In 2018, Ntombiyenkosi Mbuyazi and four other women started planting peanuts on a newly-planted Sappi compartment close to her community at Shikishela in Mtubatuba, in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Since then, the paper business has made more land available and sponsored seeds, and currently there are 20 participants in the Palm Ridge project area.
This project is an excellent example of creating a win-win. While Sappi provides free access to the land, earning the participants some profit during harvest time, the costs for Sappi’s weed control activities are reduced, with the participants routinely doing weeding while they plant. So, besides keeping the plantations weed-free, the peanut plants’ roots also help enrich the soil with nitrogen for the trees.
Through Sappi’s Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) Unit, the project participants are being assisted to register their business as a cooperative. The main goal is to ensure the sustainability of the project by taking advantage of opportunities, including funding and securing the market so that it may grow and contribute to financial gains for the participants and their families.
“The women here are very proud of this project, and they have much to celebrate. With money made from this initiative of planting groundnuts, we are able to pay our children’s school fees,” says Mbuyazi.
Building skills to better communities
Another example of a young woman who is contributing to food security in her community is Ziningi Mazibuko, from Mphithini near Bulwer in KwaZulu-Natal. With her ABCD training she obtained, thanks to Sappi’s Abashintshi programme, and with advice from extension officers from the department of agriculture, she is assisting the Mphithini Cooperative with admin duties and sourcing markets for their produce. The cooperative operates with 11 members, focusing on agriculture production specialising in sugar beans and maize production.
“Because the youth generally consider farming as being something for the older generation, they do not consider the potential there is in the agriculture field,” says Mazibuko.
“I want to change that mindset and show them that by being part of these community initiatives, and by becoming commercial farmers, they will secure futures for themselves.”
Besides promoting the plans of the cooperative, which results in job creation and contributes to economic growth in the area, this venture supports overall food security in the area and the country at large, Mazibuko concludes.
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