LUCERNE MAKES THE CUT FOR THIS YOUNG FARMER
Tshepiso Jantjies turned his family’s struggling farm around in just three years. He managed this by replacing grain with lucern by adding value to the lucer and by applying some ba business principles to the farming operatio The Jantjies family had farmed maize a barley on 10ha in the Taung Irrigation Sche since the 1980s. Established in 1939, t Vaalharts/Taung Irrigation Scheme is t largest irrigation scheme in South Africa an is spread between two provinces, the Northern Cape and the North West Province, with approximately 35 302ha of land under irrigation. “My grandparents, Zwelibangile and Lenah Jantjies, who stayed in Dryharts village, produced maize using donkeys and oxen back in the day,” Tshepiso explains. His uncle, Joseph, took over the farm when Tshepiso’s grandparents retired.
In 2019 when he got involved with the farm, Tshepiso advised his uncle to grow lucerne rather than the maize and barley they produced. He did not think they could make a profit growing these crops on 10ha. “We are talking about economies of scale,” he says. Tshepiso
