Please see Item 3 in Newsletter No. 21. I am
publishing this as most of the factors discussed are relevant to the
whole industry.
Report of 2nd South African Industry Conference
- Oudtshoorn, October
2002
Fiona Benson
Day 1
The meeting the first morning was packed, with quite a few having
gone
by the afternoon. After the formalities of opening speeches, the first
speaker was Professor of Strategic International Management and the
second Director of Economics and Trade from Agri SA. They both said
some excellent comments that are basic common business sense, that for
some reason seem to have been eliminated from the minds of many
involved in Ostrich at this time. Comments included the following
statements:
- The customers are now becoming empowered, as they are more
demanding through better education. Personal comment: This is a very
true statement, however we must be aware that consumers can also be
misguided over things like the Green/organic type of issues. Example:
there is the belief that if an animal is grazing in a field it is very
much healthier than when kept in a barn. In some cases this may be
true…but as with all things it is not that simple, it depends on many
things and all too often grazing animals are in fact a lot worse off
than their barned or feedlot fed counterparts.
- Encouraged the thought process of greater collaboration and
competitive innovation to remain at the leading edge of competitiveness.
- Warned that past success often results in future failure for
failing to remain competitive.
- Reminders that the 1990's saw South Africa (SA) move away from
protections, but the 'old mindsets linger on'!!!!
- Suggested that competition will be from outside SA…so stop
competing with each other.
- Discussions on the Value Chain and the importance of remembering
that every stage of the value chain links to the next, with particular
emphasis on the importance of what happens on farm.
- Must have a vision of where they expect to be in 10 years time
- Greater Trust of each other.
- Several examples were given of the way things have been done in
the Wine Industry, such as: collaboration with Chile; Australia through
marketing Australian Wines with individual brands underneath that
umbrella...had transformed the Australian wine industry were some of
the examples given.
- Reminders that the SA Ostrich industry has lost it's total
dominant position.
- Encouragement to work together as the competition is from outside
and should avoid severe competition from within...era of
non-cooperation is over.
- Look at quality issues
Obviously that is just a summary of some of the key points...but many
points we have been making over the years were made. There was an
interesting talk from a girl running an organisation on crafts made in
rural areas by the PDI's...and their success in linking up with Terence
Conran in the UK with access to world class designers. The Ostrich Egg
crafts were the main focus on this talk.
The afternoon session started off with Willum Burger on some of the
technical issues relating to exporting...making the point that in the
past bureaucrats had driven the rules and regulations mainly to justify
their jobs...but things are very different now as a result of greater
consumer awareness and demands. So now rules and regulations are very
much 'consumer' driven and he predicted these rules will get stricter
each year.
The rest of the afternoon was panel discussions on the topics of the
morning.
Day 2
Day 2 was opened by Jakes Fenny, who had the audience listening - he
was excellent. The subject: Motivating the Ostrich. I will not go
into detail of all that he said, but one key factor he pointed out
was how a Bachelors degree used to have a shelf life to last your
working career and quantified how fast things are changing by how the
'shelf life' of a degree has shortened to the point now it is out of
date the moment you leave University. You have to be keeping up with
change.
He talked about the difference in Management vs Leadership.
His closing statement:
If you are going to ignore your environment etc. chaps…your business
will go bankrupt.
The very next topic was Schalk Cloete summarising the Ostrich Research
Program. As it was introduced there was a sly reference made to Jakes'
reference on keeping "up to date with developments". Some of the
detail of these I have discussed in articles I have previously
written. Further studies that we have not heard referenced yet were:
a. Development of feeding systems for male and female
ostriches as the Male's have lower nutrient requirements to Females!!!!
Personal comment: It is far too early for any such study since
production in all birds is still well below optimum proving that
neither the male or the female rations in South Africa are yet correct.
b. Investigation of management factors and influence on performance
such as feather clipping.
Personal Comment: This is best achieved through large data
collection, with a proper management program with many farms
participating. That is the way to develop sufficient data to be able
to pick up trends accurately on the influence of different management
factors. There are many variables that influence these things.
c. Identification of microbes in the digestive system
d. Establishing genetic parameters and defining breeding parameters
and objectives.
Personal comment: Until the nutritional deficiencies are
eliminated it is impossible to identify the true inherited genetic
traits. If this study is carried out while nutritional deficiencies
are still present, then misleading results will be achieved.
e. Referenced using mobile Nylon bag technique to evaluate content
of raw materials.
Personal comment: It is now well documented for 2 decades that
ingredient nutrient utilisation factors are influenced by the other
nutrients in the rations and this method of evaluation can result in
misleading conclusions.
f. Define Amino Acid requirements by cutting out part of the
digestive system.
Personal Comment: It is necessary to have everything else in the
rations correct and then trial and error used to access the correct
amino acid requirements. Measuring any body parts for assessing
nutrients can lead to erroneous conclusions…especially if the birds
(animal) is not on an optimum diet as there will be deficiencies
present.
g. Trace element requirements will be investigated and stated that
currently there is very little knowledge on this.
Personal Comment: This task is carried out by Feed Companies, as
they alone know what is in their particular formulations and what may
need correcting when they see symptoms of deficiencies on farm.
One of the farmers asked the question 'when will the lower
protein, low energy more balanced cheap rations be followed up by the
feed companies?' The answer was that they are using the model used in
Poultry with great success...that model will be made available to the
feed manufacturing industry 12 months from now.
Personal comment: In this context the farmer was asking when the
results of the scientists work would be available to the farmers.
They were led to believe that it is possible to achieve adequate
rations with reduced protein, reduced energy and yet have rations that
are better balanced and will achieve increased production. The reason
for looking at reduced protein and energy is the belief that the
rations will be lower cost and therefore the farmers will be more
profitable. Some of this research was looking at feed ingredients
that are lower in cost than the traditional productive feed
ingredients.
The answer given indicates that they are working with Poultry models
and will be passing these onto the feed manufacturing industry in the
next 12 months.
There are three issues in this particular discussion that provide clear
clues as to why the Ostrich industry in South Africa has failed to
develop good levels of production:
i. Research work in countries that have made
significant
advances in livestock production is driven by the ‘progressive’
commercial premix and feed companies working in partnership with their
farmers as opposed to the scientists working outside the commercial
environment. The Universities verify the work. These commercial
feed companies fund the development work from profits that come from
producer support.
ii. Use of Poultry models: The
knowledgeable feed companies
with ostrich experience have learned that formulating feeds with the
model used in Poultry is a terrible mistake and should not be done.
A study of any of the papers published on these research projects
gives
clear clues that the results are extremely poor and totally
unsatisfactory for commercial production.
There was a short talk introducing one of the new investment
initiatives for development of Previously Disadvantaged Individual
(PDI) projects and then onto the talk on Generic Promotion made by Jan
de Coning.
The opening statements on this were:
a. The need to think on a totally different level to solve
today's problems.
b. To carefully assess long term consequences of short term solutions.
c. Organisations and Industries need to have sustainable growth to
survive.
This latter statement was quantified by highlighting the old system of
'control' that does not and will not work.
A BIG warning was given:
If you play politics in a business it is courting DISASTER.
There were lots of good comments in this talk...and included:
LOOK AT CONSISTENCY OF SUPPLY BOTH QUALITY AND QUANTITY
Then the message came that if the industry cannot do Generic marketing
with all the other factors he referenced being in place:
First condition is that everyone must believe WITH A PASSION in what
they are doing and trying to achieve.
A few other comments:
Fighting each other seems to be more fun than developing a market.
There are too many rats and mice in the industry, which effectively
will erode generic marketing initiatives.
Again: Need to guarantee consistent and sustainable QUALITY from the
industry.
In discussion following this talk Frik Kriek made some excellent and
most relevant comments...some examples:
No raw materials...no
industry
Frik Kriek also referenced the problems of LOW Volume in the SKIN
Market and indicated that as a result we have NOT SCRATCHED THE
OPPORTUNITIES.
A few of the comments from Pieter Strijdom:
* How do you take the politics out of the Industry!!!!!
* Disappointed to hear that generic marketing is dead.
* Seems no hope for the future to launch generic marketing
Jan's answer to Pieter's question on Politics:
Ask yourself 'what is the contribution I make to the
politics in the
industry'
Further statements from Jan in the discussions:
If you want to be leaders you get players to comply to YOUR
standards
... you must give the extra umph to your products.
Create an environment for generic marketing to work well.
Create greater unity amongst yourselves
Get the image of the industry right...then generic marketing can be
easier.
How to do it?
1. Look very seriously at your industry - why are only
18 out of 36 players members of your association - and the others ride
off the back of your association.
2. Start making peace amongst each other
3. Direction of each company may be different, but must make
friends with each other
4. Identify the team leaders
5. AGREE ON COMMON RULES
My Conclusions
Francois Hanekom, manager of the SAOBC, put the speakers together in an
excellent fashion and all the key speakers on motivation of one way
or another from outside the industry were sending exactly the SAME
message that we have been sending for so very long.