Nufarmer Africa
Picking tomatoes at Nwanedi
Nwanedi New Generation Farmers Gearing up for the future
Two years ago an MoU between the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Department of Small Businesses Development on cooperative societies gave birth to a pilot project seeking to develop a New Generation Agricultural Cooperative at Nwanedi Community in Vhembe District , Limpopo . The two partners have been working together with other stakeholders to develop institutional and value chain management systems for the pilot cooperative . According to Mr . Jack Vera , the Agricultural Counsellor of the Embassy of the Netherlands , “ the pilot new generation cooperative is a great opportunity to learn and improve the modalities of conducting agricultural development for emerging farmers . It is being implemented with a close attention on the emerging lessons . A steering committee for the project has frequent meetings to reflect on the impact of the lessons on both current and future developments for agri-cooperative societies ”.
The latest news on the New Generation Cooperative at Nwanedi has it that an office is built and fenced off , a medium cold truck is available and everything is in place to start the Cooperative ’ s functions in the beginning of 2018 . Still , there are challenges faced but faith runs high in management to procure input finance for the first plantings of tomato in the new season .
Thomas Sadiki farms on 25ha but planted eight hectares of the land under tomatoes this year . The training from Delphy opened his eyes to better farming techniques for the future and also offered a wider understanding of planting different crops .
Tiger Brand , the custodian of the tomatoes offered three varieties of tomato ; HTX40 , HMT and Domingo from different seed suppliers . As the Nwanedi area is superbly suited for jam tomato production , the brix required by Tiger Brand varies between 3.9 and 6.0 - although the farmers obtain brix from 5.0 upwards . The farmer is paid according to the brix reading at point of delivery .
Thomas is a member of the New Generation Cooperative at Nwanedi . According to him going forward it is of value to a farmer to belong to a cooperative because of the sharing of knowledge , often sharing assistance , mechanisation and securing a market for the total crop by all members .
“ The future holds promising results given the training , cooperative assistance and secure markets for our products as part of future food security , farming employment increase and becoming fully-fledged commercial producers ,” Sadiki concluded .
Stephen Denga farms since 2001 with his father at first but now also is part of the New Generation Cooperative at Nwanedi and has 30ha on which tomatoes are produced . Before he attended the Delphy training sessions he was insecure about proper production methods but the information he gathered gave him hope for the future .
His endeavours are to become commercially viable in tomato farming , exporting large quantities off a big farm and creating employment . Denga markets the majority of his tomato crop to Tiger Brand but also to buyers from Durban , Zimbabwe and Moçambique .
Vusi Mlambo , President of the Cooperative ( NGC ) reported that since the launch of the New Generation Cooperative at Nwanedi they had ongoing negotiations for finance and the administration around the cooperatives various disciplines . These took place during a period of severe drought which curbed new plantings .
The funding procured from the Department of
Mr Stephen Denga at his farm .
12 Nufarmer Africa | November / December 2017