Water is a huge concern for organised farmers

Menge Agnes Choledi

By: Agnes Choledi

After we had organized ourselves as a united community and a forum called Jagersfontein Lerumo Justice Forum, we realized that the most important thing is to combat poverty, so we can focus on our right to freedom.

We are being supported by the Bench Marks Foundation Research Team leader, Ntate David Van Wyk, to establish and register the agricultural cooperative. Our challenge is that our registration has failed, and we have had to start afresh. We did so through Ntate Makhotla Sefuli, and we also changed our cooperative name and submitted new names for the cooperative. We hope and pray that we will finally be registered and recognized so that we can proceed with our duties of planting food for our people, children, parents, and the elderly.

Now we have decided to start with planting and Piggery, but the biggest challenge is water. We had a space we were working from, but the only thing that is delaying us is water. We have a JoJo Tank that was installed by our Life Saver partners, Gift of the Givers, to reduce the impact of the lack of water supply. As we speak, all those JoJos (water tanks) are not benefiting the community because they are not working. We are still in negotiations with the relevant parties to try and resolve the matter because poverty is too high and children are hungry.

As a team, I wish everyone a respectful holiday.