Everytime someone thinks about a farmer, they see an old man in his khaki shorts, which are dirty — not very interesting. Young people say they can’t do farming because they think it’s so dirty. If you want the youth to buy into this, you have got to do it in such a way that is appealing to them. So when you see me in town, I am in my lipstick, I am in my heels and I will not be in my boots.

Namhla Skweyiya has taken things in her stride and become a “sexy farmer” to make the agriculture sector more appealing to other young farmers.

Skweyiya says that currently, the average demographic of a commercial farmer is a 62-year-old white man, and it is a major problem for South Africa, because we don’t have enough young people getting into the sector to take up the role of farmers, in order to grow the economy.
Before farming, Skweyiya was at the other end of the value chain: she worked as a food technologist for major South African stores. This has given her insight many farmers are not privy to, however, it was not always taken this way by other farmers. “There is a tendency to be treated like you don’t know what you are talking about. Whenever my questions arose I received some sort of a backlash, where there are underlying tones saying ‘who are you and how could you know something like that?,” she says.

Last year, Skweyiya had to put her farming on hold because of funding issues and she is now consulting for farmers of big retailers to give them technical advice, as well as small emerging farmers. “At the beginning of my farming career in 2012, I had to learn about things from the input cost and how it would affect pricing, so this has helped my career develop and I can also work with other farmers,” she says.
— Rumana Akoob