ANDILE KHUMALO: What the Boers can teach us on SA
The power of collaboration can help us achieve meaningful and sustainable economic transformation and bring to life the ideal of inclusive growth
Growing up in Umlazi in the '80s and '90s I understood the word Boer to mean something very different to the Afrikaans word for "farmer". While I had to study Afrikaans through most of my school life, it never quite registered in my mind that those we knew as "Boers" started out as mere farmers. My visit to this year's Nampo Harvest Day, hosted by Grain SA, was a harsh reminder as much as it was a refreshing eye-opener. It reminded me that the core identity of the agricultural sector of South Africa was still the Boers of my youth. But it also turned out to be a revelation about some of the progress that had been made by the industry and the government, especially the Land Bank in supporting black emerging farmers. Former newspaperman and now emerging farmer Herbert Mabuza told a story of how in 2007 he visited a farm and told the owner he liked it and wanted to make an offer. "He took one look at me and said, 'Kan jy boer?' [Can you farm?]. I told him I couldn't farm and right ther...
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