Ideas & Innovation
13m cows, one app:
the city slickers selling cattle
via 'crowd-farming'
From the windows of the slick office,
thinking.”
hectares of farmland. About 10% of
Ntuthuko Shezi sees the gleaming
His idea was a simple one, stemming
them have already been bought, by
tower blocks and upmarket malls of
from the fact that it is almost
investors all over South Africa but
the new business district of
impossible for any single investor to
also further afield in Europe and the
Johannesburg. But his thoughts are
buy, care for and earn money from
US.
further afield: on a farm 250 miles
cattle. Pasture, a farm, the requisite
The investor buys a cow for about
(400km) away by the banks of Blood
skills and the means to have the
10,500 rand (£550). They then pay a
river in the verdant hills of rural
animal slaughtered and the meat sold
monthly fee of 225 rand for its
KwaZulu-Natal.
are all required.
upkeep plus a small insurance fee.
Shezi is the founder and chief
But there are a lot of South Africans
The co