Sowing Seeds Of Hope

Sanna Tibane and her daughter, Ingrid Lerato, believe that a successful vegetable operation requires sound agronomic practices, knowledge of how the formal market functions, the ability to stick it through the tough times, and hard work. 

- Gerhard Uys

On a 2,5ha plot near Meyerton in Gauteng, Sanna Tibane and her daughter, Ingrid Lerato, grow a variety of vegetables under the name Tshepong (‘Hope’) Farming. The business is expanding, with good agronomic practices ensuring that customers in both the formal and informal markets want to buy their produce. But this was not always the case.

Sanna’s previous business entailed buying meat from butchers, and then selling it to communities in Orange Farm. In 2004, she and her husband, Daniel, bought the plot near Meyerton. As she had grown up on a farm, she was keen to enter the sector.

Daniel, an electrical contractor, says that one day when he returned from work, he found Sanna using hand tools to start a vegetable patch.

“I thought this idea won’t last more than two weeks. But every day when I returned from work, she was still busy. At the end of the first month, we bought a sheep with the profits; after the second month we bought cattle.

“I decided then that I must follow what my wife is doing, and not try to lead,” Daniel says.

STARTING SMALL

With two goats and some cattle, Sanna began to farm. “We began small because we didn’t have irrigation. But as demand grew, we grew bigger,” she says.

She had a borehole sunk for R34 000 and found water at 75m. This made a difference to vegetable output. At first, success was intermittent, as Sanna says her agronomy practices simply came from what she thought would work. The manner in which she delivered to formal markets also did not always result in good sales, but Sanna didn’t know why.

However, a real change in the quality of her produce and her knowledge of markets came through training offered by John Deere.