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M
r Cosmas Dumezweni Xaba (50) is a family man with
a wife, seven children and one grandchild. He retired
from the mines in 2008 and started to farm at Madzikane
(KwaZulu-Natal), growing crops and rearing livestock.
He strongly believes in doing things for the well-being of his family.
He is a pastor at a local church and is also quite influential in local
agricultural community development programmes.
Xaba owns ten cattle and 53 sheep and uses 3 ha to grow most of
his food, which include spinach, potatoes, beans as well as maize. He
sells excess produce locally and provides temporary employment
to support the efforts of his family members.
He is supported in these efforts by a number of stakeholders includ-
ing the Department of Agriculture, KWANALU and Lima RDF, an
NGO that supports smallholder farmers with advice, and through a
revolving loan fund, which supports his maize, broiler and potato
production efforts.
His work with Kwanalu led to his co-operative being awarded a
1-row animal-drawn knapic planter through the DRDLR LandCare
programme. His crop production and selling enterprises has allowed
him to buy a bakkie that he now uses to deliver orders around the
area. In the 2015/2016 season, for example, he had a turnover of
R8 050 from his potatoes.
The need for financial capital for Xaba’s enterprises is significant,
which led him to join a village level savings group initiated by
Mahlathini Development Foundation and Strategic Action (a micro
finance collaboration). The group was established in March last year
and will be used as a financial institution for his enterprises. He re-
cently took a loan from the group in an attempt to source a maize
thresher that will help him to reduce hours of work shelling maize
manually.
He is currently the chairperson of a farmer association through Kwa-
nalu and a local facilitator for the Grain SA Farmer Innovation Pro-
ON FARM LEVEL
Farmer learning groups
Conservation agriculture
Local best practice options
in CA investigated
– Case study 2
1: Cosmas Xaba standing next to his maize and bean intercrop trial.
2a: An electric maize thresher borrowed from the ARC.
2b: Maize harvested waiting to be threshed.
3: Cosmas Xaba's trial planting, 22 November 2016.
MAZWI DLAMINI
and
ERNA KRUGER,
Mahlathini Development Foundation
1
2a
2b
3