HGA worked alongside LIMA and the Ubuhlebezwe Local Municipality to organise a farmers day in April in Ixopo for aspiring farmers from the local municipality. We are grateful to our sponsors, Meadow and P.Trimborn Agency for taking the time to engage with the farmers and the presentations you made on the day, and to Sutherland Seedlings, Farmers Agri-care, SAPPI, AFGRI and Omnia for your involvement.

Project manager, Dylan Weyer, accompanied a group of commercial farmers from southern KZN to the Union Buildings earlier this month and was given the opportunity to share what commercial farmers in the Harry Gwala District Municipality are doing to uplift aspiring farmers. The visiting group’s objective was to be assigned a person in the top tiers of government who can help lower the barriers that commercial farmers encounter when wanting to establish projects with aspiring farmers.

The work that HGA is doing provides examples of the sharing of knowledge and experiences across the bounds of colour and creed and is testament to what can be achieved through the joining of hands and the turning of soil in our land. We feel this is a message that needs to be spread particularly given the current uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the land debate in our country and the desperate situation we find our economy in. Our nation needs positive stories and to that end HGA has pursued opportunities to publicise the work it is doing and the people and companies that make it possible.

Walter Khumalo, a farm management student from the Esayidi TVET College in Umzimkhulu, was one of the participants in the Harry Gwala Agri In-service Training Programme in 2018. He obtained his training at the Hauff’s dairy farm in the Eastwolds area near Donnybrook and has recently been given an opportunity through the Future Farmers Foundation to travel to the USA to spend a year working on a dairy farm in California.

We are working hard to streamline the student in-service training programme in order to build on it in the future and get more qualified individuals out into the agricultural workspace. An important step in this process has been the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation system to ensure that all parties involved obtain the full measure of benefit from the programme. Instrumental in this regard has been the involvement of Mr. Hank Pike, a retired headmaster from Durban with over forty years’ service to education in the province.

Yesterday we had the privilege of meeting with the fantastic partnership of Gavin Lister and Nhlanhla Mathenjwa in the Highflats area of the Harry Gwala District. Nhlanhla completed a years practical experience on the Lister's farm in 2013 in order to obtain his diploma in plant production.

Yesterday we were pleased to have Mr. Cyril Hlengwa's irrigation scheme pegged with installation thereof soon to follow. Thank you very much to Dave Van Rensberg of Irrigation & Drainage Services in Pietermaritzburg for coming out and to Andrew Pooler from the Highflats Farmers Association for your assistance and agreeing to mentor Cyril going forward.