Winterveldt's cucumber king

Planning and forward thinking are important in farming, says Kobela Mokgohloa, the owner of Korema Farm in Winterveldt near Pretoria. He spoke to Magda du Toit about how he grew his cucumber production, as well as his plans for the future.

-  Magda du Toit

Korema Farm was established by Kobela Mokgohloa’s grandfather in Winterveldt near Pretoria in 1995 with the main focus on growing cabbage and spinach. By 2002, his father was also involved in the business, and the family expanded into a more diverse operation and started planting tomatoes and peppers on the farm.

Around 2004 the farm employed 17 people and its main produce were cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. Korema supplied chiefly the Tshwane and Joburg markets.

Mokgohloa matriculated from the Potchefstroom High School for Boys in 2005 and went on to work for five years at aircraft manufacturer Global Composite Solutions at Wonderboom Airport. His employer encouraged him to learn to fly, and he obtained his private pilot licence in 2008 through an aviation school in Pretoria. However, all the passion that Mokgohloa had for flying was put on hold when he won the SAB KickStart entrepreneurship programme around 2009.

“They awarded me R100 000 towards a concept I had presented to them on feed lotting cattle,” he recalls. “I then left aviation to pursue my career in agriculture on our family farm in Winterveldt.”

Mokgohloa farmed tomatoes and green peppers hydroponically in tunnels in 2010 and also started operating a small feedlot.

He soon realised that it did not make business sense to produce the vegetables in only three tunnels. He had to compete with farmers producing on a large scale in open fields, and when the market was flooded, he took a knock. The solution, as he saw it, was to switch entirely to cucumbers and become the cucumber specialist in the area.

By 2012, his operation had grown to 15 tunnels. He says his business was recognised by the National Youth Development Agency for the rapid progress it was making.