SHE was a woman with a big dream until a chance encounter with Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia president Richard Fewster took that dream one step closer to reality.
Inonge Mubanga Samboko owns a mixed farm Shoma Zinji Ltd, with her husband in the village of Kaniki, outside Ndola in Zambia.
The farm has three enterprises - a small dairy milking 10 cows by hand, a piggery with 24 breeding sows, and a small banana plantation with 1800 plants.
They own two parcels of land totalling 4.6 hectares and are in the process of acquiring another 140ha in the Lufwanyama district.
The farm employs five people.
But an emerging market for dairy products means Inonge wants to the convert the farm into one concentrated enterprise - a 300-cow dairy farm employing 50 people.
She met Mr Fewster last year at the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth Conference in Zambia, where they talked about her vision for the farm.
Mr Fewster suggested a visit to Australia to study agricultural practices to give her some of the knowledge she needs to set up a large-scale farm.
Inonge is in Australia on a trip sponsored by Mr Fewster, AgStewardship Australia, the RAHS and Senator Anne Ruston.
"Milk is a complete food, especially for women and children," Inonge said.
"The nutrition milk provides will lessen the instance of malnutrition in my community."
Dairy is not exactly a huge industry in Zambia, with only Inonge and another bigger dairy milking 60 cows operating in her district.
Her trip to Australia has already given her a number of farm skills.
She has worked on a piggery in the Riverland where she learnt how to AI and vaccinate pigs.
Inonge has also visited several dairy farms - the Doecke family at Murray Bridge, Geoff and Rosemarie Williams at Meningie, and David and Kate Basham's farm at Mount Compass. On those farms she has learnt how to operate milking machines, AI cows and manage calves, and how to keep and feed cows.
Inonge believes a large farm such as the one she envisages will go a long way to helping people in her community, by providing employment.
"There is a high rate of unemployment back home, resulting in widespread boredom which, in my opinion, could be one of the causes for a high rate of AIDS," she said.
"Because of that, there are a lot of orphans and boys and girls dropping out of school."
She says that after her month-long study tour in South Australia, she and her husband hope to acquire about 1000ha of land in total.
*Full report in Stock Journal, May 23 issue, 2013.
