Zimbabwean finds success on British farm

Zimbabwean finds success on British farm

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By Business Reporter

WHILE Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe is driving white commercial farmers off their properties, a black Zimbabwean is enjoying success on a British farm.

Off the M25 motorway in London's Enfield is a leased farm which journalist turned farmer, David Mwanaka, has modelled into a thriving market place of Zimbabwean agri-products.

Mwanaka Fresh Farm Foods is the proud supplier of white maize, a rarity in the United Kingdom where farmers are encouraged to grow yellow maize for stock feed.

Home sick Zimbabwean exiles are also turning to Mwanaka for pumpkin leaves (muboora/ibhobola), rape, choumoellier, tsunga and butternuts.

He says on his company's website: "Growing up in Zimbabwe, I loved eating white maize so much that it was the only food I missed when I came to Britain in 1991. I couldn't stand eating yellow maize, and that's how I started thinking of leasing a farm."

Soon enough, Mwanaka was experimenting by growing white maize in his back garden. With white maize cultivation virtually non-existent in the UK, Mwanaka used his back garden to carry out a series of experiments over a period of six years, with an eye on growing white maize on a commercial scale.

"In the first year of growing white maize, the crop grew so tall that when a neighbour's child kicked a ball into the maize crop, he came to my wife and asked if he could go into the 'forest' to look for his ball," he remembers.

Unfortunately, the maize never matured on the first year. Agricultural experts rubbed it in as they told Mwanaka that white maize does not grow to maturity in Britain. Yet he was determined to grow and eat white maize IN BRITAIN.

"I placed adverts in a few local papers looking for land to lease and the response was dismal, but the advert caught the eye of a journalist from the Guardian newspaper who was intrigued by the story of a Zimbabwean looking for land in Britain.

"After the Guardian did the story, there was increased interest and a farmer gave me a call offering part of his farm and I haven't looked back," he said.

Mwanaka is willed on in the pursuit of his dream by his wife Brenda, and their three children: Jonathan, Ruth and Miriam.

Said Mwanaka: "Our customers can make direct orders by telephone and expect deliveries but many now prefer to come and pick their orders fresh from the farm which feels natural."
VISIT: Mwanaka Fresh Farm Foods
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