- Location
- West Wales
How cheap is land and what is profit margins like?
Are campsites open?
- Thread starter paul&mandy
- Start date
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
I wouldn’t buy land but you can rent. As for profits it depends what you grow but potatoes were £500 a tonne plus however there are lots of other factors to look at its not Lincolnshire.
- Location
- fakenham-norfolk
As an aside is "The New Stanley Hotel " still operational & "The Long Bar " functioning ? I was there in the late 70's,excellent place for a drink at sundown !!
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
Honestly i don’t know. We rarely go to Nairobi and never into the city centre times change Nairobi is now a very big city not a small town anymore.
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Sorry to hear you would consider investing in Zimbabwe, you have gone down a long way in my estimation!
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
That's a bit insulting actually. The people who have really suffered in Zimbabwe are not the white farmers nor Mugabe's people but the ordinary man on the street . The poor farm worker and his family for these people the last 20 years have been very unpleasant which is why literally millions have left the country. Mugabe is dead and these people deserve a better life something that is unlikely to happen without outside investment.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Why. Surely someone has to go help. Sanctions didn't work on the Weimar. Why Rhodesia. And in no way do I support the politics. But to abandon the ordinary folk seems totally the wrong way to go. But goodness how would I know as I never leave the Fens. But also have never had to tolerate such a political system for white or black.
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
The current regime is just a continuation of the old regime. To work with it is to give succour and support to these evil kleptomaniacs who are just there, to suck every last drop of blood out of this benighted country.
Even the Chinese are learning the lessons that the British empire learnt.
Even the Chinese are learning the lessons that the British empire learnt.
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
Well we are off for a look and i'll let you know. However I have met several farmers who have gone back and whilst it probably isn't as it was they seemed o.k with it. The truth is Africa is rubbish and you cannot apply western values to it as a whole. We are farmers we have no political affiliations we just get on and grow crops and unless you have lived and worked here it's hard to understand how it works.
Danllan
Member
- Location
- Sir Gar / Carms
Where to? You may end up looking over our old places, if you do use them, I'll let you know where the best boreholes are - on some we 'destroyed' where they thought they were... they're good, properly lined, so should still be fully usable.
That reads as rather altruistic, I wonder if it really is...
As for commercial / white farmers, I know of some who were burned to death on their own property, I'd say that was suffering to a fair degree - regardless of what your come-back may be to that, wind your neck in down there. What Zim needs is the same as the rest of black Africa, an effective government, honest Courts, fewer Chinese and a larger middle class - fat chance... I've two cousins who got out with their families safely, when some neighbours didn't, we had friends in the know who gave us a lot of help. My cousins are back and farming, to an extent, but they won't have their families back.
The reason for that is simple, security. A hell of a lot of weapons were stashed during and after the war, and many came out from the 'invasions', and on into the last few years. When I was farming I'd always have a little 9mm Star pistol with me, and usually a rifle too, because there were bandits. There still are, and though they lack the heavier artillery of the Somalis, there are still AKs all round; everyone still has an armed guard night, and many have a security chap with them on the lands too.
The corruption in Zim is at a level that makes even Kenya look straight, there aren't the rich Indians to help smooth things, and there is a continually repeating cycle of investment being 'taken over', run down, hawked again, built up and again 'taken over'... I can give chapter and verse on this with regard to a dozen farm and mining enterprises over the last five or six years. Your contracts are worth SFA inside Zim, and the 'Courts' won't recognise let alone enforce any made that incorporate foreign law or are made out of the jurisdiction.
Not trying to discourage you, just stating the facts, and you clearly have an idea of the realities of African business, but Zim is a different world to East Africa. Still, there is huge potential if you can get paid in hard currency in an external account, if...
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
We have had a few visits from people farming around Harare so that's what we are going to have a look at. I am interested in doing peas ( mange- tout etc) for export but it's dependent on lots of factors. I am not a charity I don't do things for the benefit of others but generally if we do well our workers do well. Kenya is a very corrupt country but we aren't but when people get to understand that things work out o.k. We have lost farms and land when the people we rented from saw the improvements made.It's par for the course here. I am here not because it's easy but because there was an opportunity far greater than in the UK however being here doesn't mean I agree with the Government or am a quisling it's just best as a minority not to get involved in politics in a continent where power is in tribal numbers. Anyway seeing as Boris is petrified we might infect you all with a new variant we thought we'd go and have look around.Where to? You may end up looking over our old places, if you do use them, I'll let you know where the best boreholes are - on some we 'destroyed' where they thought they were... they're good, properly lined, so should still be fully usable.
That reads as rather altruistic, I wonder if it really is...
What Zim needs is the same as the rest of black Africa, an effective government, honest Courts, fewer Chinese and a larger middle class - fat chance... I've two cousins who got out with their families safely, when some neighbours didn't, we had friends in the know who gave us a lot of help. My cousins are back and farming, to an extent, but they won't have their families back.
The reason for that is simple, security. A hell of a lot of weapons were stashed during and after the war, and many came out from the 'invasions', and on into the last few years. When I was farming I'd always have a little 9mm Star pistol with me, and usually a rifle too, because there were bandits. There still are, and though they lack the heavier artillery of the Somalis, there are still AKs all round; everyone still has an armed guard night, and many have a security chap with them on the lands too.
The corruption in Zim is at a level that makes even Kenya look straight, there aren't the rich Indians to help smooth things, and there is a continually repeating cycle of investment being 'taken over', run down, hawked again, built up and again 'taken over'... I can give chapter and verse on this with regard to a dozen farm and mining enterprises over the last five or six years. Your contracts are worth SFA inside Zim, and the 'Courts' won't recognise let alone enforce any made that incorporate foreign law or are made out of the jurisdiction.
Not trying to discourage you, just stating the facts, and you clearly have an idea of the realities of African business, but Zim is a different world to East Africa. Still, there is huge potential if you can get paid in hard currency in an external account, if...
- Location
- West Wales
Answer me this, how do you say Kenya?
Like Ken-Yah
Or Keen-Ya?
Everyone I know that hasn’t been there says Kenyah but thoe that have lived there say Keen-Ya
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
It’s Kenya if you come from England like me but it’s Keen-Ya if you aspire to be something you are not. A lot of the aristocracy came here and lots of other people who wanted to be aristocrats so they affected the same mannerisms. We have a lot of second and third generation white Kenyans who if they were in the UK would struggle to get a job on a till at Tescos yet here they think they are a cross between George Adamson and the Duke of Westminster.Answer me this, how do you say Kenya?
Like Ken-Yah
Or Keen-Ya?l
Everyone I know that hasn’t been there says Kenyah but thoe that have lived there say Keen-Ya
Paddington
Member
- Location
- Soggy Shropshire
Not to be confused with quinoa, that people in Knightsbridge eat for breakfast.
Danllan
Member
- Location
- Sir Gar / Carms
See below...Answer me this, how do you say Kenya?
Like Ken-Yah
Or Keen-Ya?
Everyone I know that hasn’t been there says Kenyah but thoe that have lived there say Keen-Ya
Yeah, but... it was pronounced Keenya before Kenyatta came on the scene. And you'll know that if you speak to the oldest African chaps - proper Mzees to us in the know
- from around the mountain whether near Nyeri or Meru, they still pronounce it Keenya, in English, dialect and their own tongue. But it became a very politically helpful thing for the pronunciation of Kenya and Kenyatta to coincide, so they did.As for accent, people who've been brought up to pronounce a word in a certain way can't, and probably shouldn't, be expected to change the way they talk to suit the political prejudices of others. After all there are some from Lincolnshire who can pronounce the word 'bath' correctly, while others can't.
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
I don’t about all that. The first settlers could have just met someone with a speech impediment and the rest as they saySee below...
Yeah, but... it was pronounced Keenya before Kenyatta came on the scene. And you'll know that if you speak to the oldest African chaps - proper Mzees to us in the know
As for accent, people who've been brought up to pronounce a word in a certain way can't, and probably shouldn't, be expected to change the way they talk to suit the political prejudices of others. After all there are some from Lincolnshire who can pronounce the word 'bath' correctly, while others can't.
is history. If you hear old white people speaking swahili they make it a language of their own.
Last edited:
Danllan
Member
- Location
- Sir Gar / Carms
Old people speaking anything do that.
garage ,farageOld people speaking anything do that.
- Location
- Limousin/Charentes toad land
See below...
Yeah, but... it was pronounced Keenya before Kenyatta came on the scene. And you'll know that if you speak to the oldest African chaps - proper Mzees to us in the know
As for accent, people who've been brought up to pronounce a word in a certain way can't, and probably shouldn't, be expected to change the way they talk to suit the political prejudices of others. After all there are some from Lincolnshire who can pronounce the word 'bath' correctly, while others can't.
Spent a whole lifetime sounding “h’s”, to try and speak properly. Then come here and the don’t sound “h’s” at all. Very difficult to do, this dropping h
. I say haute Vienne as “ought” and I can just hear my grandma saying “oh, please do speak properly”
Went to Kenya for a honeymoon with MrsM (Mk1), stayed at Watamu Beach in Malindi, had a lovely overnight camping safari at a place a bit like Treetops. It was posh camping in log cabins, in tree`s with rope bridges between and elephants below. All funded by catching a bloke robbing a bank in Essex but that`s another thread!!!
With hindsight I should have taken the chance then and got her squashed by a buffalo and finished off by hyenas...... not that I`m bitter or such......
With hindsight I should have taken the chance then and got her squashed by a buffalo and finished off by hyenas...... not that I`m bitter or such......