 Hello everybody. Welcome to the private property farming podcast. My name is Mali Moko and today I'm joined by a young farmer, Byron Boyson, who is from the western Cape or farming in the western Cape rather. And his farm is called Boyson Tunnel Farming. So today the topic that we're going to be discussing is greenhouse or tunnel farming because that is what Byron is producing under in greenhouses, which is covered or covered or under protection type of farming. So without further ado, I want to introduce it to Byron. But I think I might just add that in today's topic as well, I think we might touch on something quite sensitive for some viewers, just based on Byron's story and sharing his experience. So I just want to express that the views expressed in today's podcast are purely those of the guests and not representing private property whatsoever. So yeah, please feel free to engage and interact with us as we are live on all the platforms, social media platforms to be specific. But let's get into it. Byron, how are you doing? Hello. Good afternoon, Barley. How are you? I'm well. Thank you. It's nice and warm in Cape Town. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you. Has it been raining these past couple of days in Cape Town? It has been a much cooler week this week, so the tomatoes is taking some time to turn red, but it's been a cool weather, some rain, but mostly warm. Awesome to hear that. So I heard some tomatoes. Tell us about who Byron is and your production and how did you get into farming? Yes, definitely. No, thank you for this platform. It's good to have a talk here on private property. I'm Byron Poison. I'm from Graifenthe in Alpenterst Form. That's where we lease 1.7 hectares of land, which we have our greenhouse tunnels on. In the greenhouse tunnels, we cultivate vegetables hydroponically, and we do tomatoes, green peppers, green beans, et cetera. But my name in the community is sometimes saved as Byron Tomato, because that's the quickest way my clients get to me. So we have been farming now for six years, and being here for six years has learned us a lot of ups and downs, a lot of tricks to the trade, and also how to obviously do base practices in terms of what we do in our farming, and also learn a lot from other people. We have obviously been a company that has been supported by government. I started this initiative whenever I was 23 years old with the idea of wanting to engage with people, and I saw an opportunity where obviously food security and food production is something key to work creation and just being engaging with people socially. For me, that was always the push to what do I want to create as an entrepreneur, and I wanted to be part of farming. I got the opportunity, and I applied my mind to an idea business plan that was seen as credible, and I got support from the government, the Western Capital Department of Agriculture. Through that support, we established infrastructure of which we now produce anything from 40 to 120 tons of tomatoes a season, depending on which crop and which cultivar we use. Okay, awesome. It's very rare that people sometimes mention support from government, but if you could just elaborate, what type of support did you get? Was it financial? Was it technical? We got a bit of both because of the program in caste funding. There's a different funding available in government, and I think people should obviously engage government to see what is available, and what is the part you need to go at, because having land available is a crucial element, and mostly when we get questions, and I'm sure you get questions a lot as well, where people engage, how can I get involved with hydroponics or farming or outside farming, and then I stood the need that you need land, you need water, you need to have a business plan, and you need a market, you need to engage and see. The market unfortunately won't give you any context before that, because you don't have a product yet. So you need to go do these things and even start it in a small scale just to give people a taste of what you can do. Absolutely. I like that you said that your clients already call you by Byron Tomato. So that's a brand already. Byron, tell me, the land that you're producing on, are you earning it, or is it on a long-term lease? And secondly, why did you specifically decide to go for hydroponic farming and not farm directly in the soil? Thank you very much. I think that question is actually very integrated to each other, because I don't own the land. I'm an harvest farm where poisons tunnel farming is situated. We rent 1.7 hectares of land, of which the land is obviously very small in terms of outside farming. To be a commercial farmer and to produce into a level to your market that is very sustainable, we chose hydroponics as the way forward, because we can also grow vegetables vertically. The vertical space that you have in the tunnel is also something that needs to be counted for, because crops like tomatoes, intermittent tomatoes, green beans and green peppers and cucumbers are very good vine products, which can obviously create a good yield, which is necessary for a small space of land. Absolutely. So you have to maximize every corner or every space or every square meter on your farm to obviously get a good yield and a good return on investment on that yield. Is that correct? Yes. So you mentioned that you're currently producing tomatoes, green beans, peppers, etc. How difficult was it to find market when you initially started off? And what type of clients are you also supplying to? Because we are so close to the residential border, there is a lot of need for people that are creating their own businesses. So hawkers, the informal markets, the informal businesses that's around that is a big, big, big yield. And a lot of people are very angry for the amount of produce that we have, especially my valued crops like green peppers and tomatoes. We did sell to pick and pay at the beginning small amounts, but because our enterprise is of such a size that it's too small to produce to the retail, but too big to just be a local. So we are starting to breach that gap now by building more tunnels as we speak now. To breach that gap to actually be able to go out to more commercial markets and establish the Byron tomato brand or voice and tunnel farming much more elegantly into the market. Wow. And Byron, tell us how many people are employing currently and just maybe explain in terms of your journey of being a business person as a farmer, having to manage employees as at such a young age because you mentioned that you started at the age of what 23 as I presume. Yeah, I know it's every year has been a learning learning stage. It's not perfected at all yet. So we employ about five people now, which is regularly on the farm. As we know, a lot of the things are seasonal as well, which because we don't necessarily harvest all the time, so we can't have everyone on station all the time. But also the size of the business that it's effective to also manage your personnel properly because it also means that the ones that do work for you actually do have full time work to sustain them. And actually, where the income actually makes an impact in their livelihood much more sustainably than if it would be with a seasonal worker outlook. So it makes an effect on their livelihood economically. And that's the way we are philosophies in terms of how we employ and we employ. And as you said, I was young at that stage and I think I'm still still young and still qualify as youth in the farming industry. So there's still a lot of a lot of room to educate and learn from. Wow. So what are some of the mistakes that you've done in the past that you've definitely learned from today? And maybe, you know, for anybody that's listening, they could find value in some of those mistakes. I think it becomes down to when you are too advanced explorative and, you know, excitable that you sometimes try new things that nobody really tries in the area or whatever. Like I tried to do baby marrows in the winter here in the Western Cape. But to credit to my mistake, I did do some research about the minimum temperatures in the area and it differs from other areas, even a few kilometers from here. But you do make mistakes in terms of, you know, investing into that and then obviously not getting the returns that you're supposed to have made. But we've learned that baby marrows can work in the tunnel in the winter, but you need bees to really pollinate and help with that. Effectively, especially inside of a tunnel structure because you have insect netting with actually prehumid, prehumid, so now I actually have to have bees inside. But, you know, I'm not a very talented beekeeper, so I don't know how that was necessarily going to work. So I need to upscale my skills in that regard. Wow, I mean, if I could share my experience, I don't think baby marrows are good for tunnels. Yeah, because of that, you know, they need pollination and also they just need direct sunlight and we've personally tried back in, I think, 2017 baby marrows in the tunnels and we just didn't get a good outcome. You know, I definitely say that they perform better outdoors. Yeah, without any protection and then I've also planted them under shade net as well. They work slightly better, but I just feel like, you know, they should just be left outside and have, yeah, I think just take advantage of the full sun and the bees, etc. And also when it rains, it's, you know, you see very, very nice fruits after that. Thank you, Byron. Another question I wanted to is that you mentioned that when you started, you know, you had to do some research and you got some government support, etc. To date, do you have mentors in your business? And if so, what type of relationship do you have with them? No, very much so. Landlord is one of them. I sometimes say I'm, I'm blessed with a lot of people with gray hair around me because all of that wisdom you really do learn from it. And luckily for me, it's all people that are very stable and a very positive outlook, which is parallel to my own in terms of what we want to create and that is opportunities. And also if they see the willingness for myself to learn and also contribute to the agricultural, even if it is primarily to produce food for your area. And I think we are replaced in terms of having good mentors around and my landlords, I said one of them and there are many others. I mean, my parents are also included into that. And it's far beyond just technical mentoring. It's also, it comes down to financial, technical, you know, plant-based and also to look five to ten years ahead sometimes type of mentoring. Because if I chose this as a livelihood, then there are people that already have gone through these type of situations. Even though we are, you know, in the, in the light of where we are now in the world, we have different, you know, situations or problems to deal with. Like, you know, obviously our current COVID-19 being, being a current hurdle that we all have to get over with. But also see what opportunities there is to obviously help you sustain or be a futuristic farmer. Absolutely. I think mentors are key in any operation or business operation rather. But are you currently mentoring any upcoming farmers or you area? I am next year going to uptake a situation where we are building tunnels at schools. I am thinking about mentoring at that school where we are going to build these tunnels. There's not a specific point-out person that I am necessarily mentoring or business that I'm mentoring, but we have a large amount of interest. We are trying to slowly shift to become some sort of consultancy agency as well because there's so much, you know, interest in it. And it's really, really a big thing that I see everywhere where people are asking for assistance. And we are wanting to invite interns and people that have studied agri-soil or any agricultural course to be able to come to Boises Tunnel Farming, learn what we are doing because at the end of the day, information can be there. You can have a jump program, but if you don't follow it, you're not going to get results. So it's also up to you to make it successful. Do you know, your farmers has been recently affected by land grabs? Tell us about that situation and how it's disrupted your business and how are you dealing with this issue? Yes, for us, I think the main issue practically for the business was the fact that our access road was blocked a lot and it became a bit risky to obviously leave and so on. I think we are in solidarity with the people that the fact that people need housing, need access to land, need services, it is an issue. But being at the bordering of the farm and for my landlord, it was a big complication because obviously it's private property, et cetera, and we're not getting any assistance or help from government to say that this is the negotiation, this what's happening, nothing. So we have no direction in terms of that. I think for us as a farming community here, we would like that that order be protected anyway by giving people access to farming land, just to do subsistence farming, to also value the environment because there's a lot of dumping happening, there's a lot of non environmentally friendly things happening, which I think we should go back to even if we do both informally anyway, we should have respect for each other and respect for the environment because we need to know and educate ourselves to know that we need that land again tomorrow. Because at the end of the day, a lot of the stuff that's happening as well and this is all my opinion and some might share it and some might not share it. But when we take land informally and demand by means of protest for services, we either water or electricity or any other things that we might not have had. We are actually making each other poorer because people do not live in that situation now all the guys that coordinated these stuff are gone or missing. There's no electricity, there's no water for people so the disruption of our communities moral fiber is unfortunately has friction now because some has water and some doesn't have water. So, and obviously it becomes a government problem, which we understand, but we need to somehow the ones that have it don't have to agree that this is the way forward. And to be honest, and we know emails do not work anymore. Emails do not give us any attention. But we, from our side from a farming community side we want to engage with the community and say, this is land we have available let's do it differently because that's where the education part comes in. And then it engages youth youth employment, you know kids that's playing around that doesn't have that's not going to school at the moment because of COVID. There's going to be social constraints and issues later on. What are we going to do people are starting gangs and you know, and we shouldn't forget these things if you don't are not in the area. It's going to affect everyone at the end of the day. And then that is where we should see that any bordering space that is wanting to be built at unity with all the clever people we have architects and engineers and everything there should be a solution where we can give people basic and all the things they need to be able to survive in an environmentally clean workplace. Yeah, by an excuse my ignorance here. Right. Let's just take it back. Just the step. Let's just take it a step back. Okay. You're breaking up. But I want to understand is that Pardon. You're breaking up a little bit now. Sorry. Yes, I'm listening. Okay, so you mentioned that you're known in the area as Byron tomato, right? So my understanding is that the community knows who you are, what you're doing. You know that you're farming on this really functional enterprise. So now when one morning or I don't know if you live on the phone houses, producing you know going about your daily life and your daily activities at the farm. And then all of a sudden you just started to see people building like how did this happen. Or did it just was just one occupant putting a house then you know slowly but surely there was another and there was another and maybe did you report that to police. Like, how did how did these things happen and the reason why I'm asking is that because we read about this in the news read about it online in the news. But from an underground perspective a reality perspective is like, how did this happen how did how did these things just happen you know, is it just overnight building or does it happen gradually. It's not overnight it happens gradually and it happened over time. There is frequent and a lot of documentation of us reporting this this issue, the need for people to have houses, because we could see it happening slowly and slowly until one day came close to the election, previous election I think, and it just boomed. There was many, many, it was a collaborative thing you could see it's not just one spot it was all over it's like spots all over if it's the Western Cape or the country it happened. So, these type of movements on it necessarily coordinated with the view that is just to give people access to homes. There are actually people that I should probably not even say this, that are profiteering from these type of things to to liais and group people together in that way. I think at the end of the day, a lot of this land was earmarked for development of homes with infrastructure and everything, but then the system takes too long to be able to engage with the people and to negotiate terms, which obviously one of the terms is to employ the people from our community please, which is fair. But those things never filter through and it takes very long and people get within themselves get frustrated and this movement is collaborated to distort everything. So a lot of people that is maybe standing in the line for many years are now going to be delayed even further. The money that was earmarked for spaces to be developed is pushed back into budgets and who knows what happens with that budgets in the future. So it is not an overnight problem. It is something that's cooking and the government has been sitting on an egg and not wondering what egg it is they're sitting on it's a chicken egg or alligator egg or whatever. I don't know if alligator is an egg, but you know, so something is cooking. But at the end of the day, we can't dwell on those things we need to see what all can we solve this. Yeah. Wow, it's going to take a very long time for you to, you know, find a solution. That would work best for your farm for the for the for the people in the community and the owner of your property. So yeah, I'm wishing you the best of luck and just managing this out and I just really hope that your business whilst you're still dealing with this and I'm sure other farmers also have been affected is that correct or suggest you in that specific area. I think a lot of people do feel the effect of what is happening as not just our farm or the farm here that is on the border I think it's something that other farmers are prospectively seeing is going to be an issue because we have now become used to the fact that we can't do anything. There's no, there's no, there's almost no consequence for groups of people doing something that is not, you know, democratically chosen to do. It was just within the within their power to do it. And there's no, there's no consequence. It's because of I think apathy from our government and it's with all due respect to the fact that even though their policies or whatever could be enabling us, a lot of this stuff is taking away our power to be individual that actually wants better for all of our people. Because we do not deserve to just build, build, build, we deserve to have an area to build properly with on infrastructure that we actually can deem ourselves respected by our fellows citizens in the country. Yeah, well, but I'm positive notes are an intercosal for our conversation. What is next for boys and tunnel farming. Oh, thank you. That's very exciting. I think next for us is to obviously take over the whole northern suburbs and then slowly get up grip into the whole of the Cape Town area to really know that we are a prominent feature and a product to be dealt with. We are moving into that that space now and I think further for us to become a consultancy building tunnels at schools. So big, big, big thing for us and we want government and all one NGOs and MPOs to support us with that. Because if you have finance for those things we have the expertise and we can implement it. And that's a very exciting thing all over South Africa. And we have good partners that can help us to enable that initiative. All right, awesome. Wishing you all the best of success. And yeah, I know I know you're one farmer and entrepreneur that we need to keep an eye on. So good luck with everything and happy harvesting. Thank you very much. Same to you. And then tribute to you. I would just like to say I also brought my hat. And I take a lot of encouragement from what you are doing up north. Thank you very much. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll be in touch soon. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Well, that was Brian Borson joining us all the way from the Western Cape. He is from Borson Tunnel Farming. He's a young farmer that is currently producing high value crops in greenhouse tunnels and that are cucumbers, tomatoes as well as cucumbers, supplying to his local market. And as you heard from the story, you know, he did all that he could just to make his farming reality, a farming dreamer reality. And that he is one that also commends the government for supporting him to kickstarting his project and his tunnel enterprise. So, yeah, I hope you've got enough, a lot of inspiration and value out of our conversation today. And please do join us next week as we joined by another guest and keep those questions, comments, likes, shares coming. The video would be posted live on to all the private property platforms post this but most importantly you could catch it on YouTube channel. And yeah, see you next week and thank you very much for your time. Take care.