Inspiring youth while aspiring towards commercial farming success – ANZ Greenfields, Bizana

One of the things that has struck us when interviewing candidates for our in-service training programme has been the number of students who have said that the thing motivating them to study agriculture has been a desire to take what they learn back to their home communities in order to start agri-businesses that can offer the youth employment and generally uplift their communities. Although a number of our students have attempted to do this but been overcome with the challenges they faced, we are starting to see success stories and past-student, Zikhona Bhantshi and her friend and business partner, Athayanda Mdandani is one such story.

Zikhona and Athayanda studied farm management together at the Esayidi College in Umzimkhulu and were then able to obtain internships at the Department of Agriculture but Zikhona left after 9 months to join our programme. While at the Department of Agriculture they considered their prospects of future employment there and did not think they stood a good chance and so decided they needed to take a leap of faith and start their own agri-business.

Zikhona’s family had land available near Bizana and so in anticipation of utilising this they began putting part of their stipend money aside to start building some start-up capital. After graduating at the end of 2021, they followed all the necessary first steps to registering their business, ANZ Greenfields and registering with SARS and then went about submitting funding applications to various places. As they initially did not have sufficient funds to be able to invest in an irrigation scheme they began cultivating a home garden at Zikhona’s home and a landmark moment was reached when they took a sample of their spinach to the local Boxer who then agreed to an off-take agreement with them. A second major milestone was when the National Youth Development Agency approved their funding proposal and agreed to provide an irrigation system, inputs and signage for the business. With this, in addition to the fencing they were able to purchase with their savings, they were able to begin cultivating the piece of land available to them, beginning with 1.2 Ha. More recently, they have received further funding through their district municipality and are in the process of expanding their area under cultivation to 5 Ha.

Although they do not have their own mechanisation and have to cart their pump in a wheelbarrow to the river each day in order to irrigate, they are quietly confident that small beginnings are not to be despised and that their goal of becoming the biggest supplier of vegetables within their district municipality can be realised.