The fruits of persistence: a state-funded citrus farmer’s success

Noluthando Mbilase, who farms near Fort Beaufort, recently won the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ Top Entrepreneur Export Markets title in its annual Female Entrepreneur Awards. The award is testimony to her determination, as well as her willingness to learn, since starting in the citrus industry as a field officer many years ago. Mike Burgess reports.

Noluthando Mbilase (55) has taken many years to attain recognition for her citrus farming venture, but this has made her achievement even more remarkable, and victory taste even sweeter.

Mbilase has won R420 000 in prize money this year in regional, provincial and national competitions run by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. And, in her typically disciplined way, she intends using her windfall to continue developing her farm.

Mbilase produces export citrus (oranges, lemons and soft citrus) on 17,5ha of her 62ha farm, Greenwood, in the upper Kat River Valley near Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape. She has another 15,5ha due to come into production in the near future, and will use her prize money to establish another 10ha of orchards. This will bring the total area under citrus to 43ha.

Humble beginnings

Greenwood may not represent a very large citrus production unit, but it symbolises an immense achievement for Mbilase, who was born in a communal area near King William’s Town. Her mother, Nonyameko, worked as a domestic helper in the town while her father, Bovana, was a migrant labourer in Cape Town.

Despite working in King William’s Town, Nonyameko managed to run several projects in the communal area to make extra money; these included producing and selling vegetables and soap, as well as farming chickens and cattle.

Attending to agricultural chores before school, and her siblings after school, became a way of life for Mbilase.

“Every day I’d wake up and milk the cows and irrigate the garden,” she recalls. “When

I came back from school, I’d have to cook and look after my sister and brother.”

Mbilase enrolled for a citrus production course at the Fort Cox Agricultural College near Keiskammahoek in 1989, followed by a practical component at the Thyume Citrus Estate. She was then appointed as a field officer in the Kat River Valley by Ulimocor, the then Ciskei State Agricultural Corporation. In 1996 Ulimocor was in the process of being liquidated and Mbilase was appointed to Greenwood in the upper Kat River Valley in an attempt to turn around faltering production. The start of her new job proved to be a baptism of fire. Even before she had received an appointment letter from the state, she became involved in serious conflict with the previous manager’s workers, who vandalised infrastructure on the farm and on one occasion even slashed her vehicle’s tyres. Showing great courage, Mbilase held her nerve, and before long the conflict petered out. She then began consolidating her position on the property.

the workers vandalised infrastructure and slashed her vehicle’s tyres

Photos: Mike Burgess OPPOSITE PAGE, ABOVE: Young citrus trees on Noluthando Mbilase’s Greenwood farm near Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape.OPPOSITE PAGE, BELOW: Citrus orchards on Greenwood, where Mbilase employs 11 workers. ‘It is them that make me a good farmer,’ she says.BELOW:The Kat River bordering Greenwood provides irrigation for Mbilase’s orchards.BELOW RIGHT:Mbilase and her son, Ahlumine, on the farm with some of the trophies and prizes she has won this year. ‘ There are no jobs these days,’ she says. ‘The better way to live is to have your own business.’