As you might have read on Food For Mzansi, farmers in the eastern Free State have lifted the veil on Maluti Farming PALS, a private land reform initiative. PALS (Partners in Agri Land Solutions) represents a radical departure from past land reform initiatives and is based on, among others, business principles and the up-skilling of new era farmers.
In this episode of South Africa’s favourite agriculture podcast, we chat to Piet Potgieter, manager of developing agriculture at the VKB Group. He played an instrumental role in facilitating the birth of this ground-breaking initiative and describes Maluti Farming PALS as a grassroots initiative of cooperation and partnerships between farmers in the eastern Free State.
The minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development, Thoko Didiza, virtually delivered the keynote address at the launch function of Maluti Farming PALS. Attending the celebrations in Bethlehem were commercial and new era farmers, as well as other government representatives.
The minister believes the initiative, is critical for the “productivity of our national health”. She encouraged the three tiers of government to help ensure its success.
Read more about the newly launched Maluti Farming PALS here, or listen to this episode of Farmer’s Inside Track to learn about the benefits of a reward system for agri-businesses.
Other podcast highlights:
Besides the podcast interview with VKB’s Piet Potgieter, this week’s Farmer’s Inside Track also has other highlights for the agricultural sector:
- Book of the week: Food For Mzansi fans chose The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz as their book of the week. A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.
- App of the week: The Agri Assistant app is an all-round information source for farmers. Its cool features include agricultural news, technical manuals, a service directory, up-to-date weather forecasts, farming organisations and reference material.
- Farmer’s tip of the week: Livestock farmer Refilwe Coetzee argues that the quality of your grass is irrelevant if you don’t feed your livestock lucerne. She believes it helps keeps their digestive system and intestines in shape.
- Mzansi Flavour: Nigerian farmer and chef Halima Zawiya talks about how important it is for millennials to accept agriculture. The time has come for Africa’s new generation farmers to rise up, their contribution can move the sector forward.
- The HEALTH SQUARED Agri Update: This week Bianca Viljoen, the director of Marketing, Distribution and Rewards at Agility Agri unpacks how Agility Agri can help you best prepare your employees for retirement.
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