Maize Farming in Zambia: How We Established a Maize Crop at our New Farm 

Thanks va Norman. Take care.

Thanks for watching!

Great. All the best.

Hi Jason. You spelled it exactly right. Thanks for the support. Much appreciated. Yes, I am glad to be helping others with our videos, and Im committed to keep making the effort. Btw, it's just gone 01:00, and I've been editing since after supper, and I still have an hour or so left in the tank. I run a large group of companies in another sector, so I'm fairly busy during the day, and the farm and the RU-vid videos are a labour of love.

Glad you like them!

Thanks for watching!

Our pleasure!

Most welcome ☺️

Thanks. We continue moving forward.

You are very welcome

Yebbo. Pls get in touch via email on info@mondofarms.co.zm.

Glad to hear that. All the best.

Thanks for watching!

Most welcome.

Appreciated. The hustle is real

Thanks so much! 😊

Most welcome

You're most welcome

Much appreciated!

Thanks

Thanks and welcome

Thanks!

Thank you! Cheers!

You're most welcome 🙏🏽

Thanks.

Thanks for such a compliment. Take care

Thanks 😊

Greetings 🙏🏽

Welcome

Thank you so much 😀

Thanks for being part of our farming journey. Honestly, we struggle to accommodate farm visits because it causes challenges to our work schedules. But please let us know if you travel to Lusaka.

LOL 😆

Thank you too

It's my pleasure

Thanks.

Thanks. Glad it's helpful. Farming visits are a challenge for us. Our priority is to do farming tasks and programmes. When we have visitors, a lot of our attention has to go to them, which is not positive for our outcomes. And you can only imagine how many visit requests we get each week. We are working to start having formal Farmers Days like other farms do, when various people can come and see what we do in a structured manner. We will advertise on our channels when we do.

Welcome aboard.

So nice of you. We are not yet sure which variety we will plant next month. We normally start with an agro dealer that sells a lot of variety and let one of the agrinomists there guide us. Try Omnia branches.

Thanks

Yebbo

Welcome aboard. 🙏🏽

Thanks and Greetings

Thank you 😊

It's just rain fed for now, as we are deep into our rain season here (Nov to Mar). But we will have to start irrigating this particular crop of maize later as the rains slow down. The maize will have cobs by then.

@@mondofarms4343 nice one. It would be great if you can make a video about how your irrigation system is set up particularly for the maize and soybeans. Always appreciate your content Brother keep it up. From Namibia 🇳🇦

Gosh. That would be an amazing idea. Sadly, it's quite far from the reality of where African food production levels are. We have a food deficit and need to produce grain to eat. Africa has the worlds fastest growing population and lowest capacity to feed itself. Turning maize into ethanol is a luxury we can't even dream of. A real example of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

You are so welcome. Our strongest advice is for you to work with a qualified agronomist if you are starting out. They are employed by reputable seed companies and fertiliser manufacturers, and they advise farmers as part of their service. They will guide you all the way. There are also a lot of growing guides for all crops available online. Final advice: farming success starts with mindset and ability/willingness to put in a lot of time. Your effort has to go beyond RU-vid and WhatsApp. So the time spent talking to agronomists and farmers in your country will be invaluable.

Welcome aboard! The practice you are asking about is called intercropping. We have never done it, bit a quick google search shows quite a lot of results. All the best.

Hi Jason, Kimberly farm is about 33 hectares in total. We planted our maize this year across about 6 hectares. I have always preferred metric measurements to imperial. The whole feet, yards and acres thing is hard for me. A hectare is 100m x 100m, and I basically use the analogy of two football fields side by side to picture a hectare. Regarding how much land we need to plant, one important factor is capacity to manage (planting, protecting, etc) and of course the yield/hectare. At our relatively basic level, the yields will still be quite low. But as we improve our skill and acquire more machinery, the yields will get better.

We advise against buying too many such things in the beginning. Especially thongs that will only be used for one day and then end up in a storeroom until the following year Start with the basics like a sprayer, which is used throughout the growing process. The thing is to get "must-have," not "nice-to-have" tools. Farming is a long game, and success takes several years. You will know in the second or third year if it is time to start getting next level tools.

Hi there. There are a lot of snakes around, especially since the farm is still developing. I always say that I am never no more than 60m or so from a serpent. All types and sizes, especially puff adders, cobras and muswema. We are trying to teach the guys not to always kill each one, but that is like hoping politicians will not be corrupt. It's a work in progress...

Its pretty much as shown in the video. It might help to watch the video again and focus on the key moments showing the planting. All the best.

Sorry we didn't include much about that as we wanted to focus on the main topic of the video, which was how we build the pond liner reservoirs. The answer is that we just pump water into it from our normal sources.

Hi James, we never do that on the Mondo Farms Channel. Other channels share such data, but we are primarily a business, and we choose to keep the financial details of our business proprietary. All the best

Yes, indeed. Pls watch the video again for more details.

Am in love with this. How can I visit your farm sir, am so much interested in carrot farming. But I was more on how to use drippers

Fertilizing crops is a topic we haven't covered in great detail on our channel. That is basically because so many other RU-vid channels feature such advice, and we don't want to be too technical. Our channel is about sharing our farming journey as we develop our farms, and inspiring others. Also, we strongly advise those with such questions to consult a good agronomist in their area, especially after doing some soil testing. The Agronomist is King and Queen in farming.

Hi Ba Mukeba. As a company, we have chosen not to share such numbers about costs and revenues, etc on social media. Other channels do. All the best.

We plant various varieties of hybrid and traditional maize 🌽 across various fields.

Indeed, we are very much aware of it. The farms are still getting started, and we have already on a steep learning curve. So we started with basic and conventional methods. My strategy is keep things as simple as possible. Hopefully, in a few years' time, we will be making some returns and will find ourselves further up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Are we losing out on soil conservation in the meantime? Yes, but this is the real world, and we already have enough moving parts to deal with.

Great idea. I agree that everyone should use names for their businesses and farms in ways that have meaning to them. After all, the owner gets to choose, right? I think it would be cheeky for me to tell someone else how to name things in their businesses. I promise never to do that.

Polite way of telling someone not to poke their nose in someone's business😂😂😂😂

Of course we would try that in an ideal world. If you watch the video again and consider the context, you can see that the snake was severed by the TLB bucket while it was in a hole in the anthill being leveled. Sadly, such is the reality of land clearing using mechanized equipment. All the best