Jobless graduate turns to farming, now leads successful vegetable farm

A Mpumalanga graduate who struggled to get a job has resorted to farming and is now one of the leaders of a successful vegetable farming project.

Penelope Mokoena, 38, from Marite, Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga has a bachelor’s in development studies from the University of Johannesburg but failed to get a job.

Instead of blaming the government, the graduate stopped job-hunting and focused on farming.

Unemployed graduate used late gogos land to farm

At the time her sister, Loveness was also unemployed and they approached their late grandmother who had a piece of land that she used to plant maize and other crops.

“It was 14 years ago when our late grandmother gave us a 10-hectare piece of land and some money to buy seeds and materials needed to kick-start the project,” the graduate said.

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“At first, it was very hard and we wanted to give up but our granny encouraged us to soldier on. The project keeps on growing.”

“With support from the department of agriculture, we have managed to grow the business. They offered training on how to manage an agricultural project and helped us to register.”

Crops farm produces

The crops that we produce include butternut, cabbages, green beans and chillies.”

The farm is known as Hati Endlela (we are doing it for ourselves in Xitsonga) and supplies its produce to communities and big supermarkets located in and around Hazyview.

So far, the farm has five fulltime employees and several casual workers who assist when there is a heavy workload.

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