Since the early 2000s, Grain SA has been dedicated to the sustainable development of emerging farmers from subsistence to commercialisation. Since our programme is about farmer development, our primary aim is to assist active grain farmers to grow grain profitably using the best available technologies and practices for sustainability.
Despite the challenges and many other changes over the years, the heartbeat of the Grain SA Farmer Development programme remains unchanged. We care about agricultural development in South Africa, and we care about farmers growing their enterprises even within a challenging environment – we always strive to make a positive difference wherever we place our footprint. Our vision is to contribute to the development of an inclusive rural economy in which all farmers should have greater opportunities to meaningfully participate in the economic, environmental and social opportunities on offer. Our mission is to do the following:
- Develop and capacitate sustainable grain farming enterprises in South Africa.
- Ensure increased access to sustainable funding of farmers as well as the commercial viability of advanced farmers towards self-sustainability.
- Increase hectares under grain production within the custodianship of emerging farmers.
- Support the inclusion of both young farmers and female farmers into the grain industry.
- Ensure the employment of good agricultural practices on all agricultural land under production.
- Support the diversification of grain farming enterprises to ensure enterprise-wide sustainability.
- Increase the emerging farmer contribution to national food security.
After many years of footwork at grassroots level, we now have a well-established footprint with regional development managers, mentors and administrative staff in position to meet farmers and identify their needs in order to offer adaptive and responsive developmental support.
The team is led by Dr Sandile Ngcamphalala from the corporate office of Grain SA in Pretoria. He is supported by Liana Stroebel as the training and operations manager and Jean Adams who is responsible for the day-to-day coordination and support of the farmer development field teams as well as other secretarial services for the programme.
At the regional development level, the footprint of the Grain SA Farmer Development programme presently extends to nine development regions, with each presenting its own unique character and needs.
Across the different regions, we cluster our farmers into the following groups:
- Study group members who are subsistence farmers, cultivating less than 10 ha of arable land.
- Small-holder farmers operating on 10,5 ha up to 100 ha of arable land.
- Potential commercial farmers farming over 100 ha of arable land.
- New era commercial farmers who are producing more than 250 tons per year.
In some regions like the Western Cape, North West Province and the Free State, we service fewer, larger farmers who would fall into the potential commercial farmer and new era farmer categories, while other regions such as Mpumalanga, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape are dominated by subsistence and small-holder farmers. There are, however, concerted efforts to develop more potential new era and new era farmers across all the development regions.
As we strive for continuous learning and adapting to ensure sustainability and relevance, we are committed to attract good talent across our responsibility programmes. Trainers and mentors are our last-mile team for supporting farmers. We also strive to continuously develop collaborating relationships with well-aligned industry partners to strengthen our efforts, accelerate growth and develop a network of support for farmers locally.
