Customised Training For Commercial And Small-scale Interests

South Africa has an urgent need for agricultural training at all levels. The Hoedspruit Hub Agricultural Training Centre provides commercial skills training programmes, practical courses to assist small-scale farmers, and funding for education of the unemployed in surrounding communities. Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

Hoedspruit Hub Agricultural Training Centre in Mpumalanga is a social enterprise that provides training courses for commercial farms, as well as community upliftment and poverty alleviation programmes.

Carien Taute, the business manager, says: “We apply commercial strategies to improve the financial, social and environmental well-being of the communities we’re in. We thus aim to maximise social impact alongside profits for our external shareholders.”

Anri Manderson, the social enterprise manager, adds that the difference between an NGO and a social enterprise is that the latter must be run as a profitable business that can sustain all the projects. “The commercial side of the business that trains farmworkers ensures that we can carry on with our social development side.”

Social development activities include a youth programme to introduce people between the ages of 14 and 35 to the agriculture sector and address their skills gaps; a scholarship and mentoring programme for high school pupils; and a variety of agroecology programmes.

The aim of the commercial training programmes is to increase the resilience of farming operations through high-quality, sector-appropriate, customised training that develops people and invests in local communities and economies through skills development.

The Hub is housed in a former farm school started by the previous owners of Bavaria Fruit Estates in Hoedspruit. When the Department of Basic Education announced that the school would be closed, some farmers had the vision to establish a training centre to serve the area’s farmers and simultaneously develop small-scale farmers. The Hub was started in 2016 by three commercial farm enterprises: the Landman Group, Blydevallei Boerdery, and Bavaria Fruit Estates. These own 49% of the enterprise, while 51% is held by the Hoedspruit Hub Trust.