 welcome to the private property. Today we're going to be speaking to a young entrepreneur who's decided to pursue a career within the vegetable gardening and food nutrition space and we are speaking to none other than Bucaw Dem who is the founder of Be Somebody SA. She started a project or a company throughout the global pandemic and she's here to tell us about how the business has grown since then and what exactly organization does within this industry. So if you have any comments or maybe questions for our guests regarding regarding food gardening and nutrition please feel free to comment. We love to hear your thoughts your interaction and just have engagement along our shows because we actually are doing this podcast for you where we could give you insights and knowledge to what happens in the agriculture industry or your questions regarding food and agriculture and yeah obviously just introduce you to industry experts entrepreneurs in the space who are doing phenomenal things on the ground. So let's get in touch with our guest this evening Bucaw Dem. Thank you so much for coming on to the show. How are you doing? Hi I'm doing very well thank you. Very super well actually. How are you doing? I'm doing all right thank you. So you've got quite an interesting name in this industry with regards to your business. Be Somebody South Africa. Tell us about it. Well Be Somebody is a we are an online fish produce store and it started really as a concept of wanting everybody to be somebody. I'm being and my name is Linda Tosa and during COVID when it all started we had no money all my other businesses fell down and being able to go buy food and other necessities was like okay do I want to rather buy electricity or do I want to rather buy some vegetables and then I started researching going on YouTube as to how I can actually grow my own vegetables and it worked out and then I started sharing it with my neighbors and my neighbors asked if you'd be allowed to buy vegetables and then I thought hang on if I can actually give my vegetables and people love my vegetables and I can actually be able to sell my vegetables as well and that's how Be Somebody is actually started and I'm proud to say that on the launch we're going to be celebrating our one year anniversary. Oh that's fantastic one year is a great milestone especially for something that just started off you know just trying to meet a specific need. You mentioned that you had other businesses before you know how has your journey just been on entrepreneur being especially learning through a lot of trials and areas before COVID-19 came about and then we'll talk about how now you're finding the space of entrepreneurship in the food and agriculture industry so just what type of businesses were you involved in before and how did that impact how did the COVID-19 impact those businesses for you to just move or change directions and go into the agriculture space. Yeah it was a tourism business actually that I had because I used to work for a tourism company I was an experience manager where I was creating different tours for tourists to go on. COVID happened obviously that will die down. Yeah and then what we used to do actually is that we used to take the tourists to go on the farms because they work with different farmers from the townships to help them out with resources as well as people to go work there for them. So now they were always asking you for tourist tourists like not tourists they're not here they said it's COVID and then I started through the vegetable company and now what's great is that I've been able to combine the tourism as well as the food and agriculture space by actually creating tours that do go to the farms and help the farmers out help them onto resources then to grow vegetables. So it worked out eventually. Yes so how does be somebody help organization to grow to grow food and build communities? Well our whole organization I call myself a social entrepreneur I believe community and the whole philosophy of the world do and making sure that for all of us to grow you know for me to grow you need to grow as well. So what we do is I'm the middleman between the farmer as well as the market so I'm basically a distributor. I started off as my own mini farmer but now I actually distribute helping out the urban farmers in the township community. So we have a project of be somebody is they called be somebody with love that's where the whole tours come inside whereby we train homeless people as well as the years to become the next generation of farmers. So there's a homeless guy that we're working with Jonathan who's busy now with his IED. You see all guys getting someone to hold a shelter to put a picture of that it's okay. And so are you working you know are you working alone or are you working together with partners or have you added additional employees within be somebody? No it's completely me that's doing this but I have I have great partners actually that I work with that are also passionate about supporting the local economy and supporting homeless people as well. So basically it as much as I'm doing it by myself if I need someone to help me up with something they're the first people to be able to say yeah let's do this. So yeah what we do with the homeless people is that they go through a training program for six months it's a seven-day learning as well as practical work that we do with a group called abalone musicaya where they have a booklet and they learn about the different vegetables how to grow them the basics soil types that you put it in etc. And then often then they go through a five-month practical application of that knowledge and how that actually works is that we work together with a farmer that we know we identified that they need help over time with resources and people to work make so that's where the homeless person goes to train but also work at the same time. And then after that period of five months when they've completed the training the farmer then gives us a small piece of land on that big hectare of land that he has so that we can be able to continue our project and continue to employ this homeless guy. Right so since you started I mean you've said you're one year now um how many homeless people have you trained and and put onto these farms? Just one. Just one. So all the all the all the for us to be able to do this we're getting all the income just from selling vegetables so to be able to control everything and not you know go crazy and not be able to afford the homeless every single month I need to make sure that I focus my resources and do one thing at a time do it good and do it well and then move on to the next person. Yeah no absolutely this is quite great I mean it sounds like a passion project I mean you did say you're you are a social entrepreneur I'm curious to find out during the COVID-19 lockdown period especially let's say level five level four what type of crops were you experimenting with and how did you get the knowledge to to to grow the crops? It was I was growing things that I was growing spinach spinach was my favorite one to grow um spinach and tomatoes I'm still quite not so amazing at growing tomatoes yet but yeah um spinach was my go to one that I was growing. Okay great and you saying you were you were you were you were eating that spinach from a personal consumption sending it to neighbors as well how did you come about with product pricing especially for the neighbors that wanted to buy spinach from you you know when you're like looking at any market prices or you know you're just thinking no I think 7 Rand is sufficient for me let's sell it for 7 Rand so how did you come up with pricing for for the products that you've grown in your garden? Research research research um most of us I I mean in the 21st century we we are blessed to have the world at the palm of our hands like literally you can go on your cell phone go on to research everything ask others people that are in the industry how much are you selling how much are you able to make out of it um and it took me about eight months for me to actually be comfortable at the pricing and be comfortable that no this pricing is is okay considering that we deliver it to your housing and considering how long the vegetable takes and that is all organic and and and so yeah. So what are some of your best benefits of good food nutrition you know now that you've had your your hands a little bit dirty you know you've you've you've shared your produce with some other customers and neighbors what are some of your best benefits um when it comes to good food nutrition? Oh for me personally and I will tell this to the whole world until forever I managed to lose 20 whole kgs of my own body weight just by actually shifting my diet onto a more vegetable focused diet um where your energy levels are up again yeah those were my own nutritional benefits that I found for myself and even now to even till today I still continue with that each and every single week I make sure that I eat my my vegetables I'm even getting into vegetable smoothies now and yeah so it's good for your mind as well as one of the most benefits that I've seen um is to be able to see because we distribute um some of the vegetables some of my clients they actually distribute the vegetables into different homeless shelters um so to be able to see your vegetables going into a different homeless shelter that you know it's nutritious food going into be eaten by someone who hardly ever eat nutritious food and you see the value and the difference that it actually has upon those people yeah those are the major benefits that I've seen. Yeah so Boko I'm quite interested to know like you mentioned you distribute the food to some of the homeless shelters and you know homeless shelters sometimes rely on donations and if you're a farmer producing food you know there's a lot that goes into it like you have to buy seeds you know um if you're irrigating from a backyard garden you are using municipal water so I can believe that you know your electricity bill or your water bill is going high how are you what's the relationship between yourself and the the homeless food shelters when it comes to pricing is it just completely donation or are you finding other individual funders or just individuals basically in the community who are paying for their produce so that you could feed the homeless shelters how are you navigating your way around generating revenue for the produce that you're selling. Okay so I work together with an organization that deals with homeless shelters right directly so they are an NGO that supply it and the company's potatoes of love and they supply homeless shelters with vegetables and food costs so they get the sponsorships and the monies to be able to support young organizations like myself that support urban farmers in this job that's just how it that's just how it goes. Oh I see I see and um you know you are a young lady in the ag industry and for the other youth in communities that in the community that's that you live and serve and also your friends have they asked you like Buko what is it that you're doing you know why would you pick farming you know has there been any interest from young people in the neighboring communities that you serve within your inner circle as friends who have shown interest in what you do and maybe have wanted to become a part of be somebody. Definitely definitely and it's actually it makes my heart smile to know that what you did and started just as a passion project is inspiring other young people to actually want to get to the whole agricultural space and actually move and business like there's this one lady she just graduated with a big take in I think agricultural management and she's just starting her farm and I thought hey actually you've reached out to me to be able to help you out with whatever it is that I have so I reached out to my friends that hey there's my other friend that sees and she needs compost can we help her out to be able to start her own business and now she's well on her way as her first month of being operational and yeah she's happy about it actually and other people when I speak about our campaign of our program whereby we're trying to train the next generation of youth just by seeing how I've been able to maneuver my way through COVID and be one year later here they are mostly definitely interested as to when is the next intake happening when do we start. Yeah and what are your parents thinking of the phenomenal work that you've done in just 12 months you know and your immediate family you know have they praised you have they wanted to support you or have some just thought okay this is just a waste of time maybe you belong in a corporate world somewhere just tell us what's the feedback how's the yeah the feedback being from your family since you started be somebody South Africa. Say my family has been absolutely so proud of him because I started this whole thing with no money I approached my brother it was my first day month I was like hey brother it's my birthday month I don't have any time to fix as my first day present how about you helped me with starting up my business I want to just register it and create the website et cetera so then he blessed me with that money to be able to start and every time when when I speak to him he's always like wow actually you're super proud of you that one year later you turn just your birthday present money and give you some help with the company and even behind us this is the time is they they at some point they were they didn't really believe it because it has to just pass something that you started because I'm the last born of the whole family it's just something that's just starting we wish her like yes but we should see how it goes and now it's gone and then here now and yeah they really are really proud of me and I know she passed away though but yeah I know where ever she is in heaven that she's definitely super proud of what I've been able to achieve I know I think she's definitely proud and condolences to in your family I just want to find out Muko you know you mentioned that your brother blessed you with some money on your birthday how much was that and what did you use that money for specifically from an input perspective you know and the reason why I'm asking is because a lot of people in the industry especially aspirin farmers when they go into farming or want to try producing their own food they tend to think that you need you know they need thousands and thousands of rands or millions of rands just to start a farming project so I think your story is one that carries so much inspiration and learning curves so you know how much did you start with it with the gardening and producing your own food and you know what tips can you give to somebody who wants to start producing their own food and just generating a little bit of income for themselves it could be a graduate student it could be an unemployed a person living in the townships it could be a homeless person you know but yeah how much did you start with and how much can one also start with just to start producing their own food so that they could sell just to generate an income I started with 1200 rand that's what my brother gave me 1200 rand and that was those costs were divided between I generated an online store because I'm an online store paid that which was 600 rand so I was left with 600 rand which then went through to just developing my my my whole product going traveling and speaking to different partners that I'd love to partner up and also it went through actually having a then a launch party which was a launch party such birthday party for myself where I invited my close friends and family to come celebrate my birthday and the launch of my company and as a birthday gift to me instead of giving me shoes and clothes or whatever they had to go on my website and actually order something on my website so that I can start generating money like that wow I think yeah you you use that money quite innovatively and I like the fact that you kept control of the costs I mean who knew that one could start an online store with just 600 rand so I guess there's no excuse for anybody out there right because look where you are now you've got a business yeah and even sorry and even with Steve as I said we we we have a vast amount of information just at the palm of our hands who knew that you can actually grow new rosemary just by propagating from the stem of an old rosemary or even using the seed from your old vegetable to create new vegetables that's how I started I didn't start off by buying seeds I actually was knowing on you searching on YouTube and finding that oh actually you can actually create a new vegetables from the vegetables that you have in your fridge and then start from there yeah and and and what are some of your vegetable gardening practices so when you start with a spinach a little bit of tomatoes what what are some of the things that you picked up along that journey you know just some dos and don'ts that you could share with some of our viewers tonight oh dos and don'ts dos definitely I guess one of them would be just start right the do is I just wanted to say just start and just as much gardening is trial and error there's there's not a do there's not a go just start and keep going if it didn't work out this time they got out why it didn't work out then try it again that's just that's just it absolutely so wow buko I think you've got an amazing story so what's next for be somebody South Africa for 2022 oh so so much me somebody is a we partnered up we started actually distributing our vegetables to a hotel here so it's just keeping that whole consistency going and just keeping good relationships with the clientele that we already have and building new partners as well as what what what's really focusing on now on this section because we've been able to figure out how to distribute the vegetables now just focusing our our our our energy mostly on the main passion which is putting homeless people sustainably into the homeless shelter and into employment and one of the actual challenges that we are struggling with with the youth just trying to figure out a sustainable way to get the youth interested in in farming and gardening because we're paying them a stipend just for them to be able to go to perform and travel but then those costs became a bit too much because you know at some point they'll be like no this is it's a lot of hard work for 200 around the week and i'm like but that's what i have to try to keep you going a long way to the side toiletries and just maybe start your own garden so it's just those challenges and tweaking here fixing your tweaking here until we have a perfect finished product fantastic thank you so much buko for your time i just want to know where can people reach out to you if they want to support you if they want to work with you is there an email address that you have or a website that we could go to yes it is www i'm actually changing my website i actually changed it today to www.dsomebodysa.com and my email address is buko at dsomebodyct.com and we have a website a watch that number which is 0766869257 but definitely it catches from the socials instagram and facebook at at bsomebodysa on both instagram and on facebook wow thank you so much buko i wish you all the best with bsomebodysa and hoping that you can get more partnerships so that you could expand expand into other homeless shelters and maybe just teach and train other homeless people you know just to make effective use of their time and for them to start gardening because i definitely know that we need a lot more farmers we need a lot of food producers in our countries because people go to bed hungry at night and i think you know when we reintroduce that whole concept of you can grow your own food you don't have to rely on green grocers and big supermarkets you can produce your own food at a tiny tiny budget to just feed your family especially for those that are living below minimal wage so thank you so much for your efforts and just contributing towards society it's a pleasure that what it's a pleasure that was buko dem founder and CEO of bsomebodysa and she's a young entrepreneur within the agricultural industry and doing a great thing by just you know serving her community starting a passion project she considered ourselves as a social entrepreneur and she started bsomebody with just 1200 rand she budgeted 600 rand just to open an online store and i think this story goes to show that you know you could really really start a business with a very very tight budget or a small budget at that and she's been trading with bsomebody now for a whole year so and throughout her journey there's many trials and errors that she's found she taught herself how to grow her own food you know started with spinach also experimented with tomatoes as well and then also just connected herself with other farmers and organizations or institutions that will need fresh produce so i really hope that you're inspired by her story and get in touch with her if you want to support her and also maybe replicate what she does in your own community because i'm sure you can definitely make a difference as well thanks that's it for me tonight take care