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Obert Chifamba-Herald Reporter

He has tried and done a lit bit of everything, from trading in mining equipment, freelancing as a journalist to printing and publishing but that sense of self-gratification seemed to elude him.

And being the “never-say-never” kind of person that he is, Collen Tafireyi did not throw in the towel, but continued with his soul-searching exercise, which seems to have finally landed him in the realm of his true calling now: cattle breeding and ranching.

Tafireyi’s fairytale journey began 44 years ago when he was born into a family of three in Njanja, under Chivhu District, Mashonaland East Province.

His father was a painter in the construction industry, while his mother was an ordinary housewife.

He vividly remembers his life as a little boy attending St Paul’s Primary School in the morning and herding the extended family’s cattle in the afternoons, weekends and holidays.

He later moved to Chideme Secondary School where he stayed just for a year doing Form 1. Tafireyi was to enrol at Unyetu Secondary School for Form 2 to 4.

Upon completing O-level, he joined the great trek to Harare where he did LCCI at the Career Management Centre and obtained a marketing diploma.

Tafireyi did not end there, but did journalism with CCOSA and IMM with City and Guilds.

Some of the cattle he is breeding.

Armed with these qualifications, Tafireyi’s working life started with a brief stint as a freelance journalist with the Standard and Independent newspapers and he also wrote for a South Africa-based sports publication, Kick-Off.

This did not give him the fulfilment he desired. And with his spirit burning bright with dreams as vast as the starlit sky above him, took his search for fulfilment to Botswana.

Of course, he never imagined that in the midst of the shadows of his struggles, a tale of resilience, courage and unwavering hope was about to unfurl and paint the world in hues of transformation and prosperity.

He spent two years in Botswana working for a mining company between 2001 and 2002. He was into supplying mining equipment but as fate would have it, he failed to secure a work permit so he had to retrace his footsteps back to his native Zimbabwe.

“I secured lodgings in Warren Park where I started a completely different line of trade, printing calendars and diaries supplying different clients.

“It was during this time that I thought of forming and registering a company. This saw the birth of RENE Minings and Industrials whose core business was and is still to supply underground mining equipment, surface drilling consumables, hard rock drilling tolls, construction equipment, mining and industrial abrasives,” Tafireyi observed recently.

Tafireyi recalls that his biggest undoing was his inability to secure start-up capital, which forced him to use a gentleman’s agreement to secure contracts for the supply of equipment to companies.

“All this time, I was running my company from a ‘brief case’ since I had no offices. Eventually, I got an office along Chinhoyi Street in Harare. The office also served as a phone shop with the operator doubling as my secretary as well. This was the turning point in my ambitious push to become an established businessperson, as the numbers of orders suddenly started rising.

“We were making significant revenue and I was always on the road to South Africa for orders. As business grew I realised there was need for fast movement of orders into the country so I started going by air. Here at home Government’s Operation Maguta also opened a big window of opportunity for me after I secured the contract to supply material for the manufacturing of equipment,” Tafireyi explained.

Tafireyi continued to supply mining equipment to mines scattered across the country and by 2010, his business was blooming and he was no longer struggling to raise working capital but was even lending to needy businesses.

Fast forward to the Covid-19 era. Tafireyi confesses the pandemic made him realise the importance of running another business other than supplying mining equipment after some of his trade partners had shut down operations.

“Two friends separately advised me to try cattle ranching but I was not very sure it would be a good idea. I decided to do a research on the feasibility of doing that so I went round looking for good breeds. It was during this fact-finding mission that I made up my mind to try cattle farming.

“That cattle herder in me re-awakened and the urge to start my own herd was irresistible. I had been saving money for a while so I decided to follow my heart and bought 30 cattle from different commercial breeders.

“I would spend time on Facebook surfing for information on cattle breeders and sellers. My search took me to Mutorashanga where I purchased some Boran breeds from one farmer, Mr Mark Hook. I instantly fell in love with the breed and did more research on it. I stumbled on information about South Africa’s Hurwitz Farming, some 250 kilometres from Johannesburg where I also bought four Boran bulls,” explained Tafireyi.

This was the beginning of his flirtation with the Boran breed and befittingly, he formed a cattle company, Sinyo Boran in 2021. His intentions were to start his own Boran breeding operation. Using the money being generated by his mining company in South Africa, Tafireyi decided to buy more Boran cattle for which he is renting land at Hurwitz Farming and plans to bring them home soon.

In 2023, he attended a cattle auction at South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala Farm and bought nine heifers.

But the biggest coup in the country’s cattle industry came this year when he bought a pure genetics Boran bull, Cyclone, for a whopping R8 million (US$444 000) during an auction at Hurwitz Farming. Cyclone was sired by fabled pedigreed bull Picasso, whose single straw of semen reportedly sells for R88 000. Cyclone is expected to land in Zimbabwe in exactly three months.

“We have already started tapping semen from Cyclone and expect him to fertilise between 60 and 90 cows from my herd in SA before he comes home and have serviced 200 cows by end of year. Cyclone must sire 200 calves in the next 10 months. I want to be the best Boran breeder in Zimbabwe and on the continent.

“My biggest problem at the moment is that I do not have a farm here in Zimbabwe. I am renting land in Wedza and Charter where I keep some of my cattle. I have since applied for land with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and am just praying that I get a positive response,” Tafireyi said.

Tafireyi now owns 325 pedigree animals, pure Boran, the stud animals in Hwedza, another 215 in Charter and 400 in South Africa. He also has 200 commercial animals of mixed blood in Hwedza, 300 in Charter and another 300 in South Africa that are being used as surrogate mothers on embryo projects as recipients.

His biggest wish is to be at the epicentre of the country’s cattle industry’s transformation from just commercial to pure genetics that can generate handsome incomes for farmers.

Tafireyi is a father of four and is married to Vimbikai Chigeza.