Education and curiosity: crucial to agripreneurship success
Vutlhari Chauke, a 34-year-old first-generation farmer, is passionate about the value of education. And it’s a passion borne out by her own academic record.
She obtained five distinctions in matric before studying at the Central University of Technology in the Free State. She then went on to obtain an MBA from the University of South Africa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership in 2014.
Today, Chauke runs VT Harvest, a periurban farm that specialises in the production of vegetables, herbs, and high-value crops.
Limpopo-born Chauke had no agricultural experience when she left the comfort of Sandton’s boardrooms in 2017 to start farming. What she did have was a thirst for knowledge and a pair of hands that she didn’t mind getting dirty.
“I’ve moved around in the corporate world and have learnt a lot,” she says. She worked mainly for JSE-listed companies in the logistics and travel and tourism sectors and, as it turns out, the
