Could any good have come from South Africa’s traumatic pandemic lockdowns? If the good comes in the form of wisdom, resilience and preparedness, then Mzansi’s farmers say yes.
With the national state of disaster now a thing of the past, farmers share the deeply personal lessons they have learned in the time of Covid-19.
Be prepared to feed yourself
Sithembiso Thwala, a crop farmer from KwaZulu-Natal, says it is about time that young people wake up and start planting the land.
“It has taught me that everything I need is in my hands.
“As food prices were skyrocketing during the pandemic, we had no choice but to eat what we produce and not to rely on supermarkets.
“I think it is important for every household to have a garden in their backyard and grow their own food, just in case.”
Work harder at strengthening your brand
To beermaker Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela, lockdown was a hard blow. The prominent businesswoman, hailed as South Africa’s first black woman to have owned a microbrewery, saw her business implode to where she eventually had to close it down.
The end of the disaster state brings her “hope for tomorrow and the future” and a new chance to start planning ahead. But her focus will be a little different this time.
“I do have my own [contract-manufactured] brand running, Dolokazi Beer, which I have been focusing on since closing the brewery… with the hope that we will grow to the point where we will be able to open the brewery again.”
She believes that if this brand had been stronger pre-Covid, maybe she would not have had to close a part of her business.
“I am now focusing on Dolokazi Beer to allow it time to grow in the market. If ever something like this happened [again] it will already have a strong presence in the market.”
She still sees a promising future for entrepreneurs.
Disaster-proof your business
According to Eben Du Plessis, Eastern Cape livestock farmer and chairperson communications committee at Agri Eastern Cape, the biggest lesson has been the realisation that as a farmer one must be prepared for any kind of disaster.
“Something that I have a learned is that disasters don’t stop and as a farmer you have to be prepared for anything.
“It can hit you at any time and you have to structure your business in such a way that you can overcome any disaster that comes your way.”
Du Plessis said that he did not believe that livestock farmers were severely impacted compared to other industries. “Our products were still expensive, and [we] received good prices for our products.”
Social media can be a life saver
Mantombi Madona, a livestock and mixed farmer in George, says that although her business was not affected like some of her peers’ farms, she has learned to look for new markets actively – and finding them on social media.
Where just selling your products to your traditional markets was once good enough, lockdown prevented buyers from moving around and visiting farms.
Exploring ways of marketing your business through social media was suddenly top of mind for many farmers and remains a great way to market your business.
Keep your business in top order – officially
Kwanda Nyazeka, a crop farmer and YouTuber from the Eastern Cape, says it is important for informal and small-scale farmers to register their businesses with the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and institutions such as the department of labour. This is because many could not get relief grants and other financial support because of their businesses not being registered.
“When the lockdown was first announced and the government was starting to implement funding initiatives to assist farmers, some farmers… ended up losing a lot and unable to pay their workers.”
Nyanzeka advises farmers to invest in insurance because many farmers were devastated during the pandemic and unable to pay their daily expenses.
“As farmers we need to make sure that we do have insurance. If a disaster like this one happens again, we will be able to rest assured that we are covered.”
Think of the end user
According to Zabion de Wee a livestock farmer from the Free State, the biggest lesson that he had to learn was adapting to new technology, as well as the need to focus on the end user of his product.
“Much of my business has [been moving] towards the end user because of the constraints of mass shops and businesses. Also, diversity in production systems [and] finding new ways to keep the quality, but [while] reducing the costs.”
He added that it was important to employ technology in one’s farming business and making sure that streams of income are increased without necessarily increasing costs.
“Now in this new time that we find ourselves in, I’ll never go back to the old way. We’ll keep the focus on the end user and what they want,” de Wee said.
Opportunities present themselves unexpectedly
For poultry farmer Mashudu Thobakgale, the pandemic provided more opportunities than anything else.
As a full-time telecommunications practitioner, farming is a side hustle. In 2020, as a result of Covid-19, he had enough time to focus on planting vegetables and growing his farm to where he now supplies a well-known South African food processing company.
And as people continued to eat, the opportunities were there to seize.
ALSO READ: State of disaster: Mistakes we never want repeated
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