Ndivhuwo Nyambeni’s avocado farm is different to what you might find elsewhere. The trees are scattered around 10 hectares in no particular order and thrive in the Venda climate. Nyambeni never planned to be a farmer.
He was in his second year at Wits University, studying electrical engineering, when his father died. He returned to take over the farm and to see his four younger siblings through school. But the area, 15km north of Thokoyandou in Limpopo, is infested with a fungus called blackspot, which affects the appearance but not the taste of the avocados. Nyambeni would harvest his blemished fruit and take it to a distributor who would take it to larger markets, such as Johannesburg.
Once delivered, agents would be responsible for the sale of the fruit. Sometimes with this costly supply chain there would be no profit and, occasionally, Nyambeni would even be called on to pay in. His experience was shared by other avocado farmers in the area. But the growers in Venda do have one advantage — a climatic one.
Avocado-crazy South Africans want the fruit all year round although the season lasts for only nine months of the year. So they are imported from Spain — at a high monetary and carbon cost. But now it seems that Nyambeni and others like him might to be able to fill some of this demand with a variety of avocado that ripens two weeks before others. In 2008 Westfalia, the largest avocado producer in South Africa, identified a group of emerging farmers in Venda who could produce early ripening fruit and Nyambeni was one of them.
Lusito Khumalo, Westfalia’s general manager of enterprise development, says that reducing the dependence on imports was behind the drive to help the farmers. Westfalia saw an opportunity to link up with growers who were already producing fruit two weeks before the start of the season. But several challenges facing the farmers had to be remedied, among them the high-cost supply chain and growers being unable to link up with the high-end market. Nyambeni was selling his avocados for R2 a kilogram when the high-end market was paying up to R10 a kilogram for quality fruit.
Development projects
Blackspot was a burning issue and Westfalia approached Woolworths to back a blackspot spray project. Woolworths provided a guarantee to buy the fruit if it was of high quality and also a soft loan of more than R700 000 for working capital and equipment finance. The project began with 10 small farmers.
Although Westfalia invests R1,3-million each year in enterprise development projects it is careful not to create dependency and this project was based on training. “If these projects are to be sustainable, the farmers must contribute something,” Khumalo says.
Westfalia helped to spray the plants and also provided the use of its packhouse and distribution system. But Westfalia is not a middleman, says Khumalo. “Farmers are involved throughout the chain. They are very much part of managing their business.” The project met its objectives and almost all the fruit was up to Woolworths’ standards. “It told us this project is feasible and there is real opportunity here.” But nine of the farmers did not wish to continue with the project after the first harvest. When paid out, their expectations were not met.
Khumalo says it is difficult for older farmers in the area to look at the long-term benefits. It was not worthwhile for them after covering costs such as tractor and truck hire. What is needed, Khumalo believes, is for the government to subsidise some of the fixed costs. But Nyambeni, because he owned the bulk of the farming land, saw the value of the project and has continued with it. He has just harvested his second season and managed to deliver more than 30 tonnes of avocados.
He employs four permanent workers, six annual sprayers and up to 40 seasonal workers. He also owns another 40 hectares that can be developed for avocado farming but he will need help — it can cost up to R80 000 to develop one hectare from scratch.
The Lwamondo Avo Estate is the next project Westfalia is turning its attention to. A hundred hectares of land belonging to the Lwamondo community has been surveyed to plant an early maturing cultivar but Westfalia is waiting for a lease agreement from the government as the land is state-owned.
The 100 hectares and Nyambeni’s 50 hectares could greatly reduce imports and provide much-needed employment for the surrounding communities.