It
pains me to think that farmers can be so exploited when….industry profits so greedily from the consumer. I visited poor communities in a rural part of...South Africa where I came to present a farming concept that would improve more than just their financial
position but also the environment. While talking to people I learnt that...farmers earned very little for whole years work, yes they also said there wasn’t much to do between planting and harvesting but harvesting was very labour intensive. They said they
needed to spray chemicals for weeds and for pests and some said that these chemicals were expensive. I know that the chemicals are bad for the farmer who applied it as they don't wear the hazmat suit which is required as per the Material Safty Data Sheet (MSDS).
During
my talks, the farmers listened in awe as they couldn't believe that what I was proposing was possible, and their questions were a great reflection to this as they have not ever really been taught farming of anything profitable. Their questions were deep felt
by me as I know the struggles of the emerging farmer…... The main struggles are water and access to market and farm development costs. Many had concerns about other promises that never came to realisation from greedy individuals who in the past have stolen
land.
All
I want to do is help them with a win-win solution and improve the environment at the same time by teaching the importance of working with nature rather than against. Many don't understand the functions of the elements in nature and think of natures workers
like ants and termites as pests. It won’t take long to get the buy-in from all the farmers as they will see the benefits as their farms improve each year. Rather than where they have been, where they don’t see any improvement at all and from each year harvest
are left guessing the value of their harvest. The saddest part is that they can't afford bags or anything to protect their harvest to preserve its value so some value is lost to rats and rain. They get less than 0.5% of the value whereas other bigger farmers
are getting 30% of the value which means there is a very greedy person or people involved in this value chain from this poor community.
By an Anonymous Author
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