What started as a shelter has grown into a thriving agricultural hub, changing lives and producing 2.2 million seedlings. In this Farmer Mentor episode, Manger Care Centre CEO Zen Teitge shares how his father’s legacy of recovery transformed into a sustainable social enterprise that strengthens agricultural communities.
For more than four decades, Manger Care Centre has combined community development with agriculture, using farming as a tool to create jobs, develop skills, and rebuild lives. The Gauteng-based organisation operates commercial farming projects, agricultural training programmes, greenhouse enterprises, and seedling production facilities.
Their goal is to help vulnerable individuals and emerging farmers build sustainable futures through agriculture. The organisation has grown into a significant agricultural and social development operation with a strong focus on training, food production, and farmer support.
At the centre of this journey is Zen Teitge, CEO of the organisation and a second-generation custodian of the legacy started by his father.
“My father [Gustav Teitge] was a drug addict and alcoholic who found himself homeless, with nobody to help him,” Teitge explains. “After turning his life around, he decided he wanted to help people facing the same challenges.”
The organisation began informally by taking people off the streets, providing shelter, and helping them reintegrate into society. After his father’s passing, the work continued under the leadership of Teitge’s mother, Hester, and later Teitge himself.
Today, the organisation supports around 350 people daily and assists more than 5 200 beneficiaries annually.
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Agriculture as a rehabilitation tool
While Manger Care Centre provides psychosocial support, counselling, healthcare services, and life skills training, agriculture has become one of its most powerful development tools.
“We realised agriculture was something deeply needed in South Africa, but it was also something that could equip people with practical, marketable skills,” says Teitge.
The organisation is accredited with AgriSETA and offers training in plant and animal production from NQF Levels 1 to 4. Beneficiaries receive both theoretical and practical exposure, ranging from soil fertility and crop nutrition to marketing and seedling production.
“We want someone leaving the organisation to be diversified and employable,” Teitge explains. “Whether they stay in agriculture, work on a farm, or start their own operation, they must leave with real skills.”
Training is integrated into the organisation’s own farming operations, which include open-field vegetable production, greenhouse farming, hydroponics, livestock enterprises, and commercial seedling production.
Building a farming enterprise from the ground up
Teitge’s own agricultural journey started modestly with a small greenhouse tunnel measuring just 3X12 metres.
“We started small and kept reinvesting,” he recalls. “One tunnel became four, then 16. From there, we expanded into larger greenhouse structures, shade net systems, and eventually commercial seedling production.”
Today, the organisation operates across multiple properties in Gauteng, with production ranging from spinach, cabbage, and beetroot to chillies and seedlings. Current seedling production capacity stands at approximately 2.2 million seedlings every six weeks.
The organisation also designs, manufactures, and installs greenhouse tunnels and shade-net structures for farmers across South Africa as part of its turnkey agricultural services.
“We’ve built farming projects all over the country,” says Teitge. “The goal is not only to generate income for the organisation, but also to strengthen farming communities and help emerging farmers establish sustainable operations.”
Teitge says seeing someone progress from very little to becoming a successful commercial farmer is deeply rewarding, particularly knowing the organisation had played a role in helping them reach that point.
The challenge of funding and sustainability
Despite its growth, the organisation still faces ongoing financial pressure.
“Funding is always the biggest challenge. There is never enough money to do everything you want to do.”
To reduce dependence on donor funding alone, the organisation has diversified its income streams through farming, greenhouse manufacturing, training services, and seedling production.
Teitge believes many non-profit organisations in South Africa need to adopt more self-sustaining business models. “You cannot just wait for funding; you have to build something sustainable.”
That same philosophy extends to the farmers whom the organisation mentors.
“Start somewhere,” he advises. “Even if it’s a small garden, start planting. Pick up the rake, work the soil, and begin.”
A legacy rooted in service
For Teitge, agriculture is about more than production. It is about dignity, restoration, and creating opportunities for others.
He believes the long-term impact lies not only in the number of people trained, but in the ripple effect created when those individuals go on to uplift others.
“If one farmer we trained is now helping another five or ten farmers, then the work continues beyond us. That becomes the legacy.”
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