Women entrepreneurs to the fore

THE 20th annual Female Entrepreneur Awards will be hosted in Cape Town later this month, to honour the contribution of women entrepreneurs.

In partnership with Total South Africa, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Female Entrepreneur Awards recognise the efforts and contribution of women, young females and women living with disabilities for their contribution towards food security, poverty alleviation, job creation and economic growth in the sector.

This year’s awards ceremony will reflect on the 20-year journey of the programme. “In the 20 years since inception of the programme, most of the women have shown improvement in accessing markets as they expand contracts with retailers such as Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Shoprite, pharmacies, with others exporting their produce to improve their turnover and create employment.

“These exports include: (the herb) moringa to Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique and Argentina, bananas and snakes to China, citrus to the Middle East, Europe and the UK. Others send their produce to many other international markets such as the US and the Far East,” the department said.

There had also been a visible increase in employment creation for both seasonal and permanent workers on the entrepreneurs’ farms.

The department said their enterprises were prime examples of the strength of mentoring workers by exposing them to training which helped them to venture into their own businesses.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner in categories: Best Female Worker, Best Subsistence Producer, Top Entrepreneur: Smallholder, Top Entrepreneur: Processing, Top Entrepreneur: Commercial, Top Entrepreneur: Export Markets and two Ministerial Awards for young female entrepreneurs living with disabilities in the sector.