THE PRODUCER IN FULL FLOWER
Sue de Groot visits the Gauteng farm where Monica Ndebele has defied the elements and blossomed
T ender stems of broccoli are not the only recipients of loving care at Marigold Farms near Tarlton in Gauteng. Farmer Monica Ndebele says each of her workers is as important to her as the clean water and nutritious soil that make her crops flourish.
“We work seven days a week,” says Ndebele, “because there must be stuff in the fridge to pack on Mondays. Sometimes we work till 11.30pm, then we take people home, everyone right to their door because we want to make sure they are safe and will come back to work tomorrow. Sleep? I don’t know. You get used to it. The important thing is that if my people are happy, I will be happy. Without them I would be nowhere, because I cannot do this by myself.”
Ndebele, 38, grew up in Venda and left school early to make a living as a domestic worker. In 1993, she got a job at a lettuce packhouse run by Eldorado Farms. Owner Maarten Koppenol recognised her initiative and she soon rose to become packhouse manager, along the way acquiring an Agriseta qualification in facilitation and human resources.
When the business was sold in 2008, Koppenol, an agronomist, kept 40ha of land to experiment with sustainable farming techniques. Ndebele took a retrenchment package and told him she wanted to join him. They now run Marigold Farms, with Ndebele owning a 51% share.
“I had plans,” she says. “I didn’t want to work under a boss. Some guys were laughing at me, saying: ‘She doesn’t have degrees, how can she do it?’ But on the practical side, I know I am good. I knew that even if I didn’t go to school I could make a difference. If you want to go to town, there are many different roads you can take to get there.”
Today Ndebele employs 75 people and supplies Woolworths with 1 000 packets of tenderstem broccoli a day during harvest season. She also grows pak choi, leeks, cauliflower, beans, onions and sugar snaps.
She works alongside her staff, spending much time in the packhouse, which was partly financed by the department of agriculture after she approached them for help. Ndebele tells the story like this: “One day, vice-president Kgalema Motlanthe came to visit a neighbour’s farm. He shook my hand and said: ‘I am looking forward to seeing you women pushing farming.’ It was like a vision for me. I said: ‘I am going to do that, I am not going to disappoint you’.”
No one could be disappointed with what Ndebele, Koppenol and their workers have achieved. The farm is small by commercial standards but progressive in terms of sustainability, using solar panels, a biological filter to soften borehole water, a worm farm, compost production, raised beds and crop rotation so the soil doesn’t get depleted. These measures and the stringent packhouse controls enabled Marigold Farms to become a Woolworths “Farming for the Future” supplier. Last year they received a loan from the Woolworths Enterprise Development programme, which has enabled them to cultivate 10ha under protective shade netting, essential for vegetables that need to keep their looks without rain, hail or sun damage.
“This is the area of hell,” she says. “If you don’t have shade to protect from the heat and the storms, you won’t succeed.”
She has many more plans for success. One of these is developing more land to grow strawberries. “The crops are sweet here,” she says. “I think it is the water, the soil, the compost, our style of farming. So I think our strawberries will be sweeter. I like to look at doing new things all the time.”
Other plans involve passing on her knowledge. “I would like to help other black farmers the way Martin helped me, teach them, so they can grow like I have. This farm must grow, and other women out there who are sitting doing nothing, they must see that they must stand up and do something.”
IF YOU WANT TO GO TO TOWN, THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT ROADS