Thembinkosi Matika is hardly the man he was a few years ago. Before making a living through farming and founding his business, Legacy Farming Project, Matika sold drugs in one of South Africa’s largest and fastest-growing townships, Khayelitsha.
Today, he earns his keep by growing fruit, herbs and vegetables on a piece of land he leases in Malmesbury, outside Cape Town.
Legacy Farming Project is a community initiative, Matika founded in 2020. They supply fresh fruit and vegetables to the informal market, mainly spaza shops.
“We grow practically anything – [from] herbs, and vegetables, such as pumpkins, carrots, spinach, cabbage, beetroot and peppers, [to] tomatoes, guavas, and a variety of other crops.”
Matika also processes some of the fruit and vegetables grown on the farm into preserves, sauces and juices. He sells these to farm visitors who have given him great reviews, he says.
Collaboration is everything to his farmer, which is why he also partnered with farmers in KwaZulu-Natal to grow moringa.
Matika’s breakthrough
It has been a long and hard road for Matika.
In 2007, when he dropped out of the University of the Western Cape where he studied towards a degree in medical bioscience, ending up in jail for dealing drugs was never part of his plan – but he did.
Matika is incredibly smart and wanted to become a forensic pathologist. But funding his studies became difficult and he took up a job as barman. Things, however, quickly took a turn for the worst.
His downward descend into the dark underbelly of Khayelitsha’s criminal world happened when a patron at the bar wanted to make a dagga purchase, and he offered to get the patron some.
Before he knew it, Matika was dealing in mandrax and crystal meth, and he dropped out of varsity.
“I was barely earning R1 200 a month and needed money. Selling [drugs] became a norm. So while being a barman, I was simultaneously pursuing this side hustle.
“I experienced my breakthrough when I spent a whole weekend in a jail cell. I realised selling drugs was not the kind of life I wanted to live.”
Since then, Matika has made it is his mission to lead a better life and contribute to society and his community.
He has also founded a social entrepreneurship movement called Nzulu Group and he is the managing director of Thembinkosi Matika Leadership and Training.
Matika has a passion for mentorship and he gets to do this though his organisation, which offers people tools and strategies to improve their quality of life. He has also set up a mentorship programme for boys between the ages of 12 and 18 living in kwaLanga township in Cape Town.
‘Normalise growing your own food’
With Matika’s other passion – farming – he hopes will inspire young people to also join the agricultural sector and contribute to food security in their communities.
“My primary objective has always been to encourage people to grow food in their backyards.
“I’m trained to use language to reprogramme humans’ minds. Consequently, I am using the same strategy to educate people about food security and to sustain food in all circumstances,” he explains.
Matika firmly believes that any space can be used to grow food, even if one starts out simple, like in a window sill.
He encourages people to normalise growing their own food. “That way we would not be complaining about [access to] basic vegetables that can be grown at any time of the year.”
Matika is already planning his next big move. He hopes to build an agricultural college, which he says will focus heavy on practical side of farming. He also hopes to offer students a facility where they can be introduced to the fundamentals of agro-pocessing.
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