2024 Grain SA Smallholder Farmer of the Year finalist, Buyisiwe Dhlamini (56), may not have walked away as the winner of this category, but he seized the opportunity to increase his agricultural knowledge.
This passionate farmer dreams of excellence and is always striving to improve from one season to the next.
At the Day of Celebration, he paid careful attention to the videos shown of the other finalists’ farming operations. He also chatted to farmers to hear what they do that would help him improve his farming enterprise.
Buyisiwe’s father was a farmer on the farm Welgedacht near Volksrust. He and his siblings all had to help on the farm from an early age. After leaving school he stayed on the farm and worked there for five years. He then exchanged farm life for the bustling city of Johannesburg where he built and installed petrol tanks at petrol stations for four years.
He then changed careers and worked as a driver delivering frozen goods. He soon saw a business opportunity and bought his own truck. This delivery operation is still active in Daggakraal where he now lives. In this period, he also worked at a scrapyard. Seeing another business opportunity there, he soon started his own scrapyard, a business he has since given to his son.
At this stage Buyisiwe’s brother started pulling him into his farming enterprise and soon Buyisiwe dreamed of farming on his own. He started buying farming equipment and joined the Job Fund Maize Project of Grain SA in 2018, which was his starting point in agriculture. Although it is a big honour to have been elected as a finalist, he still sees the fact that he learned to plant and grow maize and soybeans as his biggest achievement to date.
His brother has played a huge part in his success, but it is the assistance and advice of the PGP farmer development team that has helped him become a successful farmer. Once he began applying the correct agricultural practices, he saw that there is profit involved in farming – and profit meant he could grow his farming operation and plant more hectares. And more hectares mean more work opportunities for the community members who are employed in season.
BUYISIWE’S STORY
What is the best advice you have been given?
To rip my fields! You need to have space in your soil for the roots to grow wide and deep. The other advice that has improved my yield was about plant population – to not plant seeds too close to each other. If the plants have enough space for nutrients and water, you have a good chance of realising a good yield.
What keeps you going in tough times?
If there is a bad year and I don’t make money, I have to keep going because it’s my business. I have built this business up from scratch, I have implements, so I can’t not continue. It is also my passion – I must keep going.
How can we motivate the youth to farm?
By mentoring them, being an example to them, and showing them that there is joy in farming. Tell them about the challenges and the fulfilment of seeing crops grow from a seed.
FARM FACTS
Farm: Daggakraal (leased land)
Nearest town: Volksrust
Region: Mpumalanga
Size: 22 ha – planted 19 ha of maize and 0,5 ha of dry beans
Type: Mixed – crops (soybeans and dry beans) and some cattle and chickens
PGP’S CONTRIBUTION
- Joined Grain SA in 2018
- Pixley ka Seme study group
Training courses completed:
- Workshop skills development: Workshop tools
- Nutrition: Different food groups
- Introduction to dry bean production
A mentor’s view:
Timon Filter, mentor from the Louwsburg regional office, says Buyisiwe is a farmer who is striving for excellence. ‘He truly has a mind and a heart for agriculture. His is a success story of profitability in farming.’ Timon is very proud of this passionate farmer who always listens to advice. ‘He improves every year and becomes more confident to grow maize and soybeans. He wants his fields to reach potential and isn’t happy when that doesn’t happen. He also doesn’t let a bad year affect his passion for farming.’
