Former seasonal worker wins top farming award

Vivian Jakobs of Crispy Farming recently won the Western Cape Agri Prestige Awards Competition of 2023. Glenneis Kriel went to find out more about this inspiring farm manager.

- Glenneis Kriel

Vivian Jakobs says that when he was growing up on the farm Wanganella, which has since been renamed Beste Wens, in the Warm Bokkeveld, people at school in Ceres used to look down on him; they did not expect him to amount to much in life.

Jakobs believes this was because he was a farmworker’s child, just like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him. But he has proved them all wrong by working his way up from being a seasonal worker to becoming manager of one of the farms belonging to Crispy Farms, in which the Dutoit Group has a 49% stake. Farmworkers, including himself, have a 51% stake.

On top of this he was recently crowned winner of the Western Cape Agri-Prestige Worker of 2023, which means Jakobs has won a cash prize and an educational trip overseas worth around R80 000.

Jakobs has also become a member of an elite forum consisting of previous winners of the competition, that regularly meet with the Western Cape agriculture minister to discuss matters affecting farmworkers and the agriculture industry.

A VALUABLE TOOL

“I knew I did not have the financial means to study after matric, but my family equipped me with a very valuable tool: they taught me, from a young age, that you can get somewhere in life if you work hard,” he says.

After school he joined the military for two years. When he got back home, work was scarce so initially he was a contract worker on farms. He admits it was not always easy to motivate himself to go to work, especially on very cold or hot days: “On those days, I would remind myself that I was doing this work to provide for and create a better future for my family.”