Portia Mahlobo farms neither in the soil nor hydroponically. She farms in the lives of people. What started with a quest to find meaning in life, has since yielded hundreds of food gardens in Gauteng.
“I came from a very toxic and abusive relationship,” she says. “I wasn’t beaten but I was abused emotionally. I remember going home [one day], before I turned 40, and I decided that I was going to live a life of value. I was going to make a mark,” Mahlobo says.
Then, while recovering from the deep emotional scars she had suffered, the song “Fill the world with love” by British icon Petula Clark cemented her decision to find her life’s value.
…I shall look to the sunrise
at a moment in my life when the world is new.
And the blessing I shall ask is that God will grant me
to be brave and strong and true,
and to fill the world with love my whole life through.
She knew that when her life nears its end, like morning and day turns into night in the song, she will need to ask herself:
Was I brave and strong and true?
Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?
Finding life among farmers
These lyrics touched her more than any other words ever could; they became her motto and her drive and inspired her to offer help to new farmers.
Today her non-profit entity, called the IThemba Project, provides up-and-coming farmers and township food gardeners with training, and equips them to be agile and run their agribusinesses optimally.
But how did she find her purpose among farmers?
Before establishing the IThemba Project, she did advocacy work for and supported mothers around the arrival of their babies. “We were able to assist 16 000 families with food parcels and we supported moms in hospitals with napkins, toiletries, blankets and clothing,” Mahlobo says.
But she soon realised that they could not sustain these families onward. In a bid to help them create their own solutions, she decided to help these families learn to grow their own food.
She first taught women in temporary shelters and victims of human trafficking how to start a seedlings propagation business. In the two years since then, Mahlobo’s project has helped facilitate the training of more than 200 farmers and has been instrumental in the establishment of at least 260 food gardens in townships.
“Farming is not just about agronomy,” explains Mahlobo about her teachings on farming business. “It is about integrated systems, meaning that it ranges from agronomy to understanding market systems and pricing, interacting with retailers and the technical know-how of farming.”
A self-propagating project
One of the beneficiaries of Mahlobo’s training is a farming cooperative called Poortjie Agriculture Primary Cooperative. A group of elderly residents runs it on a plot of land adjacent to a hospice and multipurpose centre in the small township of Poortjie in the Sedibeng district.
“We wanted to venture into agriculture because it was expensive to buy everything,” says Martha Nazo, the chairperson of the farming cooperative. “As women, we decided to stand together to start something to feed our households and the community.”
They also share their produce and their knowledge with orphans. “We then call them to come over to see how we produce the food that we give them. [If] they are free, we give them a portion of land to work on in our garden,” says Nazo. “We sit down with them to explain that the food they see in retail stores is produced by farmers under difficult circumstances.”
Once the children understand the basic principles, they are given seedlings if they have none of their own. “We give them whatever they need. Occasionally, we go door to door to monitor what they’ve done with the seedlings.”
The cooperative helps at least 20 children in the community. “We show them that, [despite] the fact that they are orphans, they can still make their own food. We can no longer say they are needy because they have their own gardens now.”
All thanks to IThemba Project
It is hard to believe that Nazo had no experience in farming just months ago. “[At] first we were farming without knowledge. I did not even know how long it takes for spinach or cabbages to grow,” says Nazo, who adds that her lack of knowledge almost ended in disaster when she tried to get rid of the earthworms in the soil.
Now the cooperative along with her home garden yield a steady supply to the community. “I even learned about okra and brinjal. We supply to hawkers and local supermarkets. For now, the primary goal is to supply to our neighbourhood and to start our own economy.”
Nazo doubts that the cooperative would have come this far without Mahlobo’s help. “I can fill dozens of pages [telling] you how much Portia has helped us.”
Mahlobo is regarded as somewhat of a hero by Nazo, other small-scale farmers and gardeners who continue to benefit from her contribution. She has restored their dignity, once tarnished by poverty, and has guided them towards self-sustainability.
“I probably could become a commercial farmer in five or ten years, but that’s not my drive,” says the local hero. But her primary goal remains seeing and developing untapped potential. After all, there’s that question she will need to answer:
Was I brave and strong and true?
Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?
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