In conversation with Abdallah Smith
“You must be able to build resistance and diversity on your farm structure and that’s exactly what we are trying to do at Gaia Greenfields.”
- Abdallah Smith
Abdallah Smith
Abdallah is the founder of Gaia Greenfields, an all-encompassing agri-business which produces fruits and vegetables for the local market using the most sustainable and eco-friendly methods possible.
He also writes fiction and has a few short stories out themed around African futurism. You can read Abdallah’s latest story here.
Hi Abdallah! How it’s going? Can you tell our readers some more about yourself?
It’s going well! We’ve just been through our elections in Ghana, so I’ve been following that closely.
Gaia Greenfields is one of three things that I do; I am also a solar energy project developer and I also work as a researcher. In Ghana you can’t rely on just one revenue stream, you have to increase your ability to earn money. In my spare time I also write fiction which I post on my Medium page.
The long-term plan is to do visual story-making, whatever form that comes in. In Ghana, our stories are being taken away from us. And as a people, that’s really one of the last things you have. I want to change that.
And what about Gaia Greenfields, can you explain some more about what that is?
Gaia Greenfields is an agri-business. The name Gaia comes from a theory about the world being a living organism. Each one of us, people, plants, inanimate objects, we all play a role in this grand living organism that is built to keep life on it. What we do is manage farms and we sell produce to the local market, and we try to do value addition as well to some of our agriculture products. In short, this what we do.
We have a piece of land that we have been working on for the past two years, which is 10 acres and sits just outside of Accra. We have split it into 4 zones which are different farming units: vegetables, pineapples, coffee and moringa. These are the four major crops that we are growing on the land. Farmers come to us and say that they are good at farming, say pineapples, and we then rent some of the land to them. Or another thing that we do is, if a farmer comes to us and says, “I want to grow something, but I don’t have the money to do it”. We then provide the capital and the land to get them started, but they bring their technical knowledge. We then split the revenue with the farmer after sales have been made.
A lot of what we are trying to prove is that there are different ways of making money out of farming, but they require diversity in the structures that you employ to manage the farm or in the crops that you grow. There has to be diversity to resist different things that are naturally thrown at it – too much rain, disease, not enough water. You must be able to build resistance and diversity on your farm structure and that’s exactly what we are trying to do at Gaia Greenfields.
Do you provide training too then? In order to teach farmers how to be resilient?
No, we don’t have that aspect of our business up and running yet – but we are planning on it in the future. That is one of the end-goals in terms of our long-term plan. Right now, we are just trying to make money off the farm. You need a money maker for any of your dreams – if you don’t have any money, then your dreams will remain just that, dreams.
Gaia Greenfields, Image: @drew_hal_
What other long-term goals do you have for Gaia Greenfields?
There is a silent war going on in agriculture whereby the trend is moving towards big agri-businesses coming in and growing one or two crops on a large scale. They usually export the majority of that food. There is only an infinite amount of land to farm in any country, and so when this happens you have indigenous farmers moving away from farming and moving into the cities because their ability to make money has been taken away from them. You also then lose your ability to grow foods for your own population – as most of what these big businesses produce is being exported.
We are trying to encourage other Ghanaians that are in a privileged position that there is money to be made from farming. They should get involved and get their hands dirty. We must be able to feed ourselves, if we can’t do that then we lose.
So that is essentially my long, long term goal.
On a smaller scale I want to add an agri-education, and eco-tourism aspect to our farm. I want to have farmhouses on the top part of the farm with some small plots and animals too. I visualise a beautiful collage of farming units with different trainers to teach people about how different plants grow. I want it to be a whole experience where people can learn, hang out, share knowledge. That is my dream.
How did you start Gaia Greenfields? Did you start it with a friend or is it all by yourself?
The land that we are using now belongs to my boss. In Ghana it is very common for land to be encroached on by illegal settlers, this was happening, and we eventually decided to do something to prevent it. A friend came to my boss and said there is a lot of money to be made from green pepper and cabbage farming. We decided to provide them with the land and the resources necessary, but the partnership ultimately failed. However, we still had all of the infrastructure in place for farming. Over the next year or so, I convinced my boss to let me takeover. We had one key farmer and formed a partnership with him, and we are now seeing how it goes. One thing that I’ve learnt is that the land tells you everything you need to know – that is the basis of any agriculture project.
So, do you have any experience in farming yourself?
No, I don’t have any farming experience at all – neither the practical side nor the theory side. I have done a lot of background reading, but I am not experienced in this field at all.
This sounds a bit like a job interview question, but what are you bringing to the table then? Are you focused more on the business side?
I am the project manager and the developer to a large extent. I guess I am also the salesperson and the strategist. I wouldn’t put myself into just one role, it’s very multifaceted.
I develop the projects, manage them, look at the timelines, look at the budgets, and make sure that everything is running smoothly. I also make sure that everyone working on the farm is happy and productive. As the past few years have gone on, I have developed different skills, like understanding yields, how that translates into money, understanding the market etc. Strategy is really important.
Image: @drew_hal_
It sounds like you work a lot off of instinct. Do you agree with that?
Yes and no. There’s actually a lot of planning involved to be successful – but there definitely is a bit of instinct in there too.
To be successful in farming you actually need to be really risk averse. There are so many variables at play, some that you are knowledgeable of, some that you aren’t. Something new is always cropping up. You need to grow beyond instinct, which is something that I am learning now. For example, this year we suffered big losses with some of the produce but it’s all a learning curve.
I really strongly believe that in three or so years, Gaia Greenfields will be very successful.
It sounds like you’re extremely passionate about sustainability, where did that come from?
I did my masters in sustainability. But beforehand I don’t know, it just became an ever-growing consciousness about society’s relationship with the environment and the many ways that it plays into other relationships – not just societal to environmental, but society to society. How oppression comes in different forms. I was very inspired by it and taken by it, and then I decided to do my master’s in it. A lot of the ideas that I already had in my head became very concrete. A (rough) path towards a future was drawn up in my head, and I thought I would see if I ever got an opportunity to take it up then I would – and then this opportunity for farming arose and here we are.
I have these ideas about sustainability and what needs to happen, so this is my opportunity to see how it works and to put it into practice.
And what did you study for your degree?
I studied political science, but I minored in global environmental studies. I went to the US (New England, Massachusetts) for my first degree and then I went to Sweden for my masters. If there is one place where sustainability is being practiced on a national scale, then it’s Sweden. It’s almost the opposite to Ghana, everything is orderly, everything runs on time, people are very conservative. It got to a point though where I was almost sick of it. In Ghana things can be all over the place, they are in your face, there is noise all over the place, it’s home. Sweden is like utopia in some ways… but utopia is kind of annoying.
I do love Sweden though. I was near to Copenhagen in a really picturesque, beautiful town. The Swedish have this thing called Fika, it’s a time to forget about the cold and enjoy some delicious cake. I do miss that.
How do you find being back in Ghana after living away in two different countries?
Ghana is home, but obviously I do miss a lot of things about the US and Sweden. Like the transport in Sweden is just incredible. Sweden also has a very good understanding of balance especially in urban environments. They have plenty of green spaces, places for you to take it easy, places for elderly, and anyone for that matter, to walk. Conversely, here in Accra the pace of development is rapid and there is no space or thought for anything like that. Here it is just concrete on top of concrete. The pace is relentless. No one is spending any time thinking about environmental issues. That’s definitely something I miss.
Is there anything specific that you learnt whilst you were living away about sustainability that you are trying to bring to Ghana?
When I was in the US, I loved going to the farmers markets every other Saturday. It gave local farmers a place to sell their produce, and it gave people from a low income an opportunity to buy highly nutritious food at decent prices. This provided me with insights into how farmers can get involved with food markets. But by the time I came back to Ghana people were already doing that – taking fresh produce, that isn’t synthetically grown, and bringing it to the city.
On the other hand, Sweden and the US are modern economies and some of the stuff that happens there, realistically we don’t want to happen in Ghana.
What are the problems, in your opinion, with the food and agriculture business in Ghana?
The implicit message is that the local farmers aren’t doing well enough to feed the country. I don’t think this interview is really long enough to go into all of the problems, but I can give you an example. As we “develop” behaviours change, which means a change in diet and this is becoming increasingly Westernised in Ghana. The problem with that is, to feed the population with this Western diet means importing a lot of food. That has a huge impact on our economy as the value of our currency isn’t as strong compared to the dollar. That’s just one dimension of it.
The export business also means that a lot of land is being reappropriated – land that was used to feed us – to grow one crop or one thing and then that is exported to feed the world. During the COVID crisis, we did about a week of lockdown, and during that time we realised that we would run out of food because we rely so heavily on imports.
What foods are more traditionally Ghanaian and what are the popular Westernised foods that people are turning to now?
Rice is a killer here. Rice is not indigenous to here and we have to import a load to keep up with the amount that people eat. Burgers and pizza have also become huge here, as well as French fries. Whereas local cuisine is so diverse, you have yam, cassava, plantain just as a small sample.
There are movements here for people to go for locally sourced foods, it’s small but its growing traction. There’s also a growing vegan movement here. Ghana Food Movements is a new group on Instagram, they organise food tours where they take people to a farm and educate them on what is being grown. You are then fed with a cuisine that is based on what you just learnt about. I think it’s a great initiative.
Finally, what is your favourite thing about Ghana?
There is an energy here that is like nowhere else in the world. I don’t know what it is and there is no way to explain it. It’s powerful, it’s drawing and that includes everything, the food, the people, the landscape, the ocean, the beach.
Thank you so much for talking to me Abdallah. It was lovely to meet you!
You can find out more about Gaia Greenfields on on their Facebook and Instagram. Click here for more interviews from our Ghana Culture Series.
Interview by Mollie Cohen
