Jade and Nicola visit Eswatini Kitchen

Eswatini Kitchen and the Woman Farmer Foundation Visit - 26 Sep 2024

We got a warm welcome from Carlos Paiva and met the team we would be spending time with over the next two days in their lovely air conditioned meeting room. We also got to meet some of the wonderful students who are sponsored by our dear customer Unicorn Grocery in conjunction with True Origin Partnerships, as they come to the end of their 3 month training course through the Tunnel Project, before the next cohort of around 20 students starting in October. Each of the students we spoke to told their own story of how the Woman Farmer Foundation has helped them turn the theory of what they had learned at university into practise by actually getting taught practical farming methods and having their own piece of land to cultivate using the Tunnels. These tunnels are particularly valuable as they allow the farmer to control the growing environment for the crops as the weather is unpredictable now due to climate change. We saw the difference these tunnels make as the tomato plants were almost 6ft tall whereas the ones in the open field without the protection were only around 2-3 ft tall. The weekend before we arrived in Eswatini, they had really bad hail storms and temperatures of around 15 degrees, and then a few days later it was bright sunshine and 41 degrees.

The students we met were Andile Hlatjwayo who is 28 years old and graduated from the University of Eswatini with a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering. We also met Nolwazi Hlatjwayo who is 34 years old with a BSC in Horticulture and later on we met Nonsindiso Mamba.  These three remarkable women are educated to a high level and yet could not find a job when they left university with their degrees and this problem is all too common in Eswatini where they have a very high unemployment rate but an educated youth who are willing to keep learning. This is where the Tunnel Project comes in. In university they only learn the classroom based theory which does not always transfer easily into starting a farm and turning it into a business. The Tunnel Project provides this link, it teaches them business skills such as bookkeeping, taxation and accountancy, business planning, IT skills etc and equips them to turn there land into a business. 

One of the good things about Eswatini is that the king provides everyone with a piece of land and so they have the means to do subsistence farming but the skills learnt through the Tunnel Project allows them to develop this into a commercial business over time. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of these young women and their willingness to get out there and start putting what they have learnt into practice on their own land knowing that they have the knowledge and expertise of those at the Woman Farmer Foundation at their fingertips.  The far right photo has Sonia Paiva on the right who founded The Woman Farmer Foundation and the Woman Farmer of the Year competition and she remains extremely passionate about these women and projects. 

Next up was a tour of the factory by Carlos and Damien de Sousa.  They were keen to show us where they started, where they are now, and where they hope to be in terms of factory capacity. They have plans to automate certain parts of the production line in order to be more efficient and save in production time. Carlos talked us through the current process and explained what each piece of equipment does. Jade and I showed great interest in the freezer room and just had to step inside to cool our burning hot Scottish skin down.

Next it was lunch time and we were treated to a proper Swazi tradition for sharing a meal together which was called a Shisa Nyama where the meats are cooked over an open flame and is served on a platter with pap (maize meal), coleslaw, and chakalaka beans. Everyone just tucks in and eats with their hands and enjoys the conversation and company. I have to say, it took Jade and I a while to get used to eating beans and coleslaw with our hands bur we really enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

After lunch we went back to the very welcome air conditioned meeting room where we spoke about both Eswatini’s future plans and True Origin’s plans and brainstormed ways we can work better together and our areas of growth. All in all it was a brilliant day, a huge learning curve for Jade and I but we soaked it all in … and then sweated it all out, 41 degrees was hard for us as we have not experienced that kind of heat before, thank goodness for air conditioning.