Maphumulo farmer wants to share success and knowledge to train future farmers

Mhlengi Ngcobo is passionate about skills development and helping other young people who want to get into farming.

The 23-year-old does hydroponic farming, running a 120 hectare vegetable farm which supplies major stores on the North Coast.

The young man from Emthandeni in Maphumulo also manages a sugar cane and macadamia farm.

After obtaining a business management diploma in 2019, he could not get a job and to keep himself busy, started a small vegetable garden at his home.

Like most young people, he took pictures and posted on social media and the response he got motivated him to look at agriculture differently.

So he started researching the opportunities available for young black farmers.

Fortunately, his family already owned land that was used for sugar cane farming, so he made use of it.

“At that time I was suffering from depression and anxiety due to the stress of being unemployed. Now that I am doing well in farming, I feel I must do something to help other young people get the training they need. There are so many unemployed youth and we have a serious issue of social illness here,” said Ngcobo.

So far, he has informally trained about 200 youth, of which 34 are now productive farmers, creating employment in Maphumulo.

For far too long, he says, they grew up being told that farming was not a career they could succeed in.

“I encourage those who have passion for agriculture to go for it and not be afraid. However, I must stress that if you decide to be a farmer for the financial benefits only, you will not succeed because there are a lot of challenges that require passion in order to overcome them,” said Ngcobo.

Ngcobo said he would like to see more government resources being used in training young people before they even start farming.

For himself, he would like to get accreditation so that he would be able to issue certificates to those he trains.

“I am all about information sharing and skills development. We need to share our skills so that we can create more jobs.”

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