Lady Tshoga thought she was living her best life as a financial manager. But after losing both her parents a year apart, she left behind her old life and became a farmer. Tshoga was selected for the Corteva Women Agripreneur 2022 Programme, a year-long blended development programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) Entrepreneurship Development Academy (EDA).
Being the first of eight kids, Tshoga was the apple of her father’s eye and loved growing up in Mahwelereng, Mokopane township, Limpopo.
She attended Settlers Agricultural High School for three years and later matriculated at Waterberg High School, she never pictured herself actually being a farmer.
Tshoga believes that her father might have hoped that she would voluntarily enter the agricultural industry because he worked really hard to buy the land for the family. But she had plans of her own for the future.
“The farm has been with the family for the past 18 years because I remember when my father bought the farm, I was still 9 or 10 years old,” says Tshoga.
She went on to say “born and bred within the business but barely understood the operations”.
Thrown into the deep end
Her parents were hands-on farmers. However, in September 2019 her father, Joseph, died and a year later in September 2020 her mother, Philia, also passed away. Tshoga says that her father was quite the business guru and sustained the farm with other businesses such as a taxi business, liquor store, and an automotive spare shop that were part of the Tshoga Business Solutions chain.
“I went into farming by default,” she says.
The death of both her parents resulted in Tshoga leaving her full-time financial manager job at a property management company, and as the eldest took responsibility for the farm. This was to ensure that the farm remained in the family as it was not an easy job for her parents to acquire the land.
“I decided to only do professional consulting, so I was able to focus more on the agricultural business,” she says.
After three years of professional consulting, she decided to be more involved on the 400-hectare farm. “We have the crop production, which is about 106 hectares. We plant sunflowers and maize, but the maize, we do not sell that. It is just for crushing it as feed for the livestock.”
Tshoga farms with goats and cattle too, but her primary focus is sunflowers.
“We grow a small portion [of maize] that we grind, we actually take the leaves and everything from the maize for the cows’ feed.”
But with the sunflowers, it is a little different, the main crop being sold to “big silos”.
Challenges of being a new owner
The transition for Tshoga was overwhelming. She believes that life threw everything at her after the passing of both her parents. Even though she was raised on a farm, it was different being the owner and managing it.
“I knew absolutely nothing about having to be physically on the farm. I remember when it was bought and going there with my father. The only fun part about it was going there with my dad and [him] just showing me around and being on a tractor,” she says.
Tshoga says she never really understood the dynamics of farming, but she realised that she had to look at farming from a financial point of view.
“I have obtained my undergraduate degree at the University of Johannesburg. I am a tax practitioner and an associate general cccountant (SA) registered with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA),” says Tshoga.
Financial background advantage
“I started looking at the books because it was done on a sole proprietor level. My starting point was looking at the invoices and bank statements.”
Looking at the books helped her gain perspective on maintaining relationships with other farmers and asking for help, which was an important part of her growth.
Tshoga also has a great relationship with her brother, John, who is currently the farm manager. “Most of the stuff that I have actually learnt was everything he taught me,” she says.
Another challenge is that though it is a great gift to have land, the responsibility to maintain and create a sustainable life is a big deal.
“Sunflowers are a six-month crop so during the season it can get really busy; one would be visiting the farm and checking everything out.”
She adds that once everything is planted there is not so much to do on the farm. Collectively, they wait for the harvesting season. They also make sure the livestock is up to standard and kept under great control.
Taking it one step at a time
Tshoga says that the Corteva programme helped her with networking within the agricultural industry, which was fantastic for her to be able to create more relationships with farmers.
“Corteva has been that opening block, whereby it gave me that direct contact with people that are within that industry,” she says.
Tshoga is taking it one step at a time, learning, unlearning and relearning from all her mistakes. Tshoga expresses that she is overwhelmed by the support from the programme and the interest from the Corteva group which motivates her to be a successful farmer.
She is looking forward to building a lasting relationship with other role players within the industry.
ALSO READ: Anything environmental drives this #SoilSista
Get Stories of Change: Inspirational stories from the people that feed Mzansi.
