Maphari Piet

Province: Limpopo

District/Branch name: Vhembe

Business Name: Maphari farming and services.

Business type: Sole proprietorship (Crop production)

20 May 2019

Background:

Maphari farming and services trading farm is a farm situated 20 km from Phafuri road near Nwanedi Resort. Nemakonde general trading is sole proprietorship onwned by Nemakonde Wilfred. Nemakonde general trading is a vegetable producing business operating on 7 hectare mainly focussing on Habanero, Butternut, Serano and Okra. He supplies to an informal market in Musina and Bakkie trade.

The challenges which he experienced:

Lack of assets such as transport.
Relied heavily on one reliable Market.
Lack of knowledge of potential markets.
Lack of economies of scale and an inability to negotiate the best price for produce.
Access to export opportunities and markets.
Linkage/ Mentorship.

Intervention / Solution:

The farmer were trained with the aim to help him improve logistics in terms of storage and transport and also bulk buying inputs.
Record keeping.
Market access.

Outcome / Results

Financials from April 2019

The income is very high while expenses is very low this means that business were able to use low input cost to produce lots of quality products and also able to sell this product at a good price. Timbali through training and farm visits assisted this business to minimize input cost whilst increase income.

The quality of his products has drastically improved due to advise from Timbali to use correct input that suit their environment which make it easy to find and keep customers.

Improve markets intelligence which was the pillar of their success. Due to analysis data from previous years he could identify the period of a year when there is a better price and demand of Habanero and Okra. With the help of Timbali though training and discussions during farm visits they started to plant in October 2016 and started to harvest in January when there is higher demand and better prices for Habanero and Okra. The price of Habanero was ranging from R65.00 per kg while the Okra was ranging from R50 per kg.

Timbali’s model improved his business development processes. His financial management and administration has improved. As a result of good administration he was also able to improve a water storage through building a dam on his farm.

Technical KPIs have been improved such irrigation, fertilization, chemical application, planting schedules and global gaps.

Job Creations from April 2019

Maphari Farming and services were also able to create jobs and sustain them. He created Two (2) permanent jobs on his farm. He also employ youth on his farm. During the period of planting and harvesting he use the family members in order to minimise the cost and also to be cost efficient.