Community-First Approach Ensures Sustainability

No man is an island, the saying goes, and this holds every bit as true for a farmer. Schoonbee Landgoed relies on the surrounding community to provide both a workforce and an enabling environment for its business, and this has led management to strategically align the operation to benefit local community members. Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

Schoonbee Landgoed, situated in Groblersdal, Limpopo, produces a wide variety of citrus and table grapes on 3 000ha of irrigated land. The original farm was bought by Gert Schoonbee about 60 years ago and run as a family farm. In 2015, the business started moving towards a more corporate structure, and introduced numerous changes in the way it operated, both in terms of production and employee well-being.

To ensure year-round employment for its workforce, Schoonbee expanded the citrus orchard by 4ha of citrus per 1ha of established grapes. With the current 850ha of citrus and 380ha of grapes, 500 people can be employed permanently and a further 2 000 have work for 10 months of the year.

Gert Upton, Schoonbee’s senior manager for marketing and sales, says the business procures as much labour as possible locally.

“It’s very important to us to make a social impact in our area and ensure our people can look after their own families. For every one person we employ, they support a further four people. Effectively, we support about 10 000 people in this area.”

Managing director, Ista Upton, agrees that the company’s long-term sustainability is directly linked to the socioeconomic conditions of the surrounding communities.

“Identifying vital leverage points in the community where we can play a role in supporting community development and creating sustainable job opportunities are some of our key objectives,” she says.

To this end, the company is involved in several projects with the surrounding communities.

PEACE TABLE GRAPES

In 2007, the Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development established Rahlagane Table Grapes Agricultural Primary Co-operative (RTG) to create employment in the communities near Schoonbee.