In just five years, businessman-turned-farmer Masala Murovhi has transformed a single maize field cultivated by his mother in Limpopo’s Vhembe District into a thriving mixed-farming enterprise. This is the first article in African Farming’s series on Masala’s diversified farming enterprise.
By Maile Matsimela, digital editor at African Farming
Masala Murovhi began farming on family land in Tsianda Village near Thohoyandou in 2021. What started with a modest maize field has since grown into a remarkably diversified farming enterprise.
The 20 ha farm now supports commercial banana and avocado orchards, other fruits and vegetables, thousands of laying hens, indigenous poultry, pigs, sheep and goats – all developed without government funding or bank finance.
Farming was not Masala’s first profession. He comes from a business and insurance background and runs Murovhi Financial Services as well as a taxi business. He is also currently studying law. It was while working in the insurance industry that he began thinking seriously about farming.
“At insurance conferences I would meet other brokers who were wearing overalls because they had come straight from their farms. That made me realise I shouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket. I needed to diversify.”
That thinking would eventually shape not only his personal investment strategy, but also the structure of the farm itself.
Masala’s success is built partly on investing income from his other businesses in the farm and steadily building an integrated production system that allows different parts of the operation to support one another. Waste from one production unit becomes an input for another, value is added before products leave the farm, and diversification reduces the risks of relying on a single commodity.
“I have never received funding from any government department, association or bank,” he says. “Everything you see here has been built using my own resources.”
Before planting his first orchard, Masala obtained permission from the traditional authority to develop the family land commercially, then secured municipal approval for its agricultural use. From there, expansion took place gradually and each completed project generated income that helped to finance the next.
Also read: Avocado study group boosts farmer capacity in Mopani
Building a fruit enterprise for year-round production
The orchards immediately reveal that diversification is central to Masala’s production strategy.
Fruit such as bananas, avocados, litchis, mangoes and Eureka lemons create multiple income streams while staggering harvesting periods throughout the year. The orchards occupy much of the property’s gently rising terrain before stretching towards the surrounding mountains.
Bananas remain one of the farm’s major enterprises. Masala grows several cultivars, including Williams, Cavendish, Nandi and Chico, with additional land already being prepared for further expansion.
“Williams is the variety that is really performing in the market,” he says.
Masala has also planted four avocado varieties that mature at different times. Among them is Ryan, a late-maturing cultivar whose fruit develops beneath dense foliage.
Unlike cultivars whose fruit hangs exposed to direct sunlight, Ryan avocados stay protected under the canopy, reducing sunburn.
The combination of different fruit crops and cultivars is part of a deliberate strategy to avoid depending on a single harvest or marketing period.
Using the landscape to move water
The orchards are supported by an irrigation system designed to make full use of the mountainous landscape. Large storage tanks have been installed high above the orchards. Water is pumped uphill into the tanks before gravity distributes it throughout the orchards.
One of the farm’s distinguishing features is its banana-ripening facility, where harvested fruit is exposed to ethylene gas under controlled conditions. The fruit is then ripened over several days to ensure a more consistent product for buyers.
“We gas the bananas on Wednesday and by Saturday they are ready,” Masala says.
Masala primarily supplies informal traders who buy bananas directly from the farm for resale in surrounding towns and villages.
Also read: Avocado oil plant spurs rural industrialisation in Limpopo
Vegetables add another income stream
Fruit is not the only crop enterprise on the farm.
Masala also grows vegetables, including cabbages, spinach and butternuts, supplying both local retailers and informal markets.
Vegetable production complements the orchards and contributes to the farm’s strategy of producing across different commodities and marketing periods rather than relying on one crop.
It also demonstrates the integrated nature of the broader farming operation. Very little that cannot be marketed goes to waste. Cabbages unsuitable for the fresh market, damaged vegetables and other crop residues can be fed to livestock, while maize grown on the farm is milled and incorporated into pig rations.
The relationship also works in the opposite direction.
Organic manure from the livestock units is spread in the orchards and vegetable fields, helping to improve soil fertility while reducing dependence on commercial fertiliser.
Also read: From farm to world: Optimising avocado supply chains
Expansion now depends on land
Having established production and markets, Masala’s challenge was finding enough land to continue growing the business.
Demand for his products continues to increase, but suitable agricultural land in the area often remains idle because owners are unwilling to lease or develop it. More land would allow him to plant additional fruit trees and vegetables while also creating room for the other enterprises on the farm.
Masala has already acquired another farm near Louis Trichardt, where he plans to expand his operation.
It is another step in a farming journey that began with a single maize field and has grown into a diversified agricultural business in only five years.
In the next instalments, we look more closely at Masala’s commercial layer and indigenous poultry operations, piggery, and the sheep and Boer goat enterprises he is building through controlled breeding and management.
Also read:
Communal farming that pays: Boer goats and Meatmaster sheep driving profit in Limpopo
She slept in a tent to build her pecan nut empire: Sibongile Mabasa’s journey of determination
At 21, Euphros Rametsi is building a future in livestock farming
