This woman’s work...
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday February 28, 2022 06:00
PANDAMATENGA: The Mmegi news crew meets 35-year-old Basadi Molelekeng on the way to her farm as she rushes to deliver fertilisers because the tractors and planters are ready to roll. Molelekeng is very hands-on and doesn’t wait for anyone to do a job on her behalf. Arriving at the field, she immediately jumps into her tasks, the whitish fertiliser powder still on her hands. She is ready to start the interview.
Her eyes, however, remain fixed on the field an urge she cannot resist since her life turned around in 2014.
Eight years ago, the then heavily pregnant Molelekeng was banned from a flight from Gaborone to Kasane and was consequently forced to travel by road. She was barred from flying because airlines do not carry women who are far progressed in their pregnancies.
However, the setback and frustration later turned into a blessing. Molelekeng, who was working in Kasane at the time, recalls that as she passed by the farms in Pandamatenga she saw a lot of flooding there and farmers had already planted their crops.
“I just wondered what the farmers were going to do to fix this and so I just started calculating their losses in my head.
“Later, I made some research to find out how long a plant could survive under water.
“That’s how everything progressed from there,” she reveals.
A year later, she saw an advertisement where the Chobe Land Board was seeking applicants for commercial farms. At the time, there was growing concern nationally that young people had become disenchanted with agriculture.
Molelekeng took her chance and became one of seven people who were allocated farms in 2015.
Her story is one about a young, black female farmer persisting against the odds in a hostile environment. Out of the group of four citizens allocated the farms in 2015, she is the only one actively farming of the two who remain with the farms.
Nothing has come easy, however.
“Even if you walk right into government offices they will want you to feel less of a human being and the farmer than you are. “I always tell them that when I am in the company of white farmers they respect me.
“Some Batswana I come across in my work want to make me feel small.” Asked what it was like to start from nothing, Molelekeng pointed out that everything requires perseverance. She was sent back many times by Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency before it finally funded her business.
“I was rejected about five times, but I kept on going because they couldn’t just give me public funds, they had to make sure that I do everything right. “I knew that one day my request would be granted.”
Her mind goes back to those early days in 2015 when she finally set foot on her new farm. She found shrubs in the area which indicated that it had been debushed before, but was never planted. Trees that she found there suggested that the soils were fertile.
Today she has gained invaluable experience and is tending over her hectares. Molelekeng does not plant any specific crops but instead she uses a rotational method.
“We rotate every season looking at the market prices, soil and others.
“As for me, I plant what will bring me profit at the end of the day.
“This year I planted sunflower and beans rather than sorghum, which has higher risks.
“The cost of producing sorghum is double that of beans and triple that of sunflower,” she reveals.
This year, she is planting 500 hectares, but Molelekeng recalls that when they were first allocated the plots for commercial farming, things were uncertain.
“We were four Batswana and myself included,” she recalls.
“One of the farmers sold theirs and never attempted to start farming.
“The other one ended up selling the farm as well a few years ago and now there are only two of us left.”
What made her stick it through? A chartered accountant by profession, Molelekeng observes that some Batswana who give up on farming are usually driven by laziness and the fact that they want shortcuts in life. She suggests that while the government helps to nurture Batswana, the latter often opt to support white people than their own.
“Some people don’t believe that I am the successful farmer I am today and others often ask how I ended up getting funding. “Farming doesn’t have financial benefits and every year farms are being auctioned off.
“We are only here because farming is a lifestyle and passion.
“With some white farmers here, you find that they are the fourth generation of farmers in their family.
“Their children go straight into farming at an early age and they take over from their parents.
“It has become their life even if farming sometimes doesn’t make financial sense.”
Molelekeng says farming requires a lot of commitment and is for iron built people. She recalls instances when 50 hectares of her crops were damaged by floods.
“After planting, any day the floods can destroy the crops but the following week I will be back on the farm planting again.
“People think I am very rich but in actual reality, I am not.
“If you can look at my last payslip, you would be shocked and wonder what I am still doing here,” she says.
Molelekeng’s farm employs seven people, but that number can rise to 40 during busy periods. A widow from Shoshong, the 35-year-old has become accustomed to doing everything for herself and not relying on anyone.
She might have the farming bug running in her blood, but in fact, Molelekeng is the first person in her family to venture into commercial farming.
She has to set the bar for her eight-year-old son who may or may not follow in her footsteps.
A lot of her time is spent away from her family. A single mother, Molelekeng is forced to send her son to school far away as Pandamatenga does not have facilities like schools.
“At times I call my family asking to see them with my own eyes. That alone gives me satisfaction because at times I would feel like I am having a heart attack because of the challenges I come across.
“Sometimes my brother travels here just to be there for me during those hard times.”
One curious challenge she has faced is that a lot of the farming equipment in the area comes with instructions written in Afrikaans, forcing Molelekeng to ask for help from other farmers.
Her resilience, however, is certain to ensure that whatever challenges Molelekeng faces, she will take them head-on.