ShareThisBy STEVE LACKMEYER
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Calvin Burgess' office is just a few steps away from his home, but his latest business venture involves a 17,000-acre farm 8,700 miles away in a remote, impoverished swamp in Kenya.
Burgess estimates his Guthrie, Okla.-based Dominion Group has spent $5 million a year since 2001 building dikes and hydroelectric dams, creating roads where none existed and establishing what he hopes will be a new start for thousands of the country's poorest residents.
Kennedy Nyagudi Were, a member of the Kenyan Parliament, is quick to praise Burgess, even though Dominion Farms still is three years away from being finished.
"The disease rate, the prevalence of AIDS and malaria, were just astronomical," said Were, who assisted Burgess at the start of the project.
"When he came, we brought hope to the people. We created employment, the people are being trained and now there are a lot of people who have benefited from the transfer of technology from the Americans."
With just the startup of dry farming and addition of dams and dikes to stop frequent flooding, Were sees an economic renaissance taking shape.
"People are starting small-scale businesses," Were said. "Women living in this area are selling used clothing, and a restaurant was established where workers can go to eat. People are building houses to rent."
But Burgess isn't just another missionary out to share American wealth in a far-away land. He's still a capitalist - and he's counting on recouping every dollar invested - and plans to make a handsome profit.
"A lot of people thought I was crazy doing this," Burgess said. "This is something you have to do a lot of soul searching on before you take it on. Do you really want to put the future of your family and everything else into a distant land?"
Burgess' is no stranger to international business. His Guthrie-based company, The Dominion Group, built housing and a sock factory in Mexico City and operates Spirit Wing Aviation. His construction company has built prisons and federal buildings across the United States.
But he had never been to Kenya - only South Africa. An acquaintance who did missionary work in Kenya shared stories of his trips to the country, and Burgess was intrigued by an area known as the Yala Swamp. About 600,000 people live in the province.
"It's one of the most impoverished areas of the world," Burgess said. "Eighty-four percent of the people make less than a dollar a day. And that's their official poverty level. It's really bad. ... People lived in mud huts - no power, no water, no sewer, no telephone. We saw an opportunity that was both a business and humanitarian effort."
The 17,000 acres, located on the equator as it crosses Lake Victoria, was a low-lying swamp, prone to constant flooding. But amid the papyrus reeds, streams and lakes, Burgess envisioned a modern farm that would produce 100,000 metric tons of rice and produce a constant crop of fish - tilapia - that would supply both Kenya and European markets.
Burgess began two years of land lease negotiations with the Kenyan government in 2000.
Burgess said he was first asked to give money to the government, and when he declined, he was asked to create small farms to distribute among families in the region. He declined the offers, insisting on creating a modern, American-style corporate farm capable of employing up to 200.
"I said if we're going to do something, we're going to build the modern farm," Burgess said. "We went all over the world looking at rice and fish farms, and talking to people, hiring professors and getting people who are the best there is with this stuff."
At the same time, Burgess teamed up with Were, a preacher, to overcome native politics. The province long had been billed a potential bread basket for Kenya and surrounding countries, and the government itself in the 1990s spent millions trying to build a farm - but was not able to create sufficient flood control systems.
Burgess negotiated a 45-year lease for the land. Operations ramped up in 2003 with shipment of 38 semi-loads of equipment from the United States. About 200 people were hired as Dominion Farm began to take shape.
And then everything came to a halt. Three government ministers wrote a letter objecting to the project, claiming they hadn't been consulted before construction started.
Their order to cease work followed an attempt to amend the deal with Dominion Farm to make it more favorable to the government.
Protests erupted in three towns and at Parliament, and news accounts reported residents condemning what they saw as an attempt to stall development projects in the Nyanza province. Burgess was met at the airport by government officials and was begged not to withdraw. Even the United States ambassador to Kenya got involved.
Burgess looks back at the crisis as a turning point. He credits the controversy with exposing corrupt officials, ending their ability to interfere with the project.
Were, meanwhile, was able to rally more support for the project - necessary anyway for various environmental impact studies.
"We started prayer meetings and crusades that brought the pastors of the area together," Were said. "We got support from the community. And we were able to do things they had never seen and never imagined."
The project picked up steam over the past three years, with Burgess flying to the country 46 times, or about every six weeks. The operation now employs 350 full-time employees, and another 1,000 casual laborers are hired on an as-needed basis.
Burgess isn't critical of the missionaries and medical teams that have traveled to Africa for the past several decades - but he thinks business may be the better answer to the continents continued woes.
"This is putting your money where your mouth is," Burgess said. "Most of the rest of what you hear is just talk. This is what Kenya needs - they need the same thing we need here: They need economic development, they need jobs, they need net wealth. Charity is a curse to them in my opinion. It doesn't work; it makes them dependent to where they can't support themselves. And it needs to end."
