Lerato Botha is a zealous agriculturalist whose passion fuels her farming endeavours. She believes that when you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.
The 25-year-old agronomist talks about her life as a “black Botha” and the dynamics of running a family business as her father’s second–in–command on this week’s Farmer’s Inside Track podcast episode with Food for Mzansi co-founder Ivor Price and editor Dawn Noemdoe.
In the podcast Botha, who is the director of their family farming enterprise, Farmerlee Farms, urges South Africans to hold farmers in the same esteem as lawyers or accountants. She also advises her fellow farmers that patience is needed to thrive in the business.
“Farming is not an overnight thing. You have to do trial and error even if it takes you a year or two. Make sure once you have a crop it’s going to sustain you for life. Give yourself that time, do not rush it.”
She urges up and coming farmers to actively seek out mentorship. “Start from the bottom, don’t just come in and want to know what happens right on the top. You have to start from the foundation so you can understand what it is that you do.”
Although her father, Jimmy Botha, had his foot in the door farming with herbs, Botha firmly believes that there is always room to learn as much as you can in the industry.
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“You never know everything in agriculture. My dad learned from the neighbours, they had shown him the ropes of how to farm and I just felt, like, let me go to university and familiarize myself with the theory of how things are done.”
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