TENDER HARVEST
Sue de Groot spoke to a farmer who is changing the world, one spinach leaf at a time
Jimmy Ka-Botha didn’t set out to become a farmer. He knew how to grow things — “I’ve always had a special thumb,” he says — but thought it would be something he did when he retired. Life, as often happens, had other plans for him. When his telecommunications contracting company dissolved as a result of a dispute among the partners, he did some work in the tourism industry and met an American businessman, whom he drove around.
“He had bought this land and he wanted to invest in farming,” says Ka-Botha. “He didn’t just want someone to manage the farm, he wanted a partner. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow that became me.”
In 2005, Ka-Botha sold his house in Roodepoort and moved to the farm in Tarlton, which then consisted then of 22ha of land, a house and seven burnt-out hydroponic tunnels. He used the proceeds from his house to restore the tunnels and put in boreholes, and sought advice from his neighbouring farmers on what to plant.
“Everyone was willing to help,” he says. They advised him to start with basil, so he called the farm Tila’s Herbs, after his mom.
HE WENT FROM GROCER TO GROCER TO SELL HIS FIRST CROP
When his harvest was ready, Ka-Botha went from greengrocer to greengrocer to sell it. “My first customer was Impala in Northcliff.”
As his knowledge grew, he extended his range to other herbs and veggies, and his products caught the attention of major retailers. With the aid of a loan from Woolworths, he was able to buy another tractor and a larger bakkie and put 15ha of land under shadecloth. He now supplies baby spinach exclusively to Woolworths.
“We packed about 250kg a week last season,” he says. “We grow it in multi-stands on 10 070m² covered in plastic. We had some teething problems, needing to irrigate from different angles, not just from the top, and needing to cover the stands with soft, disposable netting in winter, but now that we have all that right, our harvest will be much bigger.”
Tender leaves are cut at a certain size from the spinach (a different plant to Swiss chard) when it is still young. “We can do two to three cuts before the plant starts getting ‘horns’,” says Ka-Botha. “I sell the mature plants to my other customers.”
Baby spinach is mostly eaten uncooked, the way Ka-Botha likes it. “I’m a very good cook,” he says. “For nearly nine months of the year we can live off the produce from our land, so I know how to make all sorts of salads. I was surprised when my wife, Manthwese, put some baby spinach leaves in a warm pasta dish. She just tossed it lightly and it was delicious.”
In 2012, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe visited Tila’s Herbs to hand over a packhouse for agro-processing, funded as part of the War on Poverty campaign.
“The government is fond of me,” says Ka-Botha. “They bring students here to do practicals. I try to help other farmers, spread the skills, teach the young ones. I’m not just here to grow food. We are really short of black farmers and we need to make this country better, spread the word.”
He employs 40 permanent staff, which rises to 100 workers during high harvest season. “All our success comes from people. I will go the extra mile for my staff.”
Farmers don’t get much down time but in winter, when the workload lessens, Ka-Botha, 54, rides his mountain bike whenever he can. He believes in keeping body and mind fit. He has begun writing a book about his life and plans to build a library for the community. “I want to do that because my mother was illiterate,” he says. “I must get on with it. There is so much still to do.”