KZN’s youngest emerging farmer moves into large scale commercial farming with a Tongaat Hulett 10-year lease

Up until now, the model to assist emerging black farmers to develop into viable commercial entities with their own reproductive capacity has been fraught with many obstacles.

While the emergent agricultural sector in SA has the potential to positively reduce unemployment and poverty, the potential for emerging farmers to participate in this sector is still untapped.

Peaceful Ndlovu (27) is one of the few emerging farmers (and the youngest) in the region who was presented with an opportunity by Tongaat Hulett to upscale his small sugarcane farming operation into a large scale commercial operation with sugar cane as his primary crop.

As part of Tongaat Hulett’s recent operational restructuring, Ndlovu has signed a 10-year lease agreement with the sugar giant.

Tongaat Hulett will lease out several of its estates to keep the land productive until the farms are sold for property development.

It is not clear at this stage how long this initiative will be maintained for and at what point the company will sell its farms, but for now Ndlovu has a 10-year plan and he is determined to make it succeed.

Ndlovu has known little else but farming.

“My father was a farmer and my mother was a teacher in Upper Tongaat.”

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He lost his father at the tender age of 16 and his mother tragically passed away a year later. Under the guardianship of his uncle, he continued to work on his family’s farm never once doubting what his calling was.

After matriculating he worked his way through university to obtain a financial degree and set his sights on becoming a bona fide commercial farmer.

“You need to invest in yourself before you invest in anything else, by focusing on improving your skills, education and experience. Without self-investment, you won’t be able to build a business, let alone sustain one.”

“Entrepreneurs can come from humble beginnings, so long as they are willing to work hard, commit to their ideas and take the risks necessary to see those ideas become reality, than anything is possible.

“I want to inspire the youth to follow agriculture as a career and progress from subsistence to commercial agricultural farming,” said Ndlovu who has a haulage agreement with Tongaat Hulett that guarantees a market for all the sugarcane he produces.

Despite the difficult market, Ndlovu remains optimistic about the future of the sugar industry and believes the South African market can survive with government intervention.

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