Ashanti Estate (Africa-Arabia)
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David and Amy Wilding Davies grow coffee on eastern facing slopes in the Chipinge region of Zimbabwe in beautifully rich red soils. They have made the effort to maintain 50% of their farm in its natural state for conservation of indigenous flora and fauna.
The cherries are selectively picked for optimal ripeness by experienced pickers. The coffee cultivars have been chosen for the quality of beans, the ‘cup’ it produces, and last but not least for their vigor. The 250 full time employees and their families are housed on the farm in traditional houses with additional communal cooking facilities and running water. The welfare of their employees and families is important to David and Amy. David and Amy were voted as Zimbabwe’s ‘Coffee Growers of the Year’ in 2003 by the peers.
Insights into the estate, its workers, and the socio-political climate: For years David and Amy have been growing excellent coffee in Zimbabwe, milling it on their farm, and shipping it to importers via Durban, South Africa. Last year it seemed as if President Mugabe’s ‘land reform’ scheme had caught up with them. The district head of the Zimbabwe Secret Police decided that he wanted to be resettled on the farm to ‘correct colonial injustices’. When it became clear that neither the Wilding-Davies nor their 250 farm workers, some of whom have lived there for generations, were going to leave, he returned several times with soldiers and youth militia members. A campaign of intimidation and several beatings followed, only abating when the harvest had been shipped. Only with the interventions of local tribal elders was the threat kept at bay. The invaders didn’t want to farm. They wanted to steal the crop, for which reason it is now shipped immediately to Durban, and not warehoused in Zimbabwe.
Their estates 250 loyal workers have housing, private vegetable plots, animals, health care and education provided. David and Amy have driven them to the hospital in the middle of the night to deliver babies, and brought in physicians when they are ill. Naturally, the workers didn’t want the farm transferred to new owners, and did not want to leave their ‘musha’, their traditional homeland of several generations. During the harvest another 750 workers from surrounding tribal lands pitch in and earn their only cash wages of the year, enabling them to pay school registration fees and afford school uniforms and books for their children.