Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
It takes a farmer to teach a farmer
South Africa’s farmers provide unrivalled opportunities for the development and training of other farmers and farm employees. Use them.
I’ve been on an intriguing journey of discovery, and it was all triggered by my learning about Agricolleges International (agricolleges.com) and the Hoedspruit Hub (facebook.com/hoedspruithub). These two recently established agricultural training institutions were founded by farmers for farmers, and as I read about their vision, I began to wonder how many other businesses would put their energy and money into training employees for companies other than their own.
It doesn’t really make sense, does it? Spending time and money training people to provide your competitors with employees to do a better job of competing with you! But for South Africa’s farmers it seems the most natural thing to do.
A WIDE RANGE OF ORGANISATIONS
By my count there are currently 32 different farmers’ commodity organisations operating in South Africa, covering every conceivable agricultural product from aquaculture to wool. Add organisations that represent farmers’ broader interests, such as land tenure, roads, electricity, labour laws and the like, and those such as Agricolleges and the Hoedspruit Hub, and there are close to 40. And I suspect I’ve missed quite a few.
What’s more, all of these organisations are led, directed and funded by farmers or businesses serving farming.
Trawl through their websites and you’ll find almost all offer training and development in one form or another. Some of the larger ones, such as sugar, dairy, poultry, citrus and grapes, have permanently staffed training academies offering a wide range of courses, as well as scholarships and bursaries.
OPPORTUNITIES IN AFRICA
Having got this far in my research of what farmers are doing for other farmers in South Africa, I started searching for farmer organisations elsewhere in Africa. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have one or more of these, but other than Kenya, which has entities for grains, dairy, flowers, tea and avocados, very few seem to have specific commodity organisations. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda all have organisations with well-prepared websites setting out their vision and functions. Most refer to training, but nowhere is there anything vaguely comparable to the range and quality of what’s offered by farmers’ organisations in South Africa. Neither could I find any mention of scholarships and/or bursaries.
Again, I have to wonder if there’s any other business sector in South Africa that contributes close to as much effort and funding to training and development as the agriculture sector.
IT’S UNLIKELY THAT ANY OTHER BUSINESS SECTOR CONTRIBUTES AS MUCH TO TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Added to this is the enormous, undetermined contribution in time and effort in mentorship provided to new farmers by their established neighbours, something you read about frequently in the pages of Farmer’s Weekly.
HELPING FARM MANAGERS TO UPSKILL THEIR EMPLOYEES
My primary purpose in taking a look at what our farmer organisations are providing, though, was to see what is available to farm managers in the way of training and development opportunities for themselves and their staff.
I found that they need look no further than the organisation that serves their own particular commodity, be it honey, mohair, cotton, apples or any other. If they don’t find what they need there, the national umbrella organisations such as Agri SA, TAU SA and AFASA can provide the training and direction they seek.
Effective managers continually seek ways of developing their own skills, and give attention to the development of their staff at all levels. Nothing could be easier in South Africa, given the array of opportunities provided by our farmerfounded and -funded organisations.