The Vhembe Macadamia Farmers Agricultural Co-operative

In South Africa one particular scheme in the Levubu region is already making a difference by providing financial support and technical assistance to 350 previously disadvantaged, black, small holder, farmers, who belong to the Vhembe co-operative.

The project began in 2003 and was aimed at the many black South Africans in the region who were taking up their rights to reclaim land taken from their forefathers. Unfortunately, this reclaiming of land led to a new breed of farmer in the region, one with no agricultural experience and no support, training or funding. Due to this many of these new farmers failed in their pursuits and much of the reclaimed land turned back to bush.

This situation obviously wasn’t good for the new farmers but with much of the land bordering macadamia orchards and breeding pests, it also wasn’t good for the macadamia growers in the region.

Enter Green Farms and the Southern African Macadamia Growers’ Association who put together a plan to help support many of these new farmers in developing over 2,000 hectares of land. These farmers formed the Vhembe Macadamia Farmers Agricultural Co-operative which now has 350 active members. These farmers are now being provided with the technical experience, knowledge, training and funding required to get their young macadamia orchards off the ground.

A long process, this includes:

- Preparing the land – de-bushed and ready for planting
- Holes being dug and good quality trees planted
- Creation of irrigation - water is a critical element required to keep these young orchards alive
- Caring for the young orchards – it will take 4 years before the trees bare nuts so in the meantime the orchards need to be tended to including fertilizing, hoeing and so on.

A mutual benefiting project, over the next 10 years the scheme will hopefully create 6000 agricultural jobs, 350 jobs in processing and over 80 million rand for the local economy.