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Farmer Exchange Cross Visit
Date: 8 August 2024
Venue: Emmaus (Ezibomvini & Estulwane)
Time: 10:00
Introduction
MDF hosted a field cross visit which was hosted at Emmaus Bergville at Ezibomvini
and Estulwane (Coston). Stakeholders such as WWF (Londiwe Dlamini), EFTEON
(Zanele Shezi) and INR (Mfundo Myende) had their representatives which were
present to the cross visit, there were also other visitor such as Menzi Mhlani from the
Department of Water and Sanitation, Samson Phakathi and Lara Fuller from the
Endangered wildlife trust and the farmers from KwaMkhize community. The purpose
of this day was to create a platform where farmers exchange knowledge from one
and other, and the farmers in Emmaus to share their experiences and achievements
with the farmers from KwaMkhize. The field trip started at Ezibomvini at Phumelele
Hlongwane’s household, then ended up at Estulwane (Coston).
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Erna Kruger who is a Director at MDF officially started this event by sharing a brief
power point presentation. The presentation was and introductory to the work that
everyone was about to see during the field visit, the presentation also contained the
systems MDF have been using to engage with the communities and the success it
bought about. After the presentation, Samson Phakathi who represented the
Endangered wildlife trust took the opportunity to also introduce the type of work they
do. Mr Phakathi Briefly shared with the audience, starting by pointing out that
Endangered Wildlife Trust works with the well-being of wild animals, however as they
were working, they discovered communities which co-existed with the wild animals
they were working with. They saw the need to also engage and work with the
communities as means of trying to improve their livelihoods. So far, the Endangered
Wildlife Trust has been focusing more on spring protection on the communities and
Kwa Mkhize is one of those communities.
Figure 1: Erna Kruger Introductory presentation
The farmers from Kwa Mkhize, the guests in this field visit, were also given a
platform to introduce themselves to the audience and take everyone through what
they have been working on as community members and as farmers. According to
Nozipho Mbhele who is one of the farmers and a secretory in the KwaMkhize
farmer’s group, they have a system which they use to functions and that is
cooperatives. KwaMkizwe farmers are working in Co-Ops the have 10 Co-ops group
in KwaMkizwe, 9 Co-ops groups in the nebouring community under Chief Dlamini
and 4 Co-ops groups of the other community under Chief Hadebe. All these Co-ops
are working with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, who have
played a major role in providing farming Inputs and Machinery.
Kwa Mkhize farmers are working with 750 ha of Land, they mainly plant Maize and
beans and harvest they take their produce to Jabavu and in one of the marketplaces
in Winterton. They also have access to machinery such as Harvest combiner,
Tractors, Ploughs from moldboard to disc, Pre-cleaner and machinery which help
them with packaging. One of the main challenges they are facing is water access
which will provide the community as well as the fields for irrigation, they struggle with
market as there are time where their produce can’t be sold on the marketplaces and
last, they have a challenge with some of the farmers who are lazy to work.
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The first stop of the trip was to see the spring protection at Ezibomvini, and the entire
system attached to it. This spring feeds Five households, these are the same
families which have been collecting water directly from the spring. The system
requires them to work together and be responsible with water use as that might
affects other households if one of them have been to be irresponsible concerning
water use in their drums. Everyone was engaging and satisfied as they we are
asking questions to the farmers from Ezibomvini. The questions were mainly about
how the system works and how are they keeping it working. It was pointed out that
with this system MDF had a lot of learning from it as it was the first spring protection
done by the NGO, from that one water access system it was a birth of three other
water access systems which MDF established and were most effective.
Figure 2: Water access system, Spring protection at Ezibomvini
From the spring the Kwa Mkhize farmers saw a check them which they were very
interested in as it also started to show it effect to the landscape. As they were seeing
this check dam which was made with by the community of Ezibomvini working with
the Eco-Champs, the youth group in Emmaus, they started to reflect on the dongas
and other degraded areas in their community. They also saw that community from
the Ezibomvini are also attempting to clear alien invasives which is mainly lantana in
this community. The visitors were very impressed with the community work.
After that the trip was taken to Phumelele’s Field crops and her Garden, there was
nothing much to see in the field crops as harvesting has long past, only organic
matter (maize stalk) on the group. The visitors were very impressed with the work
they have witness in the garden, seeing variety of crops and an impressive garden
layout. One of the outstanding questions which was posed by the Kwa Mkhize
farmers, was how they could stand against frost in the garden as it is one of their
main challenges in their gardens. Erna (Director) and Mr Madondo advise that they
use stones or grass to fence their gardens, the aim being to prevent any cold wind
from blowing towards their crops.
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Figure 3: Discussionat Phumelele Hlongwane’s Garden
After that lunch was served and the next stop was on the rehabilitation site at
Estulwane. The community member from Estulwane Introduced themselves to the
farmers of Kwa Mkhize and began to talk about the rehabilitation site. It was then
pointed out that this site served as a demonstration site for community members to
witness that land can be rehabilitated, which then encouraged them to start focusing
more on other areas as they started by changing the gate at the grazing camps as
mean of trying to rest and rehabilitate the path used by livestock to enter and exit the
communal grazing camps. The also started to cut down wattle along stream as
means clearing invasives and saving water in the catchment. The community
members are achieving all of this with the help of Environmental Champs, a trained
youth group in the Emmaus area. Kwa Mkhize community members and other
visitors were very impressed by the role which was played by the eco-champs who
has clearly shown great dedication to what they do.
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Figure 4: Discussionat therehabilitationsite
The following stop was at Nothile Zondi’s household were there was a show case of
fodder production and how it works. On the way from the rehabilitation sitethe visitors
were shown standing pipes which were installed along the roadside. This is also one of
the works done by the community of Estulwane working with MDF, they have
established water accessscheme, whichis supplying 60% of Coston, thiswater
scheme was implemented in September 2023 and nished in January 2024. At Nothile
Zondi’s household there was a discussion of howa farmer can take of their livestock by
planting fodder and feeding their livestock. Nothile being an exampleofa farmer who
has experimented with fodder production shared her experience and demonstrated on
how she makes her own bales using a manual bailer. The visiting farmers shownto be
very interested on the idea of fodder productionas it is something they were not
exposed to.The last stop was spring protection, Nelisiwe Msele a shared their
experience working in protectingthis spring and how their water scheme system is
working and they way they are maintaining it.
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Figure 5: Nothile Zondi demonstrating making a bale
Conclusion
This field trip served its purpose, as the farmers from Kwa Mkhize and Emmaus area
got the platform to mutually learn and share some information from one-another. All
these communities had common thing they could relate with, one being poor water
access, second being natural resources which needs attention from the community
and lastly, they are all farmers who finds passion in farming.
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