Bean aggregator helps small-scale farmers grow

Lusanda Moletsane runs an aggregator of small white beans from two farming clusters located in Nigel and Bronkhorstspruit respectively. She spoke to Pieter Dempsey about her passion for helping small-scale farmers become commercial producers, her success so far, and her dream for the future.

- Pieter Dempsey

FAST FACTS

Lusanda Moletsane has a background in developing revival measures for companies in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors.

She is passionate about helping small-scale farmers reach new markets as part of her aggregator project for small white beans.

The project is aimed at assisting these farmers to grow their operations from subsistence to commericial businesses.

Lusanda Moletsane runs Khumo ea Tsebo (which means ‘wealth of knowledge’ in Sesotho), a black woman-owned consulting services company based in Gauteng. She found her passion for agriculture a few years ago when she was approached to turn failing farms around. Then, two years ago, she began managing an aggregator farming project where farmers produce small white beans for the formal market.

At the beginning of 2020, she approached Tiger Brands and entered into an offtake agreement with the company, which now buys all the small white beans produced by the aggregator’s farmers for the manufacturing of its canned baked beans. Tiger Brands’ Enterprise and Supplier Development programme also provided the aggregator project with R10,5 million in funding.

As a result of this deal, Moletsane is now the company’s largest black, woman-owned aggregator of small white beans.