By Sandile Hlayisi
news@alexreporter.co.za
Ms Nomsa Ngwenya, a retired farmer, wished her students a successful New Year following a series of successful empowerment workshops throughout the year.
Ngwenya organised the workshops with the aim of inspiring and equipping future Agri-Preneurs with the right skills to survive the heartless agriculture industry.
She took the initiative of sharing what she learned during her years in agriculture.
Her free Agri-Preneur Empowerment Seminars cover skills development program ‘called tools for life’.
During the seminars, she teaches them how to deal with everyday issues, market access, rural development, poverty reduction, food security, processing and job creation, to contribute to the growth and transformation of the industry.
Ngwenya, who is no stranger to the struggles experienced in this sector, managed to turn her struggling farm into a profitable small holding in Tzaneen, Limpopo that is still running to this day.
She now devotes her time to the free transfer of her expertise in a humanitarian effort to alleviate poverty and hunger.
“I know firsthand the struggles of this industry. I personally went through many challenges when I was starting, but I persisted and succeeded.
“Now I want to take all the knowledge gathered throughout the years and give it to our young farmers because I believe they can make it,” she said.
Despite all the investments and rich land resources in South Africa, the agricultural sector contributes less to the gross domestic product. This is very worrying and if we don’t use the full potential of our land, a lot of people will starve,” she continued.
The Agri-Preneur Empowerment Seminar has grown in popularity around Gauteng and has seen hundreds of prospective Agri-Preneurs pronounce on the power of the program.
Participants uniformly admitted that the top skills they lack are in the area of business and finance discipline along with life and leadership skills, which the tools for life cover well.
An Agriculture advisor from the Gauteng Department of Agriculture who attended the seminars said, “I am so impressed with this program because those tools for life are exactly what every farmer needs.”
Mr. Mhlambi, who operates a number of farms across the Northwest Province, also attended one of the seminars.
“This seminar was so worthwhile. We own farms in the North-West province and we want to start really operating them now and making them profitable.
“This seminar came at the right time for us! It gave us some very useful knowledge and the confidence that we can make those farms profitable!”
‘The Tools for Life’ program written by L. Ron Hubbard equips people with the right knowledge to navigate life.
“I learned these tools a while ago and they helped me succeed,” said Ngwenya.
To provide solutions and changes in the field, Ngwenya mentioned that her desire in life now was to help farmers to develop the skills necessary to achieve success in their farming ventures.
And she’s ready to journey through Gauteng and help other farmers succeed.
