Climate Smart Agriculture equips women farmers and grows the economy

South African female crop and dairy farmer, Disebo Makatsa, has always loved farming, a passion she inherited from her mother. What started out as a vegetable garden in her backyard developed into a dream to farm formally on her own farm. In 2004 she applied for a 111-hectare farm from the government and was successful in 2009 but due to challenges with water, she applied for another farm in 2010. In 2014 Dee-Y Trading moved to a 368-hectare farm in the Free State province where she does large-scale vegetable and dairy farming.

Makatsa is one of 4,560 South African women farmers who have benefited from the Climate Smart Agriculture program since 2019, implemented by UN Women in South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda, supported by Standard Bank. In South Africa, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) partnered with UN Women to provide farmers with technical farming skills.

In South Africa, female farmers were assisted to start and improve farming crops including maize, beans, and other vegetables. In Malawi the program focused on reaching 10, 461 women farmers to grow ground nuts; in Uganda 1,400 were given the skills to grow as cage fish farmers; and in Nigeria 12,500 women were skilled and upskilled in the production of shea butter and rice.

 Makatsa emphasized that although commercial farming is still a male-dominated industry where women have to work doubly hard, the reality is that women have always been farmers, working the land and producing food. What many small-scale women farmers need are skills, finance, technology and access to markets, to move into the formal economy.

Some of the elements of the Climate Smart Agriculture Program include access to labor and time-saving farming equipment, climate-resilient agricultural extension services, information and training, technical farming training, business management skills, and mentorship.

The programme enriched Makatsa’s business, and she indicates that some of the best agriculture practices she learned from the program and implemented, include conserving water by installing drip-irrigation technology, crop rotation which has helped her retain the nutrients in the soil, and intercropping which has helped keep her soil fertile while saving land space. The result has been a noticeable improvement in the quality of her produce and a significantly better yield of crops. Additionally, the lessons learned and implemented on compliance have helped her formalize her business and enabled her to supply big retailers with her fresh produce and milk. She currently has 68 milk cows, having started with 50, and employs 14 people on the farm (excluding those she hires during harvest season).

The future for Dee-Y Trading is agro-processing. Makatsa would like to see her business grow to produce pasteurized milk, yogurt, maas, and other dairy products. She would also like to supply giant retailers with cut, ready-to-cook vegetables.