Speakers Inc Magazine, Volume 2

asked what she puts her success down to, Mbali
When
who launched her Green Terrace crop farming
Nwoko,
in 2016, says her curiosity and determination
business
farm enabled her to create partnerships in the
to
These have ensured a bright future for her
sector.
business.
young
pursuing a career in agriculture, Nwoko was the
Before
and managing director of a recruitment
co-founder
In 2016, just three years after starting the
agency.
she made a drastic career change after being
business,
to farming by a friend who had also
introduced
started his own farming business.
recently
addition to learning about his operation, she
In
that there were opportunities for new
discovered
in agriculture, and so began carrying out her
entrants
research. She then registered her own farming
own
and her search for land started.
business,
on the research I’d done, I decided to start by
“Based
spinach, for which there seemed to be a ready
growing
I had to provide the start-up capital myself
market.
I had no luck accessing a loan from financial
because
she recalls.
institutions,”
May 2016, Nwoko managed to find a 100ha plot in
In
that she could lease for her business.
Heidelberg
I found the land, I was ready to start ploughing
“Once
learn other things on the job,” she says.
and
was soon taught the first of many hard lessons:
She
only one month of leasing, relations between
after
and her landlord’s relatives soured, forcing her to look for an alternative. “I’d already ordered 40
herself
cabbage seedlings, 20 000 spinach seedlings and 16 000 mixed pepper (green, red and yellow)
000
which had to be planted in July and September, so I couldn’t waste any time,” she says.
seedlings,
only a one-month window in which to locate a new site, Nwoko started searching in the Boksburg
With
near Spruitview, east of Johannesburg, where she had grown up. This time, luck was on her side: she
area
her current landlord, Beauty Aphane, whom she refers to as Mam’ Beauty, who farmed on a 14ha
met
near Vosloorus. According to Nwoko, Mam’ Beauty started farming in 2013, and required a tenant for
plot
portion of the land she was not using.
a
Beauty has been such a supportive landlord; I don’t think I’d be where I am today without her
“Mam’
and patience. She understands farming and the challenges that come with it,” says
understanding
T E N A C I T Y W I N S T H E D A Y
F O R U P - A N D - C O M I N G
V E G G I E F A R M E R
E n e r g e t i c n e w f a r m e r M b a l i N w o k o s t a r t e d h e r v e g e t a b l e
f a r m i n g o p e r a t i o n o n l y t w o y e a r s a g o , b u t h e r
d e t e r m i n a t i o n t o s u c c e e d h a s b e e n r e w a r d e d a n d
r e c o g n i s e d . L a s t y e a r s h e w a s n a m e d o n e o f 2 0 f i n a l i s t s i n
t h e p r e s t i g i o u s 7 0 2 S a g e S m a l l B u s i n e s s A w a r d s .
THE ROAD TO FARMING
Nwoko.
‘WITH THE HELP OF MENTORS, I’VE ESTABLISHED
MY OWN WAY OF FARMING’
9