 Good evening. Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mbali Mokor, your host for the Farming Podcast, which is every Tuesdays and Thursday at eight o'clock on all your social media channels. And that's Facebook, YouTube, Instagram as well. Thank you so much for supporting the Farming Podcast and for continuing to support all our Private Property Podcasts. We have you during the week, as well as on weekends. And I'm sure you must be having a joy with all the guests that we've been bringing back to back every single week, as well as the weekend. Today, we have a phenomenal guest. She's a woman in the agri-space. And our title this evening is the Rise of Woman in Agriculture. It is woman's month after all, and we're still celebrating and we'll take full advantage of this month as woman. So we'll get to speak about her organization or the institution and what they do in the agri-space and also the impact that they've had in the agricultural sector, specifically where women are concerned. And we get to know her journey as well, because she is an executive director and how she got to the top and how it's like being at the top in the decision-making space, you know, impacting through her work in the agricultural sector. Please continue to like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow all our social media channels, or pages rather, to keep abreast of all the different guests that we bring you every single week. And again, please feel free to ask questions to our guests. We love engaging and interacting with you at home. So with Alfredo, let's introduce Zamo Chongwe, who is the executive director at Boucher Academy. Zamo, how are you doing? And thank you so much for joining us this evening. Awesome. We were also very excited to have you on to the show. You know, I always keep referring people to Boucher Academy when they ask me, where can I get short courses on agriculture, you know, in the rather Johannesburg region. You know, so I'm glad you're finally on to the show. Maybe just to tell us a bit more about your institution. So if you can, kindly explain to us what Boucher Academy does. Boucher Academy, as you said, and we train in agriculture, different aspects of agriculture. But most importantly, we also specifically train people to go into the field as entrepreneurs, which is slightly different to somebody who's training to have a career diploma in agriculture, and then go to work somewhere else. So we are training people to start their own business. It's very different. And therefore, the results that we expect at the end are somewhat different. We have various courses, you know, livestock, agricultural production, poultry production, and grain crop production, our main courses. And then we have a host of shorter courses that people can to just, you know, to have shorter skills. Our courses are credited. And when we take people to the farm, and we look at it from before you start farming to when you just start farming. And so that means if you are going to be a vegetable farmer, for instance, we look at what, you know, from a tree to start, for a healthy source of food and that kind of thing. And then you look at the very end, not when you harvest, but you actually have a market. And it's wide. And therefore, it means that we start with people and then when the information that graduates from the community continues to support them. And that support can be put in a various form. We will introduce this network within various areas across the country where people have networks. We will introduce you to funders. We will help you even create a business plan if you're looking to go into the open market for your funding. And basically, also just offer support to farmers as opposed to not knowing where to go. You know, sometimes your problem is, you know, I keep growing staff and I keep going. And I don't know why I'm just about to do that. And some of you can come in and give a little bit of advice and turn that thing around to you. And we focus a lot on the business side of farming as well. Which means, you know, am I farming? Is the business that I'm sitting at should be available. So we have a lot of focus on the business kind of production terms, financial management side of things. And even with our funders, that's one of the broadcasts. You know, they'll be able to follow a farmer and know whether the farmer is making a profit or not. Right. So the courses at Boutier Academy, are they all physical courses? Like you have to physically be there, you know, to learn about crop, animal, grain production. What's better way though? What is a better way to learn about farming, if you get your hands on, might be dirty and all up in the dirt. All of our long courses, we have to be at the farm to train. We do have special courses where we would go out to farms and train them there. We invite people to come daily because we put also all the resources in order to make a farming easier. And you are also able to and fail on our land because you are doing actual farming. So if, for instance, you are doing for three, four trips a day, you are up every hour on the hour and checking on those trips, make sure that they don't die in the first few days. If they've been in a health storm in our area, which has been damaged in Malaya, and they suffer from frost, then you get to see what has made us do those things, to bring the prime stuff, and make other kinds of diseases. So you get to learn, you get to fail, you get to have, and also come around, you get other people who are also learning that way. And so when you go home, you have a network of diseases and we try and encourage the farmers to keep that network in place. Right. So it's better that you come to and learn from there. That's fantastic. And how has the COVID era impacted or affected your business? I mean, this is farming, right? We can't farm on our laptop sitting at home via Zoom calls. We have to physically farm on the ground in the soil, you know, testing the water, being out in the nature and feeding the different temperatures and so forth. Now, how has the global pandemic affected your ability to operate as an institution? So it's affected us like any other institution where students come on board, you know, you've had two long-street coaches, obviously the first one is in March, March, January, September, December, February, and that meant you couldn't have students on board. However, what has happened in other culture is that more people have come interested in farming during this time. They're at home, they have bad gardens that they otherwise, you know, like I mean, flowers. And they suddenly realize how important, you know, the quality of this is to help. And therefore, we've had a lot more people come out and be interested in farming. And we've also changed the way that we treat the country, you know, and we've had a lot more of our farmers saying that during lockdown, they switch because of the market and people that come out, they switch and they use patterns, cultures, actions like that in social media. And they sell their products there and deliver. So on the one hand, in terms of the actual epidemic situation, but on the other hand, in terms of farming, our farmers have seen that they can make the country expand and raise a few new things and new norms that are now built in new norms. Yeah. Yeah. Zama, I know you've got a wealth of information to share this evening. And I really, really want the audience to capture every single word that you're saying. I'm going to ask us to go on a little ad break because we are having trouble hearing you on our end. Just the volume is a bit low. So we're just going to go for a little bit of an ad break, not longer than a minute. And yeah, we would just be back whilst we get Zamo to just, you know, tweak her audio a little bit. So just bear with us and we'll be back with you shortly. We're back. Thank you so much for your patience. We just had to fix some technical issues that we've had in the back end. But trust me, Zamo is still here. And she's the executive director of Buche Academy. So for the first half of the show, for the past few minutes, she's been explaining the role or what Buche Academy is about as an institution and the various courses that they have. And obviously, you know, emphasizing that it's a training academy. It's a farming or agri-training academy. Therefore, you have to train in physical presence. You know, you can't learn about farming on your laptop or on Zoom call. There must come an element where you have to do the work practically on the ground. So just to move on with the show this evening and not waste too much time, Zamo, I just want to find out, you know, for anyone that's watching tonight and is maybe googling Buche Academy and they find that you are based in Dalmas, is that correct? And maybe someone is based in a free state. So does that mean that they will have to physically travel to Dalmas for the duration of the course, complete the course, and then go back home? Or do you have various sites in each and every province where students or potential students can enroll? So we have to travel. We have accommodation to students and they can accommodate about 100 students at a time. And we've just staggered the Romans in the times of COVID so that we do not fill it up quickly during the time. Basically, they would have to travel. Okay, fantastic. So now let's get into the topic of tonight, right? The role of woman in agriculture. And with your tenure, having been within the Buche Academy, have you seen a lot of interest from women entrepreneurs or women farmers or women female students that have wanted to learn agriculture? Or is it year on year, you know, the numbers, are they declining? Or are you seeing a lot of increase in women wanting to participate in the agriculture? What has it been like within the Buche Training Academy? So women have always had an interest in agriculture so it's only natural because they are the people that feed us in homes and the nurturing part of it. So there's always been an interest in agriculture. The difference is that when it comes to being a profession, women usually do it as a way of just being a family and maybe even as a hobby. And that's necessarily a business. So we've standardized in Buche over the years that number of women that have been trained has increased. And last year, 42 percent of the students that graduated last year were actual women across our courses. This is huge. This is probably the highest number we've had in a very long time. And this is also because they are now understanding that there's so many different avenues within farming. It's not a single thing. You do not have to become a farming producer. There's other things that you can do. You can become a forest scientist, etc. And those who choose to be a farming producer are the ones that start with the producer. You can also see a career path. They can see that I can start off with this much land or this many chickens, this many animals and make the business grow. I am going to be supported when I do this. And I'm going to be recognized as a professional farmer, a full-time farmer, and somebody who's actually in business and farming. So this is a long-term thing that I can see myself doing. And we try to help women and basically all farmers by removing some of the barriers to getting into the farming space. Firstly, it's a skill. So obviously, when you've trained in your skills, you feel more confident about the work that you're going to do. And we can improve knowledge as well. Then we're looking at a port after it. And when people have gone out and they're saying, you know, I can't find markets, I've got an issue with land and the issue with finances as well. And then we help them to navigate that space. We do not necessarily have all the solutions up front, but we never pay individual persons needs. And therefore, the solutions will be very clearly marked for you and your farm and your environment, which is not a blanket solution. So when they go back to their home environment, our farmer support officers will go out and check out the space and do some advice and have them grow. And we continue growing with them for a number of years. It's not a one way of doing things. You don't come in and after a year, you've dropped the farmers. And our funders have become valuable in understanding that in farming, it needs to be longer. So we travel for three years, you know, minimum with farmers and some of them would have them in our post for 10 years. As they, you know, add in, yeah, they diversify, they raise and they expanding. So you would have, you continue to hold your hands, but how do they do new things when it comes to farming? Wow, what I love about Boothly Academy is that you not only take the theoretical aspect of it, but obviously practical, but also infusing it with business skills, you know, because I think people tend to forget that farming is a business at the end of the day, you know, you have operations, marketing, logistics, finance, human resources. And as a farmer, you have to manage all of these, especially if you're starting a farming enterprise with minimal resources and you're not outsourcing all of these functions, but keeping it in house. And I think that's fantastic. And as you were talking, I wanted to know that, you know, does Boothly Academy have an alumni portfolio within the academy so that when farmers leave, you know, is there some sort of, you know, extended support to assist them, just maybe finding market or maybe relationships that the academy might have built. So, and also as you were talking, you mentioned that, you know, you have, you have funders that are part of Boothly Academy. So as a farmer as well, you know, I could go to, I suppose I, as an individual, I can enroll at Boothly Academy maybe to upscale, my knowledge in the agri space, but also do you find that organizations then would send, you know, communities that they support, whether it's predominantly women or youth, to Boothly Academy to upscale them? Yeah, we're actually having a lot of those at the moment. And we did a project last year, and you were just talking about how you can learn from a computer. And in the age of lockdown last year, and we piloted online learning, and it's basically virtual. The facilitator sets in Delmas, and in Boothly Academy, we had a group of farmers, mostly women actually, at all ages, you know, one of them was 38, learning how to farm. And we're basically doing it through the screen, you know, you hold up your seedlings, you show the tray that you've grown, you bring implements, you demonstrate. And it was actually our first accredited course that was translated into the course. So that was our first African language course. And aside from that, our course, if I am in many languages, like this was our first accredited course. So we, we, we adapt to the situation, but we also show farmers how you can. Because farming is, is a lot of activity. You need to tough it out, isn't it? Even things will change. And you need to be prepared for that change. So a lot of the stuff that you would learn at Boothly is how to be resilient, and how to find solutions when the going gets tough, because the going is going to get tough. You are farming in academic environment can be harsh. You know, it's tough, then it's bad, you know. And then you've got the, the, the general problem that we spoke about before, the market, the, the, the funding, and then the key one in this, in this country is also the land. So how do you, how do you manage to run a business, to start, establish with the business, and then keep it running with all of these challenges in place? And what we, what we do is that we come in and we help you to resolve. So if your issues are around water, efforts to water, then we look at your particular issues and you say, okay, if there's issues that are coming up here, we help you to develop your own plan. We say to people, you need to develop. We can only support you need to develop because we want to, at any given point, when Boothly withdraws, maybe funding issue, whatever it is, and it's not long a day to hold your hand, because it's a self-developed plan, then you will know how that plan was developed and how to keep going. So these are lifelong lessons that we have to keep going. Zama, give us an insight to what you do on a day-to-day basis and how you're making strides as a woman in the agri-sector. How has your journey been, have you been in the agri-sector for for many, many years, maybe taken up many other senior positions within agribusinesses, not necessarily Boothly, or is this your first agribusiness portfolio? But maybe just take us a bit of more insight into your day-to-day responsibilities and how has your journey been as a woman in the agri-space? Well, it could only be a journey that is of any woman who is in any particular space. It's not all joyful, but there are moments when you think as we've been in no other space. My journey is actually my particular interest in the development space, so not necessarily in agri-sector. So I started off doing a work in various inter-organization space, but this mirrors something that I hope so ideally. I'm interested in what we put in our bodies and how we nurture ourselves, and therefore it marries my interest in education with my interest in food. We have a fairly small team that we work with. It's 30 people, it's not a huge institution by any means, and our interest is 500 learners annually. So it's hard working teams with 30 people to make sure that 500 people complete communications every year. Most of the work that I do is a large part of what I do is managing and donating income and funds, and even that's an even smaller revenue for the team of two internal, and this one can be used as a channel to help with that. Yeah, and as a woman in the sector as well from an education space, but still in agri, you know, what are some of the messages or advice that you would give for women entrepreneurs? A woman farmer is entering the space based on the students that you've taken on and maybe those that have graduated. So what are some of the weaknesses that we have or strengths that we can capitalize on, you know, just to maybe make our farms more successful? You know, I sat in a conversation earlier today when somebody was asking me something similar, and my responses, we no longer have the luxury of being invisible as women. We need to actually see that. We no longer have, and I'm using the word luxury here in the case of whatever we think are the reasons that we cannot express ourselves and cannot venture into the agricultural field in space that we think women are in the minority. And so don't be invisible. If you're going to go into farming, be loud, express yourself, walk into those spaces, especially when you're dealing with markets, walk into the spaces with confidence, and do the research when you're going to think about what you want to farm. But don't spend so much time on research that it becomes a debilitating thing and you switch to the poor. So launch yourself when you're ready. And I am like-minded people, you know. I have a woman reaching out to me all the time and being able to help them with ideas and just founding boards and also new things. So you do not have to be farming the old style. You know, we're talking about technology now. People are developing apps. We've got a woman. I've got a woman have gone into online trading platforms. We are, I mean, so online purchasing platforms. So you find your grace and then you reach the board specifically online and I know quite a few women who've just gone into that particular space. We've got a woman becoming market agent and, you know, tackling other culture from that point. So there is a lot of us in the space and by seeking out, by reaching out to other women, by talking about our needs and sharing but also sharing the pain of sometimes being the only woman in the room and sometimes being the only woman in the room where people are speaking at the count and you don't necessarily understand the language. And then we get to, you know, lean on each other and help each other to grow. Wow. Thank you so much for your time this evening, Zamo. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, even though we had a little bit of a technical difficulty, but it's just great to always speak to someone in the agri space. More so a woman at senior level because I think just from a farmer's level, we definitely need more executive decision making, primarily from females, you know, within the agri sector and I think what stood out for me and with what Booth Academy is doing is that it's not only just taking the practical part of farming but it's teaching people to farm from a business element, you know, and, you know, also just trying their best to assist people once they've graduated or finished their courses, et cetera, over and above the courses being accredited because, you know, when you out on the farm at the end of the day, it does get a bit lonely. You know, you do miss maybe the cohorts that you were training with and I like that advice that you mentioned that surround yourself with like-minded people, you know, who understand your journey, who understand where you want to go and maybe who understand the market as well that could help you navigate, you know, how to make your farm a success but thank you so much for your time this evening. Before I let you go, where can people find more information about Booth Academy and when do people start applying for courses, are there courses throughout the year or, you know, does one have to apply in November and December to be taken for the following year? So you must welcome to go to the website with Booth.org.za, that's our website. Applications are online so you don't need to mention it. We're taking applications as a year, you can choose our course. Our courses are, you know, repeaters. So the first semester courses are repeaters, second half of the year and currently this week, the vegetable production course started. But you can go online and look at the various courses because that I say we've got long courses but we also have short courses and those short courses can be more appealing to people who actually work and want to take a week out to learn introduction into a particular course and then go back and implement that. Right, thank you so much. I won't keep you much longer on the podcast but thank you so much for giving us that valuable information. Otherwise that's it from me and yeah, I hope maybe once again you could join us, maybe let's see a practical day at the academy one day, you know, just to see how the students get down to to training live at the Booth Academy. But thanks so much, Zamo, for gracing us with your presence this evening. Everybody come get your hands dirty. Absolutely, that was Zamo Shongo, the Executive Director of Booth Academy and she spoke about the institution, what it is they do, the various courses that they have short term, long term, you know, open to male, female, young or old, anybody can come through and also you could join the Booth Academy even if it's via an institution. But I think what's most important is that, you know, they provide agricultural training in all the type of commodities, whether you want to do horticulture, livestock, poultry farming. But, you know, what's important is that it's about getting your hands dirty, feeling the soil, touching the animals, because that's what farming is about at the end of the day, you know, you deal with live or living things, plants or animals for that matter. And so if you have any desire to do some courses, upskill your knowledge on the agri sector or on your farm, I think Booth Academy is one place to go to. Their website is Booth.org. So have a look at the various courses and we'll put the link on the show notes on YouTube after this live podcast. But thank you so much for joining us. I wish you a fantastic Friday tomorrow and a lovely week in the head. And yeah, you'll catch me next Tuesday at 8 p.m. Thank you so much. Take care.