In Conversation with Trevor: Ncube Musasiwa: Why I chose farming

Fresh In a Box MD Nomaliso Ncube Musasiwa says when she was growing up she wanted to work in the medical field, but has found herself running a successful start-up in the agriculture industry.

Ncube Musasiwa, a mathematician by training, told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor that she never went to school for things she is doing now, but she is still able to excel in them.

Below are excerpts from the interview.

CM: Thank you for having me Trevor.

TN: I want to start with your name, Nomaliso, it is such a beautiful name.

NM: Thank you.

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TN: I was just trying to figure out ‘Nomaliso’ in my Ndebele, Xhosa and stuff. Tell me, what does it mean?

NM: According to the person who named me, my dad, it means a lady of luck in Ndebele. Yes.

TN: Has that come through with your life, as you live your life?

NM: Absolutely. I mean I do not know how I feel about luck, but genuinely most of the time I have been like my name as it bears, I have moved around with a lot of luck.

TN: Well, a bit of luck.

• Congratulations, 2021 was a good year for you, hey? You won the Female Farmer of the Year, you were runner-up in the Best Run Woman’s Startup for 2021 in the Agri-Pitch Hec Competition. Was that luck or hard work?

NM: Both. I was well-prepared.

TN: Both? Talk to me about what these awards mean to you?

NM: Truly it is a validation you know. Transitioning from how I have groomed myself from schooling to what my career path was going to be, to where I am now, it has completely changed you know.

Imposter syndrome will have you all the time.

Am I good enough for this?

But I am not qualified for this?

How am I standing at this stage and how am I presenting at this stage?

It is always affirming to hear somebody else say you know , you are good at it, you are excellent at it, well done.

Somebody else noticing is always affirming.

TN: Interesting that you say given where you are and where your career path could have taken you, explain that?

NM: I am a Mathematics graduate from the University of Zimbabwe.

Before that I was always focused in the sciences.

I did as a young girl want to be a doctor, then it changed and I wanted to be a bio-scientist, but everything around it was supposed to be in the medical field.

Come time for university, I applied for the medical field and I did not get any of the medical field places. I got an Honours in Mathematics.

I was like okay, I have to leave and go to university.

I was given an option that I could get to the UZ and change.

So when I got there and wanted to change I was told no.

So I felt you know what, it is a degree, let me just do it.

From there I started experiencing something about Mathematics that was different.

I genuinely loved efficacy, and mathematics affirmed a lot of that.

The designs of things, how you measure certain things. This works.

TN: Two plus two is four. Yes?

NM: Yes it works right? I was like yeah I can do this. I started thinking about maybe actuary, or data scientist, it started coming up.

It was never in the farming field for instance.

After graduating you are like okay jobs, uh uh you know.

Then I found myself a farmer. So from that trajectory to where I am at now, none of it am I qualified for in what I am doing right now.

TN: That’s amazing isn’t it?

NM: Yeah.

TN: What does that say about the trajectory you have taken?

• Do you see this in other people’s lives, because I see it with my life.
• The things I am doing right now I never went to school to do, but I have found myself doing these things and actually have found myself excelling.
• What is your sense of that?

NM: It is adaptability. I think a lot of us Zimbabweans have learnt to adapt, but not only adapt, it’s surviving.

I believe I am a survivor of many people’s decisions, a lot of people’s decisions.

I do not know who made that decision of me getting an Honours in Mathematics course, with 10 males in it and two women, but it was somebody else’s decision.

It has always been somebody else’s decision how the world goes.

I am a simple responder, and having to know that I can survive it, and I will figure it out when I am over there.

When I am over the bridge has always been one of those things that say it is not that bad, and trusting myself that I am going to get through it.

TN: You also have to pitch up hey?

NM: Yes.

TN: You have to show up?

NM: Absolutely. You have to absolutely show up.

You cannot not, but some days it has been hard to show up you know?

Especially during university, I did my degree in six years instead of four.

TN: I saw that and explain that? Why? You were struggling with university, were there other factors that made you stumble and fall and pick yourself up?

NM: So there are two main factors; number 1, if I had already known that going to university to do a bachelors degree is more about discipline of doing the things you may never use more than understanding what you are doing, I would have gone through that quicker right, but my first year of university was the toughest.

Moving from Bulawayo where I was living my whole life, I was born in Bulawayo, bred in Bulawayo, I am a Ndebele girl and I moved to Mashonaland, you walk into class and the first thing the teacher says and says it in Shona, “Okay open your books”!

TN: Hahahaha.

NM: I was like sorry Sir, what?

Okay so you catch on up on a few things, but explaining a whole mathematical concept in Shona, and then say are we all clear, that is the first English line you get after a whole mathematical concept has been explained and everyone else says yes in the classroom and you are like sorry, can we take that again?

You have to now clarify and say please use English you know.

I was so very fortunate that after a while of that, and after failing my first semester our chairman at the time was Professor Stewart, he was a white man and so he was like are you telling me you are doing all your classes in Shona?

It was very difficult you know.

So that transition, and also getting my lecturers to then be sensitive enough to remember that there is a person who does not understand the language, whilst I am there and learning the language it was not enough to be able to grasp the concepts that we are learning in class.

That was my most difficult one. Then when we went on, as first year was easier things so you can catch up on things, but going on into the degree there was a lot of things you would look and say where does this apply in life.

I am so much of seeking to understand more than just to know person.

Where does this apply and the moment I do not understand I cannot cram it and the exam will need you to just know it.

It was only up until my fourth year when one of my doctors said to me it is not about understanding, this is a game of discipline, and I was like well you should have said so!

TN: Hahahaha.

NM: Then I would have known, but yeah that was one of the hardest things.

TN: I think there is a lesson there.

• What would you say then to the many thousands of people wanting to go to university to study, the many universities that we have in this country, what advice would you give to the young people for them to be prepared for this season?

NM: University in undergraduate is supposed to be your template for what the world looks like, experience it fully.

Your degree is what you do for a living, but the environment in itself, the communities that are built there, the politics even that exits there is supposed to prepare you for what the real world is like.

It is a very nice controlled environment for you to stretch yourself, test yourself, fail and try again.

TN: Right.

NM: While you are at it, if you think that you can change your skill, change it fast. That is what I would say.

TN: That is interesting, that is good advice that.

• Tell me, so mathematician now turned into a farmer? When did the passion grab you? The passion for farming, agriculture?

NM: I think I translated it, because my passion is still as I said earlier, efficiencies in systems.

So when Fresh In A Box had run for about a year, we were having troubles with our supply chain because we would have our small holder farmers, who would also get caught by the wave of “What is making money right now?”

Oh it is cabbages then everyone is doing cabbages, but my box has 16 different types of vegetables that I need to deliver perfect to my customers.

How do I control that?

We started trying to tweak around with the grower scheme.

However, with the grower scheme, by designing it was easy to do.

Okay Trevor gives us on Monday, Kuda does it on Tuesday, Danai does it on Wednesday, that is easy right?

However, you do not know how long does it take to grow a baby marrow?

How long does it take to grow a carrot? How do I structure them?

The more I became inquisitive about modelling this grower scheme, the more I was like okay there is so much more I do not know, so I need to learn.

I looked at my 16 different vegetables. I am going to know intrinsically what it takes, because now when I want to speak to a farmer and tell them my expectations, I cannot be coming from a place of ignorance.

I need to be at least very knowledgeable about why am I expecting this much.

Doing that over time made me realise there was a way probably I could supplement this, and I was like I wonder if I could farm?

As the universe would have it, we got an offer to rent a plot which is now a Fresh Farm, but already the Fresh Farm was already existing as a virtual farm with about, at that time 200 different farmers, who had about four to five hectares so that was still good.

Having your own 10 hectare farm, that is a different story!

Learning about soil tests and so forth, there was so much to learn that the more I went into it I was like okay so why are we as farmers, because I was now a part of them, why are we as farmers not getting the best out of our harvest?

Starting to learn that if I do not timely spray for pestilential to protect against diseases this is what happens.

The more I learnt and the world at large has so much information about farming, I was like this is my new thing and I like it.

The maths again, two plus two equals four, put seed in the ground with correct conditions, water it as required, protect it as required, it will bear fruit for you.

Spiritually, physics or even just mentally it was just simple math and I was like I can do this.

•  “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on  YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. Please get your free YouTube subscription to this channel. The conversations are sponsored by Nyaradzo Group.