27 Apr 2015

Maokane, situated about 30km south of Jwaneng, has all the bearings of a desert especially when one visits during a hot, sunny day.

The dry air that wafted through the village that day explained why it was difficult to get passers-by at least to ask for directions to get around smoothly.  And for a faint hearted townie the seemingly lonely and desolate village pasted on the dry Kalahari sands would immediately become a graveyard of dreams. 

But for the 28-year-old Ms Kemoneilwe Kowa of Thamaga, the village has become a launch pad for her passion. Entrepreneurs are naturally driven by the desire to fill a need somewhere.  Likewise, instead of whining about what she was otherwise missing in town, she decided to provide it herself. 

“When I arrived in Maokane some years back I immediately picked that it was not easy to source fresh vegetables from the village market then decided to start small with my backyard to plant some,” she said.

When the father of her three children acquired a borehole through the LIMID programme, she said Serotswane farms near Maokane suddenly became an oasis in the desert and somewhat spurred the idea of a garden to take advantage of the water.

And as fate would have it, she said slowly but surely the demand for her products started overtaking her supply then approached the Department of Youth for funding to expand her venture and express herself.

She shared that in December 2010 she got a P100 000 fund from the department to turn her burning desire, passion into a fully-fledged horticulture business and never looked back ever since. 

Although at the time of funding she was only armed with a Form Five certificate, she said she was confident that her passion would make up for what she might have lacked in terms of proper training as a vegetable producer.

Although her farm was idle at the time of the interview, Ms Kowa was confident that the project has put food on the table and created employment for her. 

She says experience is the best teacher.  She says she has deliberately left the farm to idle for some time with a view to avert the recent wave of heat that has left many a farmer helpless. 

The emerging farmer says experience has taught her to observe elements of nature so that she plants her crops based on suitability at a certain points in time rather than waste resources trying to compete with nature.

She says there is a good market for her produce in Jwaneng but sometimes fails to meet the demand as a result of unreliable climate.Ms Kowa has thus urged particularly the jobless youth to utilise the available citizen empowerment programmes and create employment for themselves rather than waiting forever for a non existant job. ENDS