BACK TO BASICS
A project is underway that is set to inspire and help resuscitate agricultural activities that were once the pride of the residents of Jericho, a small village outside Brits in the Madibeng municipality, North West. Six communal farmers have started producing sunflowers on 400ha with plans to increase to 3 000ha in a few years and to attract more farmers to the project. Peter Mashala met this group of farmers to find out more about their plans and what makes this project important.
Jericho is a small village in the Bojanala platinum district, situated in the extreme northeast of the North West province. Under the auspices of the Bakwena ba Mogopa tribal authority, Jericho is also the gateway to the province’s wildlife experiences in the Borakalalo National Game Park, which lies just a few kilometres to the north of the famous Dikhololo Private Game Farm and the Sable Ranch, less than 10km to the west.
Until the early nineties, this village was also known for its commercial grain production under the then Bophuthatswana government.
But over the years, production, which was funded mainly by a government-owned cooperative and Agri Bank, has stopped completely. The 8 000ha arable land with high potential has been lying unused for so long that there is heavy bush encroachment.
A FARMING HUB
“This place was abuzz with farming activities and employed many villagers. It was even called vetsak (full bag) during those days,” recalls Obakeng Morake, a member of a group of farmers working to resuscitate the land. He says there was a depot where farmers could get diesel, seed, fertiliser and pesticides on credit through the co-op and AgriBank. After 1994 these operations just vanished into thin air.
Obakeng says he was born into farming. Both his grandfather and his dad were communal livestock and grain farmers in
Legonyane, a village next to Jericho under the same Bakwena tribe. “I continued, mainly with cattle, over the years,” he says. About three years ago, while working in Rustenburg, he started a vegetable project with his uncle on his grandmother’s plot in the town.
“We ran the cattle operation in Legonyane where I would go on weekends and holidays,” he says. In winter the animals suffered and Obakeng says they had to buy in lucerne as extra feed. This pushed him to want to establish his own lucerne production.
“My family had a 5ha plot that I earmarked for this project,” he says. But the lucerne needed irrigation and he did not have the money to drill boreholes and install an irrigation system. The research did recommend sunflowers as a viable dryland crop.
“I planted 5ha of sunflowers and the crop did very well. I decided to expand my production in the next season. But land was a challenge in Legonyane,” says Obakeng.
GROUP POWER
This is when Obakeng met Gopolang Tladinyane, a commercial livestock and grain (soya beans and maize) producer in Sanddrif, outside Brits. Gopolang is also from Jericho and at the time he planned to start sunflower production back home. “There were other farmers who told me they’d like to start sunflower production here,” says Gopolang.
A meeting was called for all interested farmers to see how they could all work together instead of every farmer having his own piece of land far away from one other.
Abram Motswai who, with his partner Happy Mpshe, has planted about 60ha, says the idea was to plan properly and share the risks. “There are no decent fences and the village cattle roam around freely. If each one of us had to fence their own 100ha allocated to them, it would cost us an arm and a leg,” he explains.
Abram says sharing the costs to fence one area where each would have their own portion, made more sense.
Bird damage was another risk the group had to consider. “It is better to have a large area planted to sunflower. When the birds attack the crop, the risk is spread, as opposed to the birds attacking individual portions,” explains Abram.
Another good reason for joining forces was the ability to share resources. “Some of us don’t have the equipment and working with those that have, made it easier.”
The group approached the tribal authority to pitch the project. “We first had to write to the council and explain what we wanted and then later were called to a meeting for interviews,” Abram explains.
The tribal council approved the project and an area was identified.
Abram says they had to look at an area that was not too badly bush-encroached and had some old fences to lower the costs of debushing and erecting new fences. “As an extra measure, the group put up a singlestrand electric fence with a rechargeable energiser,” he says. This, says Abram, keeps cattle and wildlife out of their croplands.
There are currently six members in the project. Every member has a 100ha portion of
land. The total area of 600ha is fenced.
This season less than 400ha was planted between the six farmers due to many challenges, including funding issues and heavy rainfall. Planted areas went from 5ha to 70ha per farmer.
The youngest members of the project,
Gopolang’s sons, Motlapele (17) and Reaobaka (14), have 15ha and 5ha respectively. Motlapele is in Grade 12 at Bekker High School in Magaliesburg, while his brother, Rea, is in Grade 9 at Hartbeespoort High School. Both have grown up on their dad’s farm and have farmed with him since
“Another good reason for joining forces was the ability to share resources.”
their early childhood. Last year they planted sunflowers on 50ha of communal land in Bethanie, a village west of Brits, about 20km from their farm.
DIFFICULT WEATHER
Planting in Jericho started in December and everyone had finished planting by January. According to Motlapele, planting was delayed due to the heavy rains in December and January, and they couldn’t plant the 30ha as planned. He had planned to plant 20ha while his brother was going to plant 10ha. Other members faced the same challenges.
Abram says because the lands were waterlogged, they could not do the weeding and some lands are still infested with weeds. “Some portions look beautiful, but others do not. Our minimum total yield estimate is at least 50t from the 60ha we’ve planted.”
Rea and Motlapele say they have estimated minimum yields of 1t/ha. They would like to increase their hectares to 50ha each in the coming season.
“If we do well this season, we would have some money to cover this,” says Rea.
Gopolang says every member’s crop looks good and if prices stay high, they will increase the planted area to between 1 500ha and 2 000ha next season. He says they could do
better if they had some support from the government or the private sector. The fact that this group of farmers have managed to achieve what they’ve done using their own resources, demonstrates the level of commitment from the participants.
“We’ve been talking to representatives of the North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, who were impressed and showed keen interest in our project,” says Abram. “The more stakeholders we can get involved the better.”
PRODUCTIVE COMMUNAL LAND
Obakeng says bringing the land back into production has many advantages for the community. But one challenge is that many financiers prefer to steer clear of communal land.
“This is a problem because we cannot get access to financing necessary for infrastructure and other production costs.”
Obakeng says the government has also stopped investing in these areas, unlike in previous times when fences and roads were well maintained. “During those days these lands were properly demarcated and fenced to separate summer grazing areas for cattle when the production season was on,” he says. He explains how after the harvest the gates would be opened to let cattle run on the fields for the winter, grazing on the stover and other crop residues.
He suggests that the government should go back to basics and invest resources in this communal land to help farmers make the land productive once more.
Obakeng says he’d like to see this project inspire the youth and bring them into farming when they see its success. But he warns that it cannot be done without the involvement of the government and private stakeholders.
“I don’t see why areas such as Jericho and Legonyane should be plagued with high unemployment when there is this resource called land that is underutilised. This project must inspire young people and bring wealth back to people in the rural areas like it used to be,” Obakeng concludes.