Formed in 2020, Leano Agricultural Co-operative was founded by six young farmers residing in Alexandra who had a passion for farming, entrepreneurship and making a difference in their community.
They operate from a farm in Marlboro on municipal land and also have a rooftop farm in the heart of Johannesburg CBD.
One of the Nomsa Ncube said, “We are a co-operative made up of six young farmers, we currently do mixed crop farming and in the near future we will venture into livestock and agricultural processing.”
They also have recently been awarded as ‘Best Young Subsistence Producers’ award at the Young Farmers Awards.
“It took a lot of hard work, courage, patience, continuous research, consistency and passion because without those elements you will get nowhere in this industry, it is a hard but extremely rewarding industry,” Ncube said.
Ncube also commended the support they get from people and what it took for them to be here.
“Amongst many great moments in our journey we are blessed to be mentored by amazing farmers like Mme Violet Phala and backed up by wonderful people like Lerato Ndhlovu who believed in us before we even started our journey and Khutso Seete who never stops motivating us,” said Ncube.
Ncube said they mainly supply street vendors and have a team that sells door-to-door, adding that they recently got approved by Spar to be part of their program which is exciting.
Ncube touched on the challenges that they face while in the agricultural space, ‘lack of manual labour support, financial strains, having no control over the weather, input costs, not having enough land to supply our market, crop quality at times, pest breakouts and management and mostly lack of information are some of the challenges we have to face regularly.’
Ncube also had some words of encouragement for young farmers bidding to also go into farming and make names for themselves.
“It doesn’t matter how small you start just start. The internet should be your best friend and reach out to people in your field and be open-minded because in farming you learn new things every day and most importantly surround yourself with like-minded people,” Ncube said.
According to Ncube their main goal is to get into the commercial space, they also want other young aspiring farmers to learn from their mistakes and climb the ladder with them as they were given the same opportunity by others. ‘We want to make sure we leave a legacy and want our people to never go hungry because of the lack of skills and knowledge. We would like to develop more backyard gardens for families in our community.’
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