Learn from the cattle keepers, you crop farmers

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In Ankore, where my father migrated to about 50 years ago, there are traditionally two distinct economic occupations. These are cattle keeping and crop farming. These two economic activities are distributed between two distinct Banyakore “sub-tribes”, with each commanding prominence on one of the occupation. My own tribe, which would be considered “migrant” in Ankore, if we stuck to traditional tribal groupings, is within the neighborhood and predominantly aligned with the crop farming community in Ankore. My people also mainly survive on crop growing. We actually boast of an unrivalled reputation as tillers of the land, and it is not uncommon to find farmers specifically looking out for people from my tribe to work their farms. To put it another way, before tractors came to be, we are!
 
Having decided to set up his home in Ankore, my father did not however move very far from the land of his birth. When we were children, we could take an afternoon walk and visit my grandparents. That journey normally took about four hours on foot. No child takes such adventurous walks anymore. The boda-bodas saw to that. At that time during our childhood, cattle keeping was predominant in our community. Owing to population pressure though, many other people followed the example of my dad and others like him, and migrated from Kigezi into Ankore, but yet preferred this area that gave them a feel that they were still at home, owing to the nearness. As a result, the crop growing community in our area continued to expand. 
Needless to say, growing up in such a community implied that we interacted with families engaged in both the above economic activities as family friends, personal friends, and later when we became adults even as business colleagues. There are a couple of distinct characteristics of cattle keepers that I find admirable, and which could serve good lessons to crop farmers.

Cattle keepers are stubbornly proud of their occupation. It does not matter whether they have attained a formal education through school, or not. A child from a cattle keeper family is incomplete, until that child owns cows of their own. Crop growers on the other hand are, generally, not proud of their occupation. Let me illustrate this with simple experiences I have witnessed. When a young adult from a cattle keeping family graduates from say, university, at their graduation party, the elders are keen to remind this person of this need to own a herd of cattle as a sign of adulthood and wisdom. Gifts of cows are actually there and then given to this person to practically follow the advice of the elders. In any case, many of those young adults already own cows by the time they are done with school.

 They are simply being given a boost. On the other hand, there is a child from a crop growing family. The moment this child is sent to school, they start to receive warnings about how they will return to the village to till the land if they fail at school. Formal education to many crop growing families is an escape route to run away from their traditional economic occupation. It is therefore, not rare to find people from crop growing families, completely uninterested in farming when they have been through school. The outcomes of this cultural mindset are quite clear in these communities. Cattle keepers tend to do fairly better than the crop grower colleagues. Now, I am not unaware of the unique challenges around crop farming and the complications around the prices for farm produce, the devastation from adverse weather events and the like, but then again the cattle keepers also have their unique hurdles. I have been aware of instances where farmers lost nearly their entire cattle herds, but the pride they take in their job quickly brings them back on board. 
This approach of work, as part of culture, is admirable. Crop farmers could borrow a lesson from it. 

Secondly, cattle keepers are passionate about their business. They actually love their cows. I do not meet many cattle keepers grumbling against their animals. In many instances, when their herds underperform they take responsibility, challenging themselves to transform the situation. It is even a shame for someone to fail to manage their herd. On the other hand, you may not find many crop farmers who approach their business with this same passion. Many that I know consider their occupation a burden. It is difficult to succeed at something you are not passionate about.
Finally, and again unfortunately, many individuals from crop farming families, after years of work for which they went to school, think they will retire into farming. The several years of inactivity in the farming space will have robbed them of the necessary experience for farming in retirement to make sense. Cattle keepers normally do not face this misfortune. They are always farming all through their lives, even when they run office jobs. Retiring to their farms is seamless.

Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
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