Young people from Mbizana in the Eastern Cape have formed an agricultural co-operative project that will serve Ntunjeni and Makewini villages.
They have used their own money to work the land to combat poverty and unemployment in the rural areas of Mbizana.
Tilling agricultural land among young rural unemployed people is rare. Most of the young and skilled professionals prefer the so called white collar jobs.
However, Ntunjeni and Makewini villagers have opted to dirty their hands to produce food and feed the entire village. They want to fight poverty, create jobs and boost the local economy.
The Lords Harvest’s spokesperson, Dr Sandiso Mafisa, says the poverty stricken community prompted the formation of the project.
“The establishment of this cooperative is as a result of a call from the community, they asked that we assist them with equipment for farming because they do not have the means for ploughing those land they have, so we came together and started this cooperative which is called Lord’s Harvest so the challenges will be to continue forward, the finances that we will need.”
Dr Mafisa says the project is self-funded and will need government’s intervention for sustainability…..
“This whole service is self-funded. We managed to have two tractors, and we managed to have all the implements that we need. We are trying to eradicate poverty in the community because people are unemployed and they cannot even have the ways of cultivating that land. People are unemployed, they do not have food on the table. So this is going burden that they have. They will plough the maize but we are looking further to the vegetables.”
Rural Development and Agrarian Reform in the Eastern Cape has applauded the youths for coming up with an initiative that will benefit the people.
The department’s Andile Fani says they will need more interaction with the villagers to help them fully realize their dream of improving the lives of poverty stricken communities.
“The MEC is very positive about the project of that nature and with the emphasis is around making sure that we build those projects, setting a value chain, there should have marketing of their products so that they invest to what they have. That project from the young people is much appreciated; we would suggest that they should submit their business plan so that they can be put through the process.”
For the young unemployed youths, this is a dream come true as they hope that they will be equipped with agricultural skills and contribute positively to the community.
Andile Masayi and Kholeka Khananda had this to say respectively.
“I want to appreciate to see that there is an opening project because we will get time to get some jobs and then for those who are addicted to drugs, they will try now to get some jobs. So I want to say thank you.”
“I think this project is very important to our lives especially to us young ones because , we do not know how to use our land to produce food for us.”
The communities around here hope that government will inject funds and that they can attract private investors to sustain the project for the benefit of the people.
