SUGAR CANE QUEEN BUILDS HER EMPIRE

Nonhlanhla Gumede-Shabalala was home for the 2010 December holidays when her father’s sugar cane farm in Kearsney, near Stanger, ran into serious challenges. Its production shrank from 5 500t to under 1 000t owing to a devastating drought.

The family rallied together to save the farm from disaster. “Together with my elder [late] sister, we would wake up every morning to help my dad in the fields. We replanted the fields during those holidays using disaster relief funds from the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Rural Development,” Nonhlanhla recalls.