A new Fruit & Veg City opening in Mdantsane near East London in the Eastern Cape has created opportunities for emerging farmers to sell their produce, thanks to a connection made by Lungile Sululu, Agribusiness Project Coordinator at The Business Place’s King William’s Town branch.
On noticing the store Lungile met with the manager, Mr Mlibo Mkrweqe, to try to persuade him to take produce from emerging farmers and he proved very willing to do this. The Agribusiness project has been running for several years and there are a number of different farmers’ cooperatives being supported. This linkage means access to market for twelve different co-ops, most of which consist of between eight to fifteen members.
In order to assist the emerging farmers the store manager arranged for payment to be cash on delivery for under R5,000 of produce which allows them to replenish their stock. The other advantage in selling direct to the store is it cuts out paying the handling fees which would be charged if they took their produce to the municipal market in East London. Mdantsane is a lot closer so they don’t have to pay a large amount for transport which was previously cutting into any profit they would have made.
TBP eQonce has also assisted the farmers with marketing workshops and negotiating skills to try to help them forge these types of linkages themselves.
Going forward Lungile is working on helping the farmers to diversify away from just vegetable production, for example moving into broiler farming and piggery as there are potential markets available in these areas. They also need to get training on costing and pricing and record keeping to ensure that they get the right price for their produce and this money is recorded correctly.