I had a little chuckle over a story in a recent edition of the Courier, about a rabbit farming venture at Cranbrook.
It just struck me as odd, in an area that has been dominated for a century by sugar cane growing and where nowadays the latest and greatest crop is macadamia nuts, that someone would think of farming flopsy bunnies.
Well, more fool me, because one lady from Umhlali immediately spotted a business opportunity there. Venusha Moodley-Nimral rang them up and secured a supply of rabbit meat for her new venture making fresh minced pet food.
“Rabbit meat is ideal for pet food because it is low GI,” she told me, and she might have added that it is cheap relative to beef and the stock breeds like, well, rabbits.
Venusha was one of the prize winners is this year’s Entrepreneur competition, run by the iLembe Chamber of Commerce. In a world beset with bad news, corruption, looting, and the endless effrontery of politicians being allowed to draw breath, it is great to come across some good news stories.
It is my privilege once a year to sit on the panel that interviews all entrants in the competition.
The news space in our media is captured by the latest litany of anger and demands and tragedy, of sullen or angry faces demanding more and more from a society that has no more to give.
The 20 people who sat before us could not be more different. Most of them know they have to work hard to earn a crust and are willing to do so, but what makes the whole competition interesting is that they know they have to work smarter in order to get ahead.
This year’s winner, Mbali Khumalo from Stanger, is a fountain of joy, enthusiasm and a smart head on top of a set of willing hands. Her ideas in the food business are not unique, but they are clever and will create jobs, that ever-so scarce commodity in our region.
Venusha’s pet food idea captured the imagination of the panel. Here was a highly qualified lady (she’s a food scientist) who gave up a good job to back her idea and if she can achieve her goal of persuading the big chains to stock her product, she has a sure-fire winner that will also create a lot of jobs.
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I don’t know how many of our readers are familiar with the rural areas around Mandeni. Do yourself a favour and take a drive up there sometime. I won’t be putting too fine a point on it by saying that life out there is tough. Nothing comes free and to drag yourself out of that cycle of poverty takes more determination than most of us have.
To watch the shining face of Zandile Ndlovu describing her dreams for the Masisweni Co-operative is an inspiration. And these are not lofty dreams. No, she wants a fence to protect her crop from marauding goats and some piping for irrigation.
The rest is hard work and she and her colleagues are willing to bring that to the party.
Enterprise iLembe is to be congratulated for is its support of small-scale vegetable growers who supply the government school feeding scheme.
Zandile has obtained permission from her chief to use tribal land to grow cabbages, carrots, marrow and so on.
SA Sugar Association has given them some irrigation piping and the Department of Agriculture is free with advice on how to go about producing their crop. Zandile joined the Entrepreneur competition to learn the basics of running a successful business that will provide jobs in her backwater. Only a few jobs, admittedly, but a start is a start. And her face says that failure is not an option.
Who is not completely fed up about the world’s junk? The idea that we will be knee deep in plastic rubbish before you can say ‘shrink-wrap’ is repulsive. So, equally impressive, but at another level, was the business idea presented by locals Jon Roberts and Guy Bouwer. They decided to visit a trade fair in China to scout for ideas for business, and came back with this plan for producing bio-degradable fashion goods.
Waste paper and discarded cloth, plus a lot of other throwaway items, go into producing shopping bags, toiletry holders, wallets and more, under the brand name Husk. Their products are good looking, inexpensive and will simply disintegrate after three or four years of use. Dust to dust. They have bought a batch of sewing machines and are just about ready to expand their manufacturing operation.
What was impressive about them and the rest of the field was that not one came in with their hand out, metaphorically speaking. They know that the only way they will succeed is by putting their shoulder to the wheel. And that is the right attitude. Plus some smarts, of course.
So it was an honour, once again, for the Courier to be a sponsor of the Entrepreneur competition, alongside Airports Company South Africa, Enterprise iLembe, Siza Water, The University of KZN and Engie Peakers Operations. We congratulate all participants and wish them every success for the future.
A little puff for the Chamber here – it makes sense for every business operating in the iLembe region to belong to the Chamber. Your membership makes events like the Entrepreneur competition possible, and creates jobs.
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Life is all about perspective. The sinking of the Titanic was a miracle to the lobsters in the ship’s kitchen.
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