In his own words
O
riginally from South Africa, I was born in the Eastern Cape province and my dad’s family owns an informal, mixed-enterprise farm which includes livestock and arable. That said, I actually did not grow up in agriculture or within a farming community; I grew up in the city of Johannesburg with my mum, Demi Putuzo, and my older sister. My grandad first rented the farm in the 1980s before my grandmother purchased it after he passed in the 1990s. One of the reasons I love agriculture is because I did not grow up with my dad. Going to the farm meant getting to help out, and that was really fun, not only because I was on the farm with my cousins, but because I got to spend time with my dad. My grandad passed away quite some time back, and his kids really weren’t into agriculture, but they did it as a hobby to keep their dad’s dream alive. So, for me, going into agriculture is really about not only learning about agriculture because I love it, but it’s a way for me to really make something of what my grandad left for his children back home.
A mother’s love
I got a scholarship at Hartpury University to play rugby. I considered a sports degree or something, but I just thought about the opportunities I have back home and my love for agriculture. Although I had a scholarship, I didn’t get a full one and it was a really, really hard time getting everything sorted to come to the UK. It was hard to get a visa and I really saw my mum really digging deep into her pockets to be able to give me this opportunity. In the UK, she’s still paying way more than what she would have paid in South Africa, where I wouldn’t even get a scholarship. My mum really made it clear to me that it’s not a problem. She will do anything for her children, even though her
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pockets are stretched and we might have to change our lifestyle. She told me, ‘it’s only three years, but your education will last you a lifetime’. In South Africa, they’ve made the youth feel that if you’ve got an international degree, you are more likely to succeed. Someone who studied agriculture in the UK is more likely to get a job than a person who studied the same thing in South Africa.
Feeling underprepared
Due to the visa issues, I came to England later, so I missed freshers’ week and that put me on the back foot. I was 19 in my first year in England, and I was in a class with 17-year-olds, and the big difference was that they had some sort of skill before university and I didn’t. But it wasn’t only me. I’m in a class with three other South Africans and they were in the same boat. However, the three other South Africans had farming backgrounds in a way I didn’t. Farming in South Africa is a very whitedominated industry, my white South
African classmates have come from quite affluent and farming backgrounds there. For a Black person to really see the worth in agriculture or a career out of agriculture, you generally already need to be coming from a farming background. Most of the Black farmers in South Africa really farm to feed themselves through subsistence farming, whereas white people make a business out of it. I’m doing something unusual by trying to make a business. I was the only Black person in my class but I was really prepared for that. Arriving late was the hard part, as everyone already knew each other, and then I knew nothing about agriculture in terms of theory. I remember my first semester I had to learn the lingo, so simple things like tilling, ploughing and slurry, I don’t even know. My friends were really helpful and my lecturers were checking up on me almost every day. I was I kind of getting irritated, because I’m not incapable, I just didn’t know everything yet. Luckily, they were persistent and really understanding.
May 2022
12/04/2022 11:48:55
