Young, black boers bring new life to farming sector

Fazlur Pandor's family name would seem to set him up for a career in politics or business, but the son of Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor has chosen the tough life of a farmer.

"Some of my earliest memories are being in the garden with my dad and a hosepipe, trudging through the mud and getting my feet dirty," Pandor said this week.

The BCom graduate worked as a consultant and a commodities trader before swapping his calculator for a shovel.

"My previous life gave me the opportunity to travel abroad and I saw first-hand how farmers in places like America, India and Israel are producing commercial volumes in small spaces, and I was inspired to start growing at home on a small scale."

He now runs Urban Fresh, a company that works with emerging farmers at a farm in Balfour, Mpumalanga, and in Alexandra, Johannesburg.

"In 2012 my girlfriend was diagnosed with cancer and I began investigating the quality of our food. This led to a lifestyle change when we started eating organically. Her response and physical improvement was undeniable, and this was the final push I needed to begin making what was at first a passion into a full-time career," he said.

Pandor is one of a growing number of young black South Africans who are trading the boardroom for the field.

I don't think I'm just a farmer. I see myself as an agribusinessman. I must think about strategy of growing the business, the finances and marketing, and so on

Nono Sekhoto left her lucrative position as a wealth management consultant with Investec in Johannesburg to take a job on her dad's 2000ha farm in Senekal, Free State.

"I was never going to be a farmer. My experience was in finance," she said.

Because the farm was already producing good crops, her dad was able to take her on and pay her salary. Sekhoto has since become farm MD.

"A lot of satisfaction is the lifestyle, the quality of life. People really take pride in the things they grow, in their animals. Passion is so important because there are risks," said Sekhoto.

With the ongoing drought, many of her family's crops failed to produce, including their entire apple orchard.

While there are no concrete figures available, AgriSA deputy executive director Christo van der Rheede said there was "a definite trend among black South Africans from the corporate world to venture into farming".

However, there were still too few black commercial farmers in South Africa even though "the development of the black political and economic elite, as well as middle class, over the past 20 years has laid a very strong basis for black people to venture into commercial farming, agro-processing and related retail practices".

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D epartment of Agriculture spokesman Steve Galane said the shift of young black people to farming had started to gather pace - with benefits beyond diversity alone: "Before 1994 we only had white commercial farmers and these farmers were mainly men. The benefit of young people coming through ... is that they would use new technology ," he said.

Galane said the government would continue to use its internship programme - involving more than 350 people - and bursary scheme to attract more young black South Africans to the field.

That's a sentiment endorsed by Buyambo Mantashe, the son of ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, who has been running the family farm in Elliot in the Eastern Cape, since 2012. The family also has a poultry farm in Delmas, Mpumalanga.

For Mantashe, who spoke to the Sunday Times via e-mail from China, going into any sector other than farming hardly crossed his mind.

"I wanted to go against the odds and the popular, safer corporate jobs.

"I don't think I'm just a farmer. I see myself as an agribusinessman. I must think about strategy of growing the business, the finances and marketing, and so on," he said.

savidesm@sundaytimes.co.za