Love and admiration for agriculture from high school is bearing fruits for four young people of Namahadi in Frankfort in the Mafube Local Municipality.
It was during the school days at Falesizwe High School when these four developed love for agriculture. To them it was never only a subject taught in class from grade 10 to grade 12, but it developed into a passion.
Little did Siyabonga Tsotetsi, Modupi Mpaka, Lerato Ndaba and Lehlohonolo Hlalele know that their infatuation for this subject will follow them beyond the classroom to the field when they established My Agri Partners – Mafube Youth in Agriculture Piggery in 2015 upon completion of grade 12.
According to Tsotetsi and Mpaka the seed for the love of agriculture was planted by their former high school teacher, Phaladi Matsole, who was teaching them agricultural studies. Now that Matsole is farmer, he has become not only their mentor but has offered them a piece of land on his farm.
“We met Mr Matsole in school teaching us agricultural studies in grade 10 and we felt in love with the subject, and that’s how everything started” said Tsotetsi.
According these budding farmers their project initially started with 10 members, but currently they are the only four who are left as they demonstrated a determination to reach for their goals.
Their paths with their former teacher crossed again, this time they were struggling to start their piggery project while Mr Matsole was fulltime in agriculture as a farmer. “Mr Matsole offered us a space on his farm to start our project with about fifteen pigs and most importantly he offered to mentor our project” said Mpaka.
Like starting any other business challenges and sacrifices will be there. “Our main challenge now is that we don’t have our own piece of land where we can freely operate. We have lost some of the funders who were willing to assist us because we don’t have documents such as lease agreement or permission to occupy from the local municipality.
“Other challenges are when there is rain, piglets are in danger of drowning in the water and mud and also being suffocated. Food, lack of financial support, transportation and medication are also part of the challengers the project is facing. The project has now over 200 pigs, and do regular supply to the market.
“We are aiming very high, once we have our own space and permanent structure we will then be able to increase our production, we want to have state of the art piggery breeding and own abattoir with own brand” said Mpaka.
It wasn’t difficult for Matsole to work with his former learners. “It was easy for me to work with them again, I felt it was my responsibility to help them especially as the learners I taught before and encouraged to go into farming I had to give a helping hand and I amm happy because they have now graduated in their job as they do most things on their own now,” he said.
