Amadlelo’s Young Dairy Farmers Propel the Agribusiness into Pole Position

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The dairy industry, like many industries in South Africa, is faced with a shortage of skills.

To close the skills gap, the industry attracts, trains, and retains young professionals to assume managerial responsibilities that have been passed on to them by experienced dairy farmers. This is an integral part of succession planning. Dairy farming is the fifth-largest agricultural industry, employing over 45,000 people and contributing R14.5 billion annually to the economy - and bringing in new blood to inject fresh ideas ensures that dairy farming maintains its status as a major contributor to South Africa’s economy.

Training and skills development are crucial to supporting the growth and transformation of the sector, which is dominated by white industry players. In 2016, the Milk Producers’ Organisation (MPO) trained over 1 500 students and placed many of these students on commercial dairy farms across South Africa.

The importance of bringing in young talent to dairy farming is fully supported by Amadlelo Agri, a diversified agribusiness that operates

five commercial dairy farms in the country. The company is also a strategic investor in non-dairy ventures that comprise a piggery, a macadamia plantation, and a dairy processing plant.

Amadlelo has developed an extensive internship programme that exposes young graduates to all facets of dairy farming including milking, herd management, heifer rearing, health and safety, first aid, basic firefighting, team leadership, and artificial insemination.

Some of the graduates of the programme have spent a year-long exchange programme in New Zealand, one of the leading dairy producers in the world, to further their knowledge and skills in dairy agribusiness.

There are several young farm managers at Amadlelo who have graduated from an in-house internship programme. This group includes: Sinokuphila Khekhezwa, Mbuyisi Ntshanga, Thobela Fikelepi, Sanele Vela, Usivelele Giyose, and Ayanda Mtheli. Others are Jeanet Rikhotso, Someleze Qhoqhwane, Nandipha Damse, and Leonard Mavhungu (an award-winning dairy farmer). Other graduates have since moved on in pursuit of personal advancement opportunities elsewhere.

Sinokuphila, one the rising stars at Amadlelo, was one of the people from the company selected for an internship in New Zealand in 2016. The programme was led by Amadlelo in partnership with another South African company, Genimex, the largest supplier of dairy genetics in New Zealand. Genimex also provides premium frozen semen to Amadlelo for breeding purposes.

Today, Sinokuphila is a Junior Farm Manager at Ncora Dairy Trust which is situated outside Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape, where she manages a herd of 1, 800 cows. Ncora is one of the five dairy farms that Amadlelo operates. The others are in Whittlesea, Keiskammahoek, Middledrift and Alice. In New Zealand, Sinokuphila and her colleague were each assigned a mentor at Cheswick Dairy Farm, which provided a rich training ground for both.

“One thing I noticed in New Zealand is that the dairy industry in that country invests heavily in technology,” Sinokuphila observed.

She also noted that New Zealand’s dairy operators are more reliant on consultants to run their agribusinesses compared with South Africa where farmers are more hands-on in running dairies. The mentor she was assigned to in New Zealand did not just provide general oversight of her internship programme, but also facilitated crucial exposure to successful local and educational dairy ventures such as the Lincoln University Farm.

Another rising star and product of Amadlelo’s internship programme is Sanele Vela, who is a Senior Farm Manager at Shiloh Dairy Farm near Whittlesea, in the Eastern Cape. Sanele helped Shiloh to persevere through a protracted devastating drought without shutting down or shedding jobs. >

This was at the time when the catchment area for Waterdown Dam in Amatole Mountain Range had experienced significantly low annual rainfall since 2016. The rain was less frequent, resulting in water restrictions being introduced after dam levels had dropped. But Shiloh survived the drought, thanks to Sanele’s excellent farm management skills.

Sanele was encouraged by his mother to study agriculture. She sent him to Weston Agricultural College, where most of his time was spent at the school’s farm which had dairy cows, beef cows, and a piggery. The school’s farm also grew crops, giving Sanele mixed-farming experience.

After completing matric in 2004, Sanele enrolled at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, where he completed a diploma in Agricultural Management. He believes that whilst education is good and serves as a door opener to opportunities, what is more important in agriculture is work experience.

“Most of the best farmers do not have matric,” he says.

He believes that to curb high youth unemployment in South Africa, young people must seriously consider getting involved in small-scale farming on communal land in their villages.

Sanele and Sinokuphila have also passed on their knowledge to upand-coming dairy farmers. One of those farmers is Mbuyisi Ntshanga, who is an Outside Junior Manager at Fort Hare Dairy Trust in Alice. Since graduating in 2019 with an animal production science degree from the University of Fort Hare, Mbuyisi has not looked back.

“After completing my studies, I started as an intern at Fort Hare Dairy Trust, where I got exposed to practical outside work. I enjoyed the hands-on experience and gained valued experience on many aspects of dairy farming. Most importantly, I got to do something new every day which challenged my capabilities and made me better at farming,” says Mbuyisi.

It is the young farmers valuable experience gained through Amadlelo, that has created efficiencies in the company’s operations that has helped to propel Amadlelo to a pole position when it comes to transforming the South African dairy industry. 