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FEATURE www.agriwes.com essential magazine ...essentially your business Planting the seed Planting the seed

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Page 1: Agri-Wes Zambia

F E A T U R E

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Planting the seedPlanting the seed

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Planting the seedPlanting the seedIn the last few years, agricultural chemical supplier Agri-Wes (Zambia) has recently branched out into the farming machinery market. CEO Nico De Kock tells us how the company — and Zambia's agricultural industry as a whole — has changed since Agri-Wes (Z) was first established.

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An agronomist by trade, Nico De

Kock left South Africa over twenty

years ago to pursue opportunities

in the Zambian agricultural industry. By

January 1995, he had established a base

for Agri-Wes (Z) in FarmCentre Mkushi,

and has been supplying agricultural

chemicals and seeds to farmers ever since.

“Everyone thought we were mad for going

there,” he tells us. “It was a very small

place with maybe thirty farmers. But since

then we've grown, and Mkushi's grown,

and Zambia's grown — and we did not

foresee it, at that stage.”

Zambia has changed dramatically over the

past two decades, going from having

virtually no infrastructure to being one of

the most urbanised countries in Southern

Africa. The Minister of Local Government

and Housing recently predicted that the

majority of people in Zambia will be living

in cities and towns by 2030, and with the

population also on the rise, sustainable

urban development is now a serious

priority.

“When we first came here, the main road

was one big pothole from Luskaka,” says

De Kock. “It was so bad you could barely

drive. Today the roads are quite good, but

the problem we've got now is that there's

too much traffic. The country has grown so

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much and the road structure has struggled

to keep up with that, but at least you can

drive, albeit slowly and in heavy traffic.”

Agri-Wes is a distributor for some of the

most respected chemical companies in the

world, including Syngenta, Villa Crop, and

Arysta. In 2012, Agri-Wes branched out

from chemicals and into the world of

machinery and began distributing

Vaderstad Verken machines and spare

parts.

“We got our first sale after about a year of

representing them,” De Kock tells us. “It

takes time to gain the confidence of the

farmers.”

The success of the Vaderstad products

prompted Agri-Wes to expand on their

machinery range, and in September 2014,

they became the official Zambian

dealership for CLAAS farming machinery.

“It's a major addition to our business. We've

basically got two divisions now. There are a

lot of challenges involved in starting a new

business, so we decided to keep it as one

company and run it as two divisions,” he

explains. “There is already some CLAAS

equipment in Zambia, but not a lot. CLAAS

had quite a bad name as far as backup

service is concerned. Machinery was sold in

Zambia, but servicing and support were

hard to come by. Most people know they're

very good products but the support service

was poor. It's our job to convince people 3

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“ We get help from CLAAS Germany and we work through Kempston Agri, which is the CLAAS importer into Southern Africa,” ... “Our relationship with both of them is fairly close, and communication is pretty quick. Kempston have a representative who visits Zambia quite regularly.”

For Financial Advisory and Business SolutionsTailored to the

Agricultural Industry

Contact:+260 977 824 834+260 978 002 050+260 977 362 388

Email: [email protected]

Mkushi Farm Block , Zambia

Page 7: Agri-Wes Zambia

that we will be able to deliver this service.”

Agri-Wes' reputation for reliability,

integrity, product availability and customer

service has been a point of pride for the

past 20 years, and positions them as the

ideal company to handle the servicing and

support of CLAAS machines.

“We get help from CLAAS Germany and we

work through Kempston Agri, which is the

CLAAS importer into Southern Africa,” says

De Kock. “Our relationship with both of

them is fairly close, and communication is

pretty quick. Kempston have a

representative who visits Zambia quite

regularly.”

Machinery may be new ground for family-

run Agri-Wes, but it's a challenge they've

faced responsibly.

“It's been a big learning curve,” says De

Kock. “Repairing machines is not an area

I've got experience in, but my son is very

technical-minded and he's running that

division of the business.”

Up next for Agri Wes is the possibility of

opening a workshop in Lusaka. Most CLAAS

customers are based around Lusaka and

Southern Zambia, and Agri Wes already has

an office there where spare parts can be

purchased. The company is also busy with

an advertising campaign, designed to raise

its visibility and profile within the Zambian

market.

“Overall, things are going well. Zambia's

agricultural economy is under pressure and

we've got a couple of challenges — for

example, we don't have big capital, which

limits the number of machines we can have

immediately available,” explains De Kock. “I

see the business growing as people get

more convinced that we are here to stay

and we can deliver service. I suspect it's

“ Everyone thought we were mad for going there,” ... “It was a very small place with maybe thirty farmers. But since then we've grown, and Mkushi's grown, and Zambia's grown - and we did not foresee it, at that stage.”

going to be a slow growth, and maybe that's

a good thing because then we can grow

with it. It's sustainable. If you get a flash in

the pan and sell twenty machines in one go,

things can become difficult.”

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Page 8: Agri-Wes Zambia

Farm 3168

Mkushi, Zambia

Tel: +260-965122212

E-mail: [email protected]

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