Egyptian Valencias are very small, creating an opportunity for South Africa's early orange exporters. "Everyone's very optimistic, a lot of farmers are very positive that it'll be a good year," says Lavhengwa Nemaorani of Muka Tangi Farm, previously known as Easy Farm, in Tshivhilwi village, close to Thohoyandou in Limpopo Province. On just over two hundred hectares he farms 120ha of citrus and 21ha of bananas, with plans for another 53ha of citrus. His Nadorcotts are not yet of bearing age.
His first navels tested ready very early this year, he says, peaking at good sizes, and he's decided not to export them at all but rather focus on the domestic market by supplying Freshmark.
Last year was an unusual orange season: for the first time he didn't pack a single box for fresh sales but instead all of his navels and Valencias went for juice: "At this moment we don't know what the juice price is going to be, so to safeguard myself I decided to send my oranges to the local market."
While attending the recent biannual Citrus Summit, Nemaorani had the opportunity to visit citrus projects for emerging farmers in the Sundays River Valley. It got him thinking that such projects are "very possible to do this side of the world."
Lavhengwa Nemaorani of Muka Tangi Farm (formerly known as Easy Farm). The farm's name is a contraction of Mukanda and Tangi, his parents
Nemaorani's late father Israel Mukanda Nemaorani was a board member of the Citrus Growers' Association. Nemaorani is today still the only commercial farmer in his area on the farm his father bought in 1989, but he doesn't want it to be so. Having no one to discuss what they're finding in the orchards, or pooling deliveries, or getting information on the latest packhouse requirements is a disadvantage.
"I have to drive to Letsitele or Tzaneen to get information. I have to rely on farmers who are 250 km away, because there isn't a farming community around me."
A recently established Nadorcott orchard on Muka Tangi Farm
He continues: "If my farm can survive from 1989 up until 2025, that alone should say something. It should tell the government: there is potential here. Citrus, avos, bananas - a lot of crops will do well here, the water is there, the climate is perfect."
"Farms have to be run by someone who knows what they're doing"
He firmly believes there are individual, small-scale farmers and farming families in Venda with the ambition and the disposition to make a commercial success of it, coupled with ample water and a very favourable climate. They are hamstrung by insufficient operating and investment capital, as he is himself.
On the other hand, there are farms, especially in the Levubu district, that over the past thirty years exchanged ownership under land restitution programmes, usually moving from private white to communal black ownership, a collectivist model favoured for many years by the government, but a fundamentally flawed one, he believes. He doesn't know of a single successful so-called 'land reform' farm.
"Nothing is happening on community-driven farms. You can't have a community in charge of a farming project, not everyone is interested in farming. It can be a community-owned project, but it can't be run by a community. It has to be run by someone who knows what they're doing."
In his isolation from other commercial farmers, he acknowledges definite merits in a cooperative model that embraces a pod of independent farmers who can support each other, both in physical terms like equipment-sharing but also in staying on top of changing export regulations, for example. "The model should be very strict. Whoever is involved should be involved 100%. It shouldn't be a doctor in Joburg."
Old-fashioned packhouse lets opportunities slip away
On Muka Tangi Farm, an old-fashioned rope-and-pulley system still powers the citrus packhouse where Nemaorani remarks that he packs in a month what other commercial farmers can pack away in a week. All sorting is still done by the human eye.
Citrus black spot, false codling moth, fruit fly: he has it all, which is why he's in his orchards every day, and if he finds any sign of the above in an orchard, it is immediately withdrawn from the European Union. "On good orchards, we take the risk to send to Europe. Then we run the packline at a slower speed, and I put more people on the pre-sorting tables."
Many times, he has had to forgo opportunities because of the packhouse's capability. "For instance, opportunities in China, which wants a class 1 fruit with no blemish. I cannot depend on the human eye to pack such a fruit, and therefore, I have to stay away from China, and that's a very lucrative market."
He needs investment in his packhouse, but the rest is in place on Muka Tangi. "I've been doing this for years. I'm in a good position to be the example that proves that rural development does work. I hope one day the government will come and see the hard work that I'm doing."
The baobab tree (centre) is protected and revered for its fruit; Nemaorani has six of the succulent giants on the farm
For more information:
Lavhengwa Nemaorani
Muka Tangi Farm
Email: [email protected]