Shagasheng crop farmers uplift their community

Ga-Moretsele

Growing up in a disadvantage community with a high number of unemployment rate, has inspired a group of emerging farmers from Ga-Moretsele Village in Makhuduthamaga Local Municipality (MLM), to make use of a piece of land to establish a vegetable farming project to feed the community.

The farming project, Shagasheng Primary Agricultural Cooperative, was formed in 2016 with an aim to alleviate hunger and create job opportunities among unemployed youth.

Cooperative Chairperson, Agnes Tsirana, said they were encouraged to start the farming project to provide food for the underprivileged families in their communities and to fight high unemployment rate among youth in the village.

“Many people are living below the poverty line in our village which encouraged us to start this agricultural project for food security and to give jobs to unemployed youth,” she said.

Tsirana indicated that after securing a 5 hectre land, they started off with a few crops and today they produce cabbage, spinach, beetroot, onion, butternut, tomato, green pepper and pepper chew.

She said the garden is sustainable and currently have employed ten local people working on daily basis.

“Our goods supply big retailers including Boxer and Pick n Pay and also helps supplement the local schools’ feeding schemes programmes, creches and street vendors,” explained Tsirana.

To equip young people with farming skills, Tsirana said they recently held a Plant Production NQ Level 3 Learnership Programme in partnership with Agri-Ceta.

The learnership benefited 20 young people who learned about the significance of plant production for them to be exposed in the farming sector.

However, Tsirana said the project is challenged by lack of resources as they do not have full government support.

“Modern farming needs modern equipment which is something we don’t have. We do not have proper equipment to can use drip irrigation and having no delivery van to can transport our products to customers. We do not have fence around our farm and because of this, we have to be on a lookout for stray animals not to graze on our farm,” she said.

Tsirana said the biggest challenge they are facing is lack of adequate irrigation because they rely on a single borehole to supply the entire farm with water.

“We do not have a choice but to use hose pipes to water our plants. We also have to spend the little money we have to hire the equipment so that we can use our tractor. We also like to have a shade net because our crops are, at some point, damaged due to effects of climate change. Petrol demand also comes costly as we rely on a generator to pump water due to lack of electricity,” she said.  

According to Tsirana, the cooperative has since approached their local municipality in two occasions, in 2017 and 2021, seeking their assistance without receiving any help.

However, Tsirana said the challenges could not deter them to continue uplifting and aiding those in need within their community.

“Competition at the market is tough but with the little we have, we donate free vegetables to funerals and supply disadvantaged households through our local traditional leadership,” she said.

Tsirana said their aim is to have enough resources so that they can expand and appoint more community members who are currently unemployed.