Farmers of the Future: Empowering Unemployed Youth

Farmers of the Future has kicked off strong this last quarter! Farmers from Phase 1 at Sasekile Garden have graduated to Phase 2 at Sunguti Farms. We have now recruited two new farmers to start Phase 1 to follow and agricultural curriculum.

For Phase 1, we have finished turning the soil, weeding and flattening the plots in Sasekile gardens and have separated and allocated the plots to the gardeners. We added manure and compost to the plots and we so far have planted 628 seedlings of tomato, spinach and onion.

In terms of project development it has been an exciting month! The Kruger team have had several meetings with the tribal council where they presented the project and what we need for project development, which is a plot of farmable land that is currently not being used. The great news is - they have agreed to give us a very large plot of land for Phase 2. 

We are SO excited to kick start this new farm for Phase 2. The space will allow the farmers to sustainably grow their produce and also allow more participants to join in the future. 

Be on the look out next week for the launch of our new fundraising campaign and a chance to win a free placement with African Impact! Thanks to everyone for supporting. 

Farmers of the Future has seen some incredible developments since the projects inception and launch in June 2017. With the establishment of our Sasekile Gardens, the introduction and training of a concentrated group of subsistence gardeners, we all worked together to breathe life into phase one of this four phase social development program. Phase one looks to work with young adults from the local community and initially teach them the basics of subsistence gardening (growing food to eat).

In the first 3 months of this 6 month phase each gardener completed a full crop cycle from preparing the ground, to planting, maintenance of their plots and finally harvesting. After that they started the cycle off again. Within these six months we had the additional tasks of putting up a fence around the whole garden to both protect from animals coming in and eating the crops and to also give the gardeners ownership over their plots. We established a composting station, we negotiated regular access to good water and ran a basic agricultural curriculum all at the same time. All of the above was made possible by the hard work of the gardeners, incredible dedication (and donations) from African Impact volunteers and generous donations to the African Impact Foundation, without which none of this would be possible.

Within these two crop cycles over the 6 months from June to December the gardeners each found their own great success. Every one of the gardeners enjoyed the spoils of their hard work. Portia grew 42.3kgs of vegetables, Taelo harvested 74.3kgs, Bheki managed 46.8kgs, Remember - 42.7kgs and Mission, after enjoying some of the food for himself and his family went to study administration at college – we are extremely proud of him for this brave move!

Today we find ourselves in phase 2 of this highly successful project, with a new group of subsistence gardeners joining the project at phase 1 in Sasekile Gardens our previous phase 1 gardeners now graduate to phase 2 where they establish a much larger ‘mini-farm’ at Sunguti Farm (‘New Beginnings Farm’). Sunguti is a 1 hectare area where our gardeners become ‘first-stage-farmers’. In phase 3 we see our gardeners taking on an even larger area where they become what we term as ‘fully-fledged-farmers’. Sunguti is located on a beautiful piece of fertile land, with rolling hills and a river running through, this is an idyllic spot in the Acornhoek area for our gardeners to graduate to the next level of business development and self-sufficiency. The owner of this land is a local man called Bennedicter (Benica).

Thanks to everyone who has contributed and for your continued support. We are beyond excited for the next stages and have already seen such immense growth in both participants and skills learned! Keep in touch more information regarding the last Phases!