Platform · Farm
The Mkushi operation
The crop starts on our own estate in Mkushi, on the Central Province farming belt. What we plant, how we grow it and who works the season are decisions taken on the farm, not bought in.
- Location
- Mkushi, Central Province — Zambia’s commercial irrigated farming belt
- Scale
- 1 800 ha under irrigation; 3 dams holding 17.8M m³ (dry-season draw ~65% of reserve)
- Crop
- Flue-cured Virginia — tobacco ramping from 80 to 600 ha, grown alongside maize (incl. seed maize) and wheat
Agronomy
One estate under one agronomy plan. Seedbeds, transplanting, topping and reaping follow a single programme, so the leaf that reaches Lilayi is uniform enough to grade predictably. Flue-cured Virginia at 3 500+ kg/ha cured yield under centre-pivot irrigation, with eleven years of per-pivot soil records (fertility, pH, nutrient trends), drone survey with precision fertiliser application, and an 80%+ John Deere fleet backed by the estate’s own workshop, parts store, fertiliser store and eight fuel tanks.
Curing
Curing happens on the estate, under our own barn management.
