Synchronising Production With Market Demand

Strategies to synchronise produce availability with times of general undersupply can prove highly lucrative, as KwaZulu-Natal fresh produce farmer Andile Ngcobo tells Lloyd Phillips.

- Lloyd Phillips

Andile Ngcobo is just 24, but he is using this to his advantage, harnessing his youthful curiosity to find ways of improving the profitability of the 30ha open-field, dragline-irrigated fresh produce enterprise he manages on the 1 299ha Tusokuhle Farm in KwaZulu-Natal's Table Mountain area.

Tusokuhle, owned by businessman Dedani Mkhize, also comprises 300ha of sugar cane, as well as stud and commercial Nguni beef herds on the natural veld, making up the balance of the farm’s area.

After obtaining his Diploma in Agriculture in 2015 from Cedara College of Agriculture and working in various short-term agricultural jobs, Ngcobo joined Tusokuhle in October 2017 as its fresh produce enterprise manager. He oversees a team of 16 who plant, grow, harvest, grade, pack and distribute a variety of vegetables: cabbage, spinach, butternut, broccoli, cauliflower and green mealies.

The produce is marketed through the Pietermaritzburg and Durban municipal fresh produce markets, although ever-increasing volumes are now also being sold to retail outlets.

“The biggest driver for the varieties and volumes of the fresh produce we produce is what the consumer market demand is at any given time of year,” says Ngcobo. “We get this information mainly from the market agents we liaise with. They also give us feedback on the quality of our produce compared with that of our competitors.”

He uses this information to judge his own management and how it can be improved. Working towards consistently growing and supplying produce of a quality above that of his competitors, he tends to attract above-average prices from buyers. This, in turn, increases the profit margins of Tusokuhle’s fresh produce enterprise.