Visionary recognised for exceptional leadership
A woman in a leadership position to be acknowledged this month is the 53-year-old leader of a communal property association.
Winnie Pooe has been the leader of the Coromandel Farmers Trust, based in Lydenburg, for the past 19 years. The trust was established in 2002 when a group of farmworkers representing 248 households took a resolution to jointly buy the farm.
They were assisted by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform under the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development programme. Pooe became the deputy chairperson of the trust from 2002 to 2005, and was re-elected as the trust’s secretary from 2005 to 2008. In 2020 she became the chairperson. The farm produces maize and soya beans and breeds more than 270 cattle for both beef and dairy. Plans are in place to start blueberry production at a later stage.
Pooe said being at the forefront of a male-dominated industry has not been easy. “Gaining the trust of both men and women has been a challenge. But the men now recognise the impact and value that women can add to the structure of the trust.”
“Working as a woman in a male[1]dominated industry will always present challenges. At first, I was not taken seriously, not only by men but also by women who doubted that we could hold such positions within the governing structure. That’s because of the way men and women have been socialised.” She is encouraged by the growth of the business and by the shifting mindset in the trust. She notes that men are realising women can lead just as well as they and can take decisive action when the situation calls for it. Women now believe that they too can do it, although many are still shy to raise their hands to assume responsibilities because they still do not feel they are equipped to contribute to the development of governing bodies.
“While serving as secretary, I was also elected by the National Agricultural Marketing Council to join other farmers from other provinces to travel to Holland to study export marketing, financial marketing and financial management,” she added. However, she said on returning home, she was unable to apply these skills, because many of the men in the trust did not give her the opportunity to share the insights she had gained.
“This was back then, but now we know how to raise our voices and speak up and fight to be heard.” She added that women sometimes fear the unknown; they have a fear of failure, struggle with low self-esteem, do not trust one another as women and are more comfortable deferring leadership to men.
Pooe recommended the government to provide skills development programmes for female beneficiaries of the land reform programme, to get more women to participate in communal property institutions like trusts and CPAs. She added that the government also needed to put policies in place to ensure that women are contributing to these structures and are benefiting from them.
