COMPARING the salary she received from the work she did as a teacher for six years with her daily expenses which kept increasing, made Ms. Nozuko Cezula worry about something else to earn a living.
That’s how his journey into agriculture began in 2011, which caused him to resign from his job as a teacher, he decided to focus on agriculture after getting lucky enough to be funded to start a business.
It is now history that Ms. Cezula is a growing farmer in this field, as she has an agricultural company called Nozuko Farming in Kokstad, which is growing rapidly in this field.
Narrating his journey, he said that he grew up in a family where livestock was raised as his father was a farmer when he was growing up, which made him quickly learn other important things about farming and farming.
“That’s why it was easy for me to apply for funding to start an agricultural business at the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Eastern Cape since my home area was under that province, I was lucky enough to be accepted into that program.”
He said: “They helped me by giving me 50 cows, and a large farm of 300 hectares, which I started working on, planting corn, and gradually I added other crops and sheep.”
He disclosed that his hard work helped him a lot in 2014 when he got the opportunity to sell his corn product in Mexico, which is one of the things that helped him grow his business.
Apart from that, some of his products are sold in different places including corn products that he sells to Kokstad Milling, cattle that he sells to Karan Beef and sheep that he sells to East Griqualand Meat Supply.
When asked about the challenges he faced, he said: “The biggest problem we often face is the tetanus disease that often affects our livestock, and then it is the drought that affects the productivity of our crops if the weather does not rain properly and adequately.”
Currently, Nozuko Farming has 7 full-time employees, and when there is a large amount of work, it usually adds 22 part-time employees.
“Now I am looking to continue working hard with the team I work with so that the business remains stable, and I also wish to find other ways of funding so that I can continue to be useful to the community I have built and to the whole country,” said Ms. Cezula.