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Mei 2016
16
Expertise essential to
unlock potential
A
n Afgri training and mentorship initiative, Harvest Time,
has been founded to assist new era farmers with training,
mentorship, financial assistance and technology. This ini-
tiative will help farming enterprises faced with seemingly
insurmountable challenges to thrive.
It usually is a challenge to keep a farming business going, but to
start one from scratch can be even more daunting, particularly
for South Africa’s new era farmers, who are not only faced with
the unpredictability of the climate, but also with limited access to
finance, and a lack of skills to produce and market their crops – not to
mention those needed to manage a thriving business.
Often the land and resources available to these farmers are not
necessarily of the best quality, although they are still expected to
make a profit. Like any commercial producer, new era farmers
need to earn sustainable profits to improve their financial position.
Often these farmers are perceived as high risk too and are therefore
not able to get finance from financial institutions. And without fund-
ing, it is impossible to run a viable business.
Afgri understands these challenges. With nine decades of expe-
rience in agriculture, we have supported many of today’s large
commercial producers, who themselves started out as small farm-
ers decades ago. Afgri is therefore committed to helping new era
farmers to become the commercial producers of tomorrow.
With this in mind the company established a specialised training
and mentorship unit, Harvest Time Investment, the aim of which
is not only to provide formal as well as on-farm practical training
with the help of mentors, but also to provide the finance for new era
farmers to implement agricultural best practices.
As part of this initiative, study groups and trial sites are used to
demonstrate new technology and to expose new era farmers to the
latest advances in farming. Mentors and agronomists are on hand
to share practical information and knowledge and offer insight
that comes from many years of experience. The mentors encourage
the success of the new era farmers, but more importantly, help them
to make a profit – the ultimate aim of any successful enterprise.
Whilst it is impossible for Harvest Time to assist all the new era farm-
ers within its traditional business area boundaries, through experi-
ence the initiative only targets those farmers with a real passion for
farming. These farmers must be goal-oriented and have access to
more than 100 ha of arable land. If the farmer has access to or has his
or her own equipment, this is considered an advantage.
FOCUS
Money matters and financial services
Special
BANKIES MALAN,
operations manager: Harvest Time Investment, Afgri
1: Solomon Masango and Sibongiseni Ngqukumba (Afgri).
1