Season One Episode Galleries
COCKY MOKOKA
South Africans love the Brazilians’ soccer brilliance. And, as it turns out, we love their farming, too! When Cocky Mokoka read about how Brazilian farmers had transformed their businesses by no longer ploughing or working their soil, he knew what he had to do.
Today, Mother Nature is the best farmworker Cocky has. In exchange for having stopped to fight her with chemicals and poison, Mother Nature has rewarded Cocky with soil that is becoming ever more fertile. This has allowed Cocky to cut costs and increase his profits across his farm – from his maize and soya crops to his cattle.
Duncan MOALOSI SERAPELWANE
A trip halfway across the globe and the teachings of two renowned entrepreneurs set Duncan Moalosi Serapelwane on a path back to farming – one he vowed as a child he’d never walk. Today this former teacher is a Bonsmara stud farmer and has found meaning in making a name for himself as an elite breeder of these iconic red South African cattle.
JIMMY AND LERATO BOTHA
Fast and intensive – that’s what it’s like to grow herbs in tunnels. Almost every day you’re harvesting, selling but also planting, just to keep ahead of your customer’s demand for daily fresh herbs.
To keep all the moving parts of such a fast-paced business running smoothly, one needs a well-oiled team, and they don’t come much better that Jimmy Botha and his daughter Lerato
Kobela Mokgohloa
Flying over a plot of land that had been in the family for three generations was all it took for pilot Kobela Mokgohloa to hang up his pilot’s wings. And so it also happened that Kobela started farming hydroponic cucumbers intensively on the family plot in Winterveldt, north of Pretoria. Not bad for a township boy who grew up in Shoshanguve and taught himself farming by reading books from his local library.
KLEINJAN GASEKOMA
It’s one of the most prestigious awards in farming, won by some of the best cattle farmers this country has ever seen, and in 2016 history was made when Klein Gasekoma from Reivilo in the North West province became the first black farmer to win the coveted award of commercial cattle farmer of the year. “A true winner in every respect,” was how the judges described him at the time. A far cry from the days when he worked at the railways and dreamed of one day owning a farm of his own.
OBAKENG MFIKWE
Great doctor, better farmer! It would take a family tragedy to launch this young doctor’s impressive farming career. Following his elder brother Rotham’s tragic passing in a car accident, Obakeng found himself increasingly having to take off time from his medical practice in Fourways in Johannesburg to help his ageing dad with the family’s communal cattle farming at Beestekraal, close to Jericho in North West.
NTSIKI BIYELA
She grew up herding cattle and milking cows in a remote rural village in the Ugu district of KwaZulu-Natal. Never in her wildest dreams could Ntsiki Biyela ever have imagined that she would one day make history by becoming South Africa’s first black female winemaker.
Theo van Rooyen
Growing up in Williston in the Northern Cape, all Theo van Rooyen wanted to be when he grew up was a sheep farmer. Then his father got a job on a fruit farm in the Koue Bokkeveld close to Ceres in the Western Cape, and his life changed forever.
NTshilidzi Matshidzula
Not only is Tshilidzi Matshidzula one of the best dairy farmers at the country, he also made history when he won the coveted Eastern Cape Young Farmer of the Year award back in 2016, the first black farmer to ever do so. It was the first of many historic firsts, and today, at just 31, this youngster that goes by the name of Chilli, is already one of South Africa’s black farming legends
Sinelizwe Fakade
Sinelizwe Fakade is smart, not because of his master’s degree in agriculture, but rather because of how he gets things done. Working for Grain SA in the Eastern Cape, he grew the number of farmers he was helping from just a few hundred to 3 500 who were planting 3000ha of maize – in just three years! But Sinelizwe Fakade wanted to be the one doing the farming. So he went to visit his old friend and mentor, the legendary farmer Rob Farrington, who agreed to help.
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