Walter Mathidi started planting potatoes in Vivo, Limpopo, in 2015. But looking back, he believes he could not call himself a farmer then despite going through all the motions of the job.
"I started with 3ha but I struggled to grow. Some years I would get 14t/ha, other years the whole crop would fail. Potatoes might look easy to grow, but it is very complicated, and without the right expertise it is difficult to succeed," he says.
The turning point came when he applied to be a part of Potatoes SA's transformation programme, where farmers are assigned a mentor and assisted with seed purchases.
Since joining the programme three years ago, Mathidi has taken his yield beyond the industry average of 50t/ha to 65t/ha. He has increased his land under production to 160ha, which is split into four to allow for a four-year rotation.
"Today I can call myself a potato farmer. I understand the crop, how to manage the soil, disease pressure and irrigation, and can properly manage the marketing of my crop to get the best prices," he says.
REAL TRANSFORMATION
Mathidi still has another two years of learning to look forward to before he reaches the end of the five-year programme offered by Potatoes SA.
This is however not the case with all the farmers in the programme, and Willie Jacobs, CEO of Potatoes SA, laments that progress in the transformation programme has been slow.
The programme aims to get a farmer to a commercial level within five years. This means they must be able to access financing on their own, at normal rates that are not discounted for development reasons.
この記事は Farmer's Weekly の Farmer's Weekly 5+12 January 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Farmer's Weekly の Farmer's Weekly 5+12 January 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
A Karoo-farm holiday for the family or business traveller
This is the ideal Karoo-farm stopover between the Western Cape and Gauteng,
Toyota 48V: hybrid heavyweights in a changing world
Toyota's global mandate to lower overall emissions via a multi-technology approach sees the venerable Hilux and popular Fortuner packages receive their timely respective doses of hybridisation. By CAR.
Promising new cultivars on show at sorghum demonstration day
Magda du Toit recently attended a sorghum cultivar demonstration day and takes a look at the exciting new products making their way onto the market.
The basics of sheep shearing
Sheep shearing is a specialised skill, but with adequate training, anyone can learn how to effectively and efficiently shear a sheep,
Healthy soils lead to healthy plants and animals
Dr Louis du Pisani shed light on why biodiversity is important, and its impact on soil, plant and animal health at the World Veterinary Association Congress held in Cape Town.
'SA's water crisis could turn into a human catastrophe'
Abysmal management has left South Africa's water and wastewater infrastructure in a severely compromised position, Lambert de Klerk, manager of Environmental Affairs at AfriForum
Uganda gives a helping hand to Zambia with 500 000t maize pledge
Drought-stricken Zambia has reached out for more international assistance as the situation, the worst in 40 years, deteriorates in the African country
Shearing shed handover to wool growers
Shearing sheep made just a little easier for Eastern Cape farmers with donation,
Top agriculture students taken on by department
Twenty of the top achievers from the Cedara and Owen Sitole colleges of agriculture in KwaZulu-Natal officially received letters of appointment and signed two-year contracts under the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Unemployed Agriculture Graduates Youth Programme.
African leaders vow to tackle soil health ills to bolster food production
African Union leaders spoke as one voice at a recent fertiliser and soil health summit, pledging to take measures to improve Africa's soil quality