 Good evening, everybody. The podcasters. Thank you so much for joining yet another special episode of the private property farming podcast. My name is Malin Walker, your host. Obviously, all the time, every Tuesdays and Thursdays, right at 8pm on the private property farming podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We've got another fantastic show talking everything sustainable rural farming. How can we get rural communities to farm sustainably and sustainably? I mean by getting them to get contracts so that they can so that they can continue farming commodities in which clients wish to procure and obviously growing them at the end of the day. So we're going to be talking about small scale farming, rural farming, small holder farming, how they're able to farm and cultivate their crops at a commercial level, even though they're based in rural communities. And we've got a fantastic lady who's been assisting these rural communities, and she will tell us about her organization. This evening, we're joined by the executive director of Ciavuna and she'll tell us more about what the organization does and how they're working together with farmers in rural communities to obviously service the contracts that they've been able to secure. So if you have any questions for Uokolo, please feel free to comment on the comment box below. We love engaging with all you guys at home, wherever you're watching us, we really, really enjoy engaging with you guys because again, this podcast is for you to teach you about farming to expose you to the wonderful individuals that we have on the ground who are doing phenomenal things across the country. So once again, feel free to comment, like, share, and mostly subscribe to our podcast channel on YouTube that is going to private property under the playlist, go on to the farming podcast, and you'll get all the videos and conversations that we've recorded thus far. So let's get into tonight's show. I am joined by Uokolomfugeng from Ciavuna. Uokola, thank you so much for your time this evening. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you, Mali, and how are you and to you too, listeners? I'm doing fantastic, and I'm sure the listeners are also doing fantastic. Quite eager to hear what you do in the rural space. So by means of introduction, maybe tell us who Uokola is and I know that you are the executive director of Ciavuna. Tell us what the organization does as well. Okay, I'm Uokolomfugeng. I work for Ciavuna Abademic Development Sciences and Executive Director. My position is quite one of the interesting ones because I was not really just employed as a director, so it has been a journey for eight years. So I started at Ciavuna in 2013 and proud as a PA to a director. When I got to Ciavuna, I realized that there's a gap within the organization, and that was in the monetary and evaluation sector. So I asked the director, say, can I please go to this training because I think this is where you need help. And then as much as you're like, okay, you can go, we'll see how it works. Then I went for the training, I was trained on M&E, and because the M&E manager, over the years as I grew, they saw the potential, and then later on I was appointed as deputy director. But then that was mainly because of the study that was conducted by Chukululu-Magnodem. We were funded by a massively many projects under USPINC. So what happened is they identified the gap within the civil society sector that most organizations are mainly run by people of color, but we don't have people of our color representing us in the MGO sector. So from there, the executive board of Ciavuna decided to say, okay, we want to change this, we want to change this narrative, it should not be like this. So that's when I was kind of like I am back on a journey of transformation and transition planning for three years. So during that period, I was trained on leadership skills, coaching, all the sorts that comes with their position. So last year in September, I was then appointed the executive director of the organization. So that's me in a nutshell. So at Ciavuna, which means we harvest. But a small NPO, based in Ramsgate, KZN, most people know it as Porchevstin. So the way that it started, there's a huge organization here in the South Coast called Give a Child a Family. It was then called Place of Restoration. So what they do, they take children who were previously living in not good conditions like orphans and stuff, and then they place them in homes. So they came up with the concept to say, how do we assist these families to grow their own food and to eat healthy food, as opposed to us just giving them hands out and vouchers and stuff. So they started this concept to say, okay, we'll train them on how to grow natural, chemically free products. So over the years, Ciavuna grew, we're 12 years old by the way, Ciavuna grew beyond GCF needs, and then we expanded to eight other communities that we work with. And then from there, we just flew like out of the nest, and then we were able to be registered as a separate NPO in 2011. And then what we do now mainly is we train small water farmers in rural communities on how to grow organic, but not certified yet, but work under the PGS system. So to grow chemically free vegetables. So our farmers are mainly women, 83% are women with an average age of 55 years, unemployed, and most of them they are the head of the house, there's no male assisting and so forth. So they are the breadwinners in a way. So what we do is we train them and then after training, you have an option to say, okay, I want to sell my produce to Ciavuna. I just want to grow for my household. So if you decide to sell the produce to Ciavuna, we then train you, we mentor you, and then you sign up for a PGS system that says where you agree to add hire to our standards that you won't use chemicals. Because if you find using chemicals, it's suspended for two years and so forth. There are a lot of regulations that come with that. And then we realized that over the past 12 years of existence, yes, the model was working, farmers were earning income, but it was not really sustainable. So we approached IDC and said IDC we need your help. The model is working, but it's not sustainable. There's so much dependency on Ciavuna. Should Ciavuna close down tomorrow, these farmers won't be able to continue with the project. So we said we need to find sustainable markets for these farmers because they work so hard. And the produce that they kind of like producing their gardens, it's just the best. When you come to South Coast, you must come and try all vegetables. We'll never go to spa again. You'll never buy anything from pig and pay. So what we did is IDC finally gave us funding after eight months of pursuing them to say, please, we need to do our homework. Just give us this money. We'll do what we said we'll do and you'll come up with the results. So the outcome of the study, we've got three business plans. One is for us to grow a natural ingredient product called Balban fruitensis. Most people will know it as upuk in Isizulu. They call it aloe vera on steroids. That's how good it is for your skin. So in the second business plan we had was for dried vegetables, which we've just got machinery to do that. So it's another product in the pipeline, which will start in 2022. And then we'll continue with our fresh vegetable concept because that's what we know from. And our fresh vegetable is sold under a brand called Gumlandi. Most people here in the South Coast don't know Ciavuna, but they all know Gumlandi. So now with the projects that we're working with, the one project that we mainly focus on today is the Balban project, which is the natural ingredient product. What it does, you grow the plants and then you extract the gel succulent from the plant. And then that gel succulent is used in the cosmetic industry. It's very good for your skin. It's just a pill. It's like you can't see my beautiful skin because I use it a lot. It's good for moisturizing your skin, even for mosquito bites. If your child is a mosquito bite, just take the succulent as is and dry it on her skin. The next morning, there'll be nothing, there'll be yield. So that's how effective it is. So we take the plants to a company called Botanical Natural Products Indian Pompo, with whom we have a three-year of take agreement with to supply them the product. And that agreement states that after when we've reached 30 hectares or we scale to 30 hectares to grow the product, we will be able to develop our own processing plant. Because our vision is not only for farmers to grow, but it's for the farmers to be involved in the whole value chain process, from their things to production to retail. I know most people are dreaming big, but hey, if your dreams don't scare you, tell your dreams. So currently now in that project, we've chosen 20 of our based farmers in one community. We studied in one community where we planted three hectares of the opal vine and then scaling to five hectares next year. You'll be surprised and amazed that out of those 20 farmers, average age is 64 years old, and they have to work for a distance together. But the way that they do, you cannot tell. We also have youth in the project, which we are lucky to work with Department of Agriculture. They've placed them to work in the project and then they'll pay them. So we're trying to balance between women and then we have youth, and we only have about 12% of men in the project. Wow, this is fantastic. You're definitely deep into the rural areas. I like the fact that you've started on three hectares and you're looking to expand to five and selecting the best farmers, because at the end of the day, it's very important that farmers or people in the rural communities take this quite seriously. And I like the fact also that Isi Avuna is not just giving handouts. They're teaching people how to sustain themselves at the end of the day. So I just want to find out how difficult or easy it was to stop mobilizing the farmers and to get them to see the vision of why Isi Avuna has come to their communities. You know, the biggest mistake that we make as civil society members, we all want to come up with change. And then we just engage with people from the ground. So our approach really is to involve the tribal authorities in that community, which makes it easy because once the chief or the indigenous understand or concept, make sure that they understand it, there's no expectation. And then everything is clear from the start. And then they themselves mobilize the farmers to say, okay, we have, we'll call a meeting for all rural, like people who are interested in farming to come in at home, cool, and then we'll have this discussion. So for us with that approach, it has always worked, though it's hard work, because what we do, we keep them informed. Like each and every step, everything that we change, everything that we do and show that we engage with them so that we are all on the same page. Wow. And also the areas of the land, you know, because land is such a debated topic, the land that these farmers are producing on, are they owned by the chief or the rural communities? And I heard you say they have to travel quite far. So I presume that they're not farming in their own backyards. They're farming in land that is maybe allocated. Is that correct? That's partially correct. I'll explain to you just now. So the vegetables that they grow, they grow them in their backyard gardens. So it is kind of like a surface against farming method. But with the bulk buying frutensis product, so we grow it in a big five hectare land because once you harvest it, now listen to this, once harvested, you need to take it to Potanica within 48 hours, you know, because it loses that gel when you keep it until you harvest it. So we had to come up with means and ways on how we can mitigate those factors. So we had to get a five hectares of land. We all know that we like our authorities and the Indonesians and stuff, but we knew that we didn't want anything for free because once it's for free, there are a lot of family dynamics that comes with that. So what we did, we've asked the chiefs to at least lease us the land for five years. So we have a lease for five years for the five hectares of land that we're using. And then we are planning that in the near future, we'll be able to actually purchase the land in Siobhana. Fantastic. And you've mobilized some youth to come into the project as well. How have they taken this opportunity? You know, we've been trying to engage with youth from inception. You know, the youngsters don't really want to get their hands dirty. And also they want to quick fix, like you must pay me now. I cannot wait for half as four months for me to get paid once I've harvested and actually sell the product. So what we've done now, we've taken another approach where we got the youth from agriculture. So the plan is for them to be trained. We've trained them already. And they're working with the farmers, learning all indigenous knowledge that comes from them because trust me, they are the working dictionaries of agriculture. And I always feel like we're missing out a lot because not capturing those, you know, we need to do something in the near future, but it's something maybe I will do the next five years. I don't know. But then at this stage, what they do, they're learning so much. And that's starting to love it because you get on site. And then the go-go's are working so hard and you're being lazy and they'll call out to you to say, hey, wake up, what are you doing here? And the other thing is the fact that the Department of Agriculture is paying them and it's quite reasonable. A reasonable amount that they get paid. So, and that graduates, most of them from universities, and they come up with all the technical knowledge and all the skills that they've learned in universities. So now if you take the indigenous knowledge from the go-go's and then you put it together with this youth that are graduates, what we get from there, it's kind of like amazing. And the other things now, you always need to try and balance the two because you know how it's always been that this is how we did it in the old days. Oh, no, but now this is how we do it. But it's working efficiently and we see positive results from the partnership working with both youth and old funds. Yeah. I also like the approach that your organization has taken, right, have a demerit system of some sort where farmers use chemicals, right. So how is it that you're managing maybe certain pests and diseases? I mean, now we've reached the reigning season. You said you're in the Port Shipson area. Also, that's quite a humid area, moist area. So how are you dealing with pests and diseases in climates where, you know, we have rainy season, et cetera? Okay. One thing that we need to take note of is that we should stop this perception that you will buy spinach from January to January throughout the year. We need to plant according to seasonality. That's number one. And number two, we always ensure that when before we plant, we ensure that the soil is well fertile using non-chemical products like your chrome and old grass, all the waste that comes from your house. So we must prepare the soil accordingly before start planting. And you need to practice intercropping and you need to ensure that your plants, in fact, our farmers say you need to love your garden so that you can get the best yield. If you're just doing it because you're just working, it's not going to work. But we also use things like garlic sprays where you mix garlic with onion. But I'm not going to go into detail to that because you also offer external training, which is secreted and then you can learn more about that. And of course, as a method that we use, which are very effective and they don't require you to use any chemicals. This is fantastic. Tell us about the type of vegetables that the farmers are growing. Okay. We get a lot of spinach, carrots, and hats. Oh, my God. You know, when you walk into a storeroom and then you smell those hats, you just want to make it taste right immediately. Your cabbage leaves, beetroot, green peppers, cucumbers, and we have the best banana as I've told you, and the best avocado ever in case it is. But this is endless. We grow a lot of things and we keep on trying new crops that we know that are in demand because what do we do? We try to link the product, like the production to the market. So if we fill it up, okay, sometimes we'll get up, but I've had cages of spinach in one week and everybody's got spinach. So we're teaching farmers on how to kind of like grow those crops that are in demand, like your green peppers. Not easy to grow green peppers, let alone red and yellow because you have to wait for the green to change to yellow. They must change to red. So instead of selling that green and get your money, you have to wait another two months for that to happen. So we teach them the importance of maximizing that profit and for them not to only grow because they want to end income now, but to teach them that, you know, if you grow and then you patient, you will get better income as opposed to just growing to make some money. I'm hearing two folks, right? There's a group of farmers that you've selected, the 20, who's growing this aloe plant and then the rest of the farmers who are just part of the program under Siabona, they're growing various vegetables, right, a selection of vegetable crops. Now, focusing on those that are growing a selection of crops, right, of the vegetables, where are you taking those produce to? Have you found markets for the farmers? Or are they selling in between communities? Okay, this is one of our strengths. And I would also say our weakness. So in the morning, when we started these four projects, the unique thing about us is that we gave farmers a currency market. I know. So what they do, they grow, whatever you grow, you must eat first. And then after you've eaten and shared with the family, you can sell to your neighbors. And then your excess should not go to waste. So you can take your excess and sell it to us. So farmers know that on Mondays, where in this currency hold, they must bring their produce and so forth. In fact, they even call us an ATM because they know on Monday, I don't have to water up at eight, I may not. I'll just harvest. I'll take it to Siabona and then Siabona will pay me on the spot. So what we do is supply the hospitality industry in the South Coast, your big restaurant here. And then there's a village where it's kind of like a home for elderly people. That's our big market. We used to sell a lot of our produce to your niche market in Onglanga, Pine Town, to the organic shops. But since COVID, we really slowed down a little bit. We had to slow down on that a little bit. But now we mainly setting on those kind of like customers at the moment. So they have a guaranteed market. So what happens with our customers now, what they do, they will grow, they will eat. They won't bother to sell to their neighbors. They'll wait for someone to come and get the produce. So we had to think of how are we going to minimize wasteage? We call them write-offs. How are we going to minimize this? Because we'd find that in a month, we'll call it produce worth to the rate of like 25,000. And then we will be able to sell the produce like to the rate of 15,000. So at 10,000, it does not really go towards because we make compost and we sell it, but we can do something else. Hence, we came up with a vegetable growing system to sell whatever we collect. And then we sell the product that was not sold, we will dry it. And then we dry vegetables. There's a 10-year shelf life. And then there's a lot of demand on that. But we're still in the phase where we need to market it properly for us to be able to sell it to other markets. That's fantastic. And when the farmers sell to Seavona, how are you hedging the prices? Are you looking at market prices? Or do you just decide, okay, with your clients, this is how much they're going to get the cabbage for, et cetera? Okay. So the other component that I didn't mention is that we have farmer association meetings with farmers, in their communities. So what we do, as much as it's not fair to us, but it's the only way that we can do it now. So we do price benchmarking with Woolworth, pick and pay, your spa and your checkers. And then we kind of like come up with the average price of that product from the benchmarking. And then on those farm association meetings, we share the price list with them. And you'll be surprised that some will say, okay, you know what? You're only buying spinach for $1,500. I'll keep my spinach because next month you'll be buying it for $20. So we communicate with them because we're only saying with our farmers, we need to learn to move at their pace. And we need to show that we teach them about business. So we've done a lot of trainings on basic business management skills and stuff where we use kind of like we will use things instead of like use numbers and stuff and all the concepts. So let's say we'll take eggs and then we'll do the counting to teach them. This is what it means, kind of things, practical things, not theoretical. So they know the price beforehand and it's up to them to decide if I want to have this and sell it. Or if maybe I want to keep it for myself or if maybe I will wait for the following month, maybe the price will be better. Fantastic. And tell me, how are you dealing with your post harvesting? You mentioned that, you know, the annual product, it has, there's a short time span from post harvest to getting it to the cold room. So and if, I don't know, maybe explain to us how far your storage area is to where the farmers are farming and how are you managing that post harvest cold chain? Okay. Okay, the barbine, it needs to get to Limpopo in 48 hours from the South Coast. So we have not harvested yet. So our first harvest is expected on the 10th of January, but we're working hand in hand with Botanica. So the plan is for us to take it to King Shaka and then from King Shaka to Limpopo and then from Limpopo to all these. We've done the logistical, like, and do the method and see if it's going to work. But what it means, it means that we will need to employ more temporal staff to do the harvesting. So because we need to be quick with that. So the project does not only assist the elderly farmers with income, but also because they're part of this, when we're planting, we've employed a number of local youth that are unemployed in the community to help us in planting. That's what we'll do when we harvest. So what are some of the success stories that you have seen or heard on the ground since you have engaged as Yavuna with the farming communities? We have one farmer, which I really admire. Her name is Mrs. Kumalo, we call her Mrs. Kumalo in Dangaya. We work as far as from the ultra, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the South Coast, but there's an ultra city which is about 38 kilometers from Devon. So what she did, she used to work in a corporate business and she said she was so unhappy and then she resigned. And then she heard about Yavuna and then she came and then trained her, we mentored her, we supported things. And then she said, okay, I like it and I can see that I'm good at this, but, you know, I'm so innovative. I'm not just going to grow and sell the product to you. I want to do something else. So she started her own beetroot wine, which most people know about is she marketed very well. It has very good benefits for males. And yes, as women, you can drink it, but it's also good when you have your low kind of flat iron because it is good for iron and other benefits that you get. But mainly for men in the bedroom, it's very good for them and they buy it a lot. She sells it and takes it and, and, and, and, and, but she has taken it to a place where before COVID, she was in a process of exporting her beetroot wine. Wow. Wow. And then, and how, and how many haters is she cultivating a beetroot wine? So what she did is because she's had a small, a small part in her guidance. So she kind of like assisted her because still supported. So the farmers in her community grow for her and then she provides it from her and then she makes it with wine. Right. So as Ciavuna in this case, this is such a fantastic story as Ciavuna in this case. So you're assisting her with regards to the mentoring, maybe doing a business planning, I suppose, so that she could export. Is that correct? The export she did it herself, but we really helped her with marketing the product and also really assisted her with business management skill and how she can optimize the space that she has in her garden to be able to supply her beetroot wine throughout the year. Right. So what are the other requirements of working with farmers? I mean, there might be people listening to this podcast and are thinking, yeah, I've got family in and around these areas that you've mentioned. I want them to get on to Ciavuna. So how does a farmer get on to the programs that you guys have started? Okay. Unfortunately, at this stage, we don't take new farmers because to date we've trained more than 2,000 farmers. Yeah. So what we did in 2016, we said, okay, we have this model, it's working farmers are passionate about farming, but we cannot just keep on doing what we do, right? So when we started with the value change that we said, okay, we're not going to take in new farmers. We want to ensure that the existing farmers are sustainable enough before we open up the program to other areas. So that is most likely to happen in 2024. If you want to talk on organic farming, the chemical free farming, we do offer external training at a reasonable fee. The mother will come to email me or call us and then we'll give you a quotation and then that works. And if you want mentorship, you can also engage with your daughter to say, how can we mentor you and how would we do? We've done that a lot and people continue growing after we've trained them. Fantastic. So would the training be based only in case it in? Or would you be training people like myself, Ombali, Apechaoting, and who want to learn about growing aloe from an indigenous perspective and other crops to farm where indigenous farming is concerned? We would train you anyway in South Africa, but just keep in mind that there will be a cost for travel. Business at the end of the day, it is business at the end of the day. Exactly. It's our own income. And it's your IP as well. So maybe, I mean, how did you get into this farming space? You know, what were you doing before and how has your life changed now that you've become the executive director of Sevona? Okay. I used to work for a bank, you know, FND, I was a consulting, you know, you get paid on commission. So you go home, you've made this much, this much sales for a day and you go home before you go to sleep or think, I don't know that customer. I know she cannot afford to pay back this loan and instead of you celebrating achievement for the day, you keep on constantly worrying about your customers. So when I joined Sevona, I had kind of like minimal knowledge about the NGO sector. But when I joined Sevona, it became my life because I live, I breathe Sevona. And the fact that every day, regardless of how tired I am, how stressed I am because of funding like today, you do your part and stuff and you say things don't add up and then you realize that at least it's worth it because I know that indirectly I've managed to put a plate in front of 2,800 families. You know, for me, that is fulfilling. I didn't want to do anything else. It's a lifetime achievement, very, very rewarding. This has been fantastic conversation. But before I let you go, I really want to find out as well how are the farmers receiving Sevona, you know, because you've come in there, you've shown them how to run small enterprises in their backyards. You've shown them the importance of growing their own food, feeding themselves, right? As much as these are elderly individuals, you know, between the ages of 50 and 60, etc. But you've shown them the importance of growing their own food, feeding themselves and also finding the market and expanding their knowledge to say you could sell this. I mean, today now you have a beetroot farmer who has processed it into wine, who would have thought and now is looking at export. So when other farmers are looking at this lady, are they enticed to also develop their own products? And so yeah, how has the reception from the farmers been with Sevona assisting them in their small holdings? You know, it has been amazing. Mrs. Kumar is just one of the, it's just one of our success stories. We have farmers who directly supply spa because they said, okay, Sevona, you've trained us, we're happy. But you know, we're not really happy about the prices because they're the middlemen. So we want to supply the distributed directly. So we have farmers who just grow whom we train. Do we just give them mentorship and they attain pharmaceutical meetings, they renew their pitches but don't sell to us. They have their own markets. We also have AgriHabs, which are co-ops. We have two of those in that group. They grow their own, like they'll say, okay, we're not growing beetroot because not selling, we'll only grow ABCND. They come up with their own prices, they sell to their own markets, though sometimes they compete with us, but you know that's developing for you. But in a way, after 12 years of existence, in the 10th year, we started to see the results of our with the farmers. And this is one thing that we always teach our funders because they're an NGO and then you get funders who give funding for three years. And then they expect to see a farmer from point A to Z in three years. And you always teach them, you need to move with the farmers. So in the farmer space, don't push them because when you start pushing, it's not going to work. So you need to engage, you need to listen and you need to negotiate where it's necessary. But at the end of the day, like farmers are adults, they know what they want and they have the knowledge to do what they do. You just need to move at their pace. Wow. My last question for this evening, I think I could keep them going quite honestly, is that what is next for Siobhuna in 2022? So what work can we see from your organization for 2022? Okay, so 2021 has been a very challenging year for us with this whole implementation of the bar buying project. So in 2022, we're looking at developing federally drying, the vegetable drying project. But in 2023, we will be scaling to another community with another five hectares so that we'll be able to achieve the 10 hectares projection that we want to again, depending on funding being available. Yeah, thank you so much. I think you such a fantastic individual. I can see you're loving the farming space. Thank God you've left your corporate job to assist some farmers because you know agriculture is the way of life and agriculture can feed so many people and it's important to obviously make our rural communities food secure. So I really hope that in the work that you're doing you're attracting more youth and that they actually see the potential from this, you know, and most importantly, let's take this lady for example is making beetroot wine. I hope that the youth that are training are actually seeing the opportunities that the agriculture sector possesses but thank you so much for your time this evening we thoroughly appreciate it. Thank you so much. And you most welcome to visit our website it's www.ciavuna.r2.za and please go and like our Facebook page. It's called Ciavuna with the K. We stand for our brand Gumnandi. We will engage further on those platforms. Thank you. That is fantastic. Well, you heard it directly from Ocolom Quena and she's the executive director of Ciavuna based all the way in case it in, in case it in helping or have trained thus far close to 2000 farmers in a space of 12 years and it takes quite a long time, you know to train and develop and to constantly show the importance of farming, growing their own food, being sustainable and sustainable be it being in this case, bring the own food and having food in their own homes, instead of trying to seek for jobs to purchase that food and obviously they're reducing their monthly spend and that money that they spend in their households can go to other important expenses, but where food is concerned, they've got it covered because this is what Ciavuna has shown to the rural communities and I think my takeaways from this organization from this organization, as well as the conversation as well is that it's very important to have public private partnerships involve communities and my biggest takeaway as well is that she says companies who are working with NGOs companies who are working with rural small scale farmers or communities. Go at the pace of the farmer, you know, because agriculture is quite difficult and it's seasonal as well. You know, so you have to go with the pace of the farmer because the farmer knows what they're doing at the end of the day. So if you need to reach out to us to see Ciavuna. She mentioned the website that you could go to and she also mentioned that you could follow them on Facebook so reach out to them and contact them as well. Thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to seeing you next week on another special episode of the farming podcast. Take care.