minimum of disruption.  There was some concern that the manager might leave without paying his men.  Abe agreed to check with the supervisors on this the following morning. 

I wondered why Abe had no African farm managers.  Certainly there must be some Zambian men who qualify based on several successful years as a supervisor or graduation from the University of Zambia with a degree in agriculture.  Abe claimed to have tried African managers in the past and said they didn’t work out.  When an African man’s relatives found out that he was a manager they would expect him to help them out with food and financial help.  Because of strong social pressures in Africa to take care of one’s relations, an African manager would wind up stealing from Abe.

A few of the kids of Abe and Vera’s farm workers.  They were very curious about the new white guy with the camera.

 

Was Abe’s explanation simply a sophisticated excuse for racism?  Like so many of the dilemmas I’ve seen in the African workplace, the answer is never that simple.  Back in the 1950s when Northern Rhodesia was still a colonial society dominated by English whites, Abe was one of the leaders in getting non-whites into the Lusaka Rotary Club.  Today the Zambian clubs have a diverse mixture of African, Asian, and European members.  Rotary clubs in the other African countries I have visited would do well to emulate the example of Abe and the Lusaka Rotarians in this regard. 

A couple days after visiting Abe’s farms, I read a speech he gave last year to the Lusaka club on the 80^th anniversary of the founding of Rotary.   Some excerpts from that speech shed further light on Abe’s racial attitudes:  

“Rotary’s most important object was to create a society where every colour, every creed, every profession, every trade, every nationality is represented…” 

“…haven’t we missed and still miss opportunities to participate more, to cross the borders that still divide society, to make a greater contribution toward creating a more happy society.”

“Like many of you, I visit Rotary Clubs in many parts of the world, and what impression do I get?  I can tell you that they are nowhere like the club that Paul Harris [the founder of Rotary International] envisaged.  I have the impression that the composition of these clubs represent every profession, but what about different colours and other nationalities?  My impression is that they only pay lip service and have no chance to understand other races, their cultural needs, and their beliefs.  And hence they miss many opportunities to bridge the gaps that exist today.”

Despite these forward-thinking attitudes, there are issues for the Zambian people to examine which are raised by the success of Abe Galaun.  His lack of black Zambian managers is one of them.  But more importantly, I wonder why there aren’t more black Zambian commercial farming ventures?  If Zambia had several hundred Abe Galauns, it could not only feed its own people but export food to neighboring countries with less arable land like Botswana.  And this would decrease the dependence of the black “Front Line States” in this region on South Africa.  Europeans like Abe Galaun can help Zambia, but the country’s ultimate destiny is in the hands of the Zambian people.