Six years ago, South African agricultural expert Marius Bouwman could never have imagined he would one day be living in Egypt, but fast forward to today and he has no intention of leaving that very same country. He was hired to increase the efficiency of their farm operations and this has led to great success for his employer, Orientals for Urban Development (OUD).
Marius Bouwman, Managing Director of Agriculture for Orientals for Urban Development.
Until six years ago, Marius Bouwman was a successful grower in South Africa and was quite happy with his life. Just by coincidence Marius started to get to know Egyptian growers/exporters through their visits to South Africa. His interest in Agricultural Egypt was triggered and he ended up being employed by OUD (Oriental for Urban development) and found himself living in Egypt with his family in 2014. OUD is a daughter company of the Oriental Weavers Group having under their umbrella one of the biggest machine made carpet factories in the world.
Real estate and tourism are the main part of OUD’s repertoire and they were desperately in need of Bouwman’s help in their agricultural operations, as the company was not satisfied at all with the existing performance.
“After I was appointed as Managing Director, I soon found out that combining local techniques and the excellent growing conditions in Egypt with my expertise from South Africa could generate big short and long term benefits. Water management was addressed as never before, methods of pruning have been improved according to the South African school as well as usage of pesticides and fertilizers.”
Bouwman can’t deny that trying to convince his staff of the benefits of a new approach was not always easy. “Thanks to the unlimited support and trust from the owners, I did get the time to prove myself and results came accordingly.”
Yields went up year by year, the economics of the farm improved greatly and when it comes to quality, Bouwman and his team achieved standards that many farms in South Africa can only dream of. It is not only the expertise of Bouwman, it’s not only the local expertise nor the great growing conditions which led to the success - it was the right combination of all these three.
The company no longer sold their crops to local merchants but decided to step into the export business themselves. In this respect the farm faced the challenge of achieving the highest possible output percentage for export. “With 80% exportable crop, a significant share of ‘Class I Extra’ (in the brand Nature’s Delight) we are pretty close to the best we can possibly be”, Marius proudly states. “Soon we will reach 50 tons per hectare instead of the 35 tons per hectare three years ago, which is, with the current number of trees per hectare, an achievement. For example South Africa plants 40% trees per hectare more. “For new plantations we can get near to that and improve yields accordingly.” Bouwman says.
Changes made in the way of pruning, has a direct impact on fruit quality having fruits inside the tree canopy
The presence of South African experts in Egypt has been a trend in the last couple of years: “In marketing we do see developments of collaboration between Egyptian and South African market players as well. A special relation between Egypt and its Southern hemisphere counterpart is bearing the fruits of our labor.” Bouwman concludes.
For more information:
Marius Bouwman
Orientals for Urban Development (OUD)
Tel: +202 226 830 85/7
Email: m.bouwman@oud-egypt.com
www.oud-egypt.com