With no farming experience between them, six unemployed women from Jansenville started a poultry farm 12 years ago and built it into a thriving business.
The women of Bafazi Phambili are Nosakhele Betsha, 51, Martha Ndoni, 70, Sanna Mapela, 62, Noluthando Hans, 58, Esta Williams, 54, and Thembakazi Jeyi, 38.
The group started the chicken farm in 2006 because poverty was rife in Jansenville and there were not many job opportunities in the area, especially for women older than 50.
Bafazi Phambili chair Betsha said she approached the department of agriculture and was advised to gather a group of women who were interested in farming because the department would be willing to assist a group.
“We were 16 when we started this project and the department gave us 400 broiler chicks and feed to start our project.
“But as time went on, some in the group broke away and we ended up with the six now,” Betsha said.
In 2016, Betsha said the department of social development gave them a R400,000 cash injection, which they used to buy more chickens, furniture and computers to continue running their business.
The women are renting a small shop in Jansenville where they sell their chickens, but Betsha said one of the biggest challenges was that they did not have their own abattoir.
“We use our mentor’s abattoir, but the problem with that is that he’s also our competitor and you have situations where he’ll make us wait two months before we can send our chickens to be slaughtered, and in those two months, we lose out on money and potential clients,” Betsha said.
The department of agriculture also built the women a big chicken coop on a 2ha property they lease where they keep more than 3,000 chicks.
Betsha said through their shop they had a market, but another challenge for them was transport as there were people from out of town who were interested in their chickens but could not get to them.
Asked what they did prior to being farmers, Mapela said she was unemployed.
Hans said she used to sit on her stoep in the sun all day, waiting for something to happen, until she joined the group.
“When the group kept breaking up I stayed because I felt I was being productive, unlike what I had been doing before,” Hans said.
Williams said she had worked for a school feeding scheme and when the project came along she realised she wanted to go into farming.
Jeyi said the project and its women changed her life because she used to drink.
“I did not have a productive thought in those days. All I did was drink, so this project really changed my life – it saved me.
“I spend most of my days here, reading about chicken farming and expanding my knowledge,” Jeyi said.
The women received training in poultry production and were also taught how to use new technologies.
Betsha said they required more training because new technologies were coming out all the time.
“We’re already old so we need constant revisement.”
Betsha said the poultry farm made a profit but they had to be vigilant because “when it’s cold the chickens die and when it’s hot they die too”.
“We’re supposed to hatch chickens every six weeks but we don’t because we don’t have an abattoir. If we had one, we’d be able to supply stores like Pick n Pay and make more profit,” she said.