About School

A business school for the farm you own.

RIMAI teaches the commercial logic of a farm enterprise and hands you working tools to apply it to land you hold. The agronomy appears only where it changes the numbers.

Start with module 1 Set up my land Read the FAQ

Who it is for

Commercially minded

You want the money-making answer first: what it costs, who buys and what it returns.

Holding land

Typically a family holding of one to ten hectares, inherited, leased or allocated, in one of the five markets.

Short of time

Self-paced on the phone. Read a lesson, open a calculator, enter your own figure, move on.

Twelve modules

RIMAI is a 14-day course of 12 modules: 11 Core Course modules, then module 12, where you choose your Major and complete your Capstone on it.

Each Core Course module answers one commercial question, sets South Africa against your market, ends with a task on your own land and names the calculator that turns it into a number.

1Module 1: The Farm as an Asset

What is my land actually worth as a business asset, and what would make a bank take it seriously? Open C1

2Module 2: Money for the Farm

Where will the money come from, what will it cost, and how do I stop one bad season or a price swing from wiping me out? Open C2

3Module 3: Productivity Economics

Which inputs, machines and technology actually pay for themselves on my farm, and which only look good? Open C3

4Module 4: Getting to the Buyer

Who will buy what I produce, on what terms, and how do I choose the buyer before I choose the crop? Open C4

5Module 5: Logistics and Cold Chain

What does it cost to get my product from the farm to the buyer in sellable condition, and will that cost eat my margin? Open C5

6Module 6: Standards and Market Access

Which certificates, tests and disease rules stand between my product and the buyer who pays most, and what does it cost to pass them? Open C6

7Module 7: Trade and Policy

How do government decisions on reserves, imports, exports and trade agreements move the price I will be paid, and how do I plan around them? Open C7

8Module 8: Value-Add and Processing

Should I sell what I grow as it is, or turn it into something worth more, and when does processing actually pay? Open C8

9Module 9: Climate, Water and Resource Risk

What can drought, water shortage and land degradation do to my business, and how do I build the venture to survive them? Open C9

10Module 10: People and Industry Structure

Who will do the work, what do buyers expect of how I treat them, and which industry bodies and groups shape the business around me? Open C10

11Module 11: People, Community and Labour

Who will do the work, what will they cost, how do I lead them fairly, and how does the community around my land gain from the venture? Open C11

12Module 12: your Major and your Capstone

Choose one of twenty Majors, study its six units, and build a costed venture plan on it for your own land. See the Majors

Every Major runs the same six units

Learn one Major and you can read any commodity business the same way.

The six-unit frame comes from the structure of the South African market value chain profiles. Each Major closes with a benchmark table that sets South Africa against Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, with every figure dated and sourced. Unit 4 draws the whole value chain: who operates each stage, where the margin is taken, where a small farm enters and who buys.

1U1. The industry and where it grows

Size of the industry in South Africa and in each local market, where it is grown and why there.

2U2. Market structure and prices

Who sets the price, what it has been and what moves it.

3U3. Imports and exports

Where the product comes from and goes to, and where the gaps sit.

4U4. The value chain and who buys

Every stage from inputs to retail, and the buyers a new farm can actually reach.

5U5. Market access and barriers

The standards, disease rules, permits and tariffs that decide who may sell.

6U6. The entry route

The real minimum capital, the input choke points, the offtake options, who to call and a plain verdict for a small holding. The heaviest unit, because the barrier to entry is where most ventures fail.

Five markets, dated numbers

South Africa is the benchmark. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia are the local reality.

Prices, yields, input costs and trade figures change every season. In RIMAI they live in one dated data layer, separate from the lessons. Each figure carries its country, Major, data year and source, and refreshing a country updates every calculator and Dictionary benchmark at once.

209dated figures

79 of 80country sets sourced

5markets