3 August 2023
By: Lebogang Mashala
Thokozile Maphisa enjoys spending time in the fields, doing what she loves: farming. Her determination led her to start Ikusasalethu Agricultural Projects, bringing employment to her community.
Explaining why she started her business, Thokozile points out a 2019 study on women and gender in agriculture by the Sustainability Initiative of South Africa: It found 52% of part-time workers in the agricultural industry are female.
“The percentage of women working full-time is only 34%, and the percentage of women holding land in sub-Saharan Africa is only 15-20%; 60-80% of smallholder farmers are women but only 15-20% are landowners,” says Thokozile. “This is the reason I wanted to succeed so much.”
Thokozile spent a lot of time on her mother’s Free State farm as a child. “My late brother and I spent many hours pretending to be farmers during school holidays and weekends, playing with clay cattle,” she says. “There’s something about being around plants and animals, seeing them grow and reproduce, that brings me peace.”
Now Thokozile manages 50 hectares on her mother’s farm in Harrismith, where she produces yellow maize, sugar beans, soybeans and calves. Her crops are sold to processing companies and feedlots, while her weaners are auctioned. She has four full-time employees and 60 seasonal workers.
Thokozile started Ikusasalethu Agricultural Projects with one calf in 2014. She began producing yellow maize in 2020, and the following year she added a shareholder and planted sugar beans and soybeans.
To plant her current crops, she used all her savings. Because it is difficult to obtain grants from the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development, she has a part-time job as a mechanical and piping supervisor to fund her agricultural business.
Thokozile says the company’s growth has been a result of hard work and dedication to problem-solving. There are many challenges that a farmer has almost no control over, such as climate change, theft, price fluctuations and disease, as well as issues that often hinder entrepreneurs, such as access to capital or inadequate resources. Among these, her biggest challenge is access to agricultural equipment and infrastructure.
“Currently, we hire all equipment, but we hope to purchase our own in the future to reduce business costs. Our goal is to build storage facilities where we can keep produce until prices rise,” she says.
Since Thokozile farms on the same land as her mother, the family has had to find a way to ensure their businesses coexist. “Despite our businesses being separate, we produce the same commodities on the same land. It can be challenging, because funders don’t see us as separate entities; they seek to fund one farm,” she says.
But the working relationship also has advantages. “We keep our income in the family, which is a big plus. The decision-making process is simpler because we trust each other and understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Thokozile’s plan now is to expand Ikusasalethu. “We are hoping to secure some form of funding to build up our infrastructure, purchase our own land and acquire equipment, including irrigation. The next step will be to expand our range by introducing winter crops.”
