As part of the Amanzi for Food, Mpumalanga symposium participants were tasked with developing posters showcasing their productive demonstration sites. Youths in the Enactus group from the University of Mpumalanga also participated in the development of the posters. Speaking on the inclusion of youths, Gerhard Viljoen, a lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga said we, “included young people from Enactus group in the development of productive demonstration sites because we want to encourage them to be innovative and to use that knowledge in their projects”. Simon Mashila a student in Development studies at the University of Mpumalanga presented the poster for the Enactus group. Simon said the Enactus group helps communities share ideas on how they can produce better, it also checks on resources and ensures that farmers use limited resources to produce more. Other things that Enactus checks on include land, resources, production, investment and entrepreneurial skills. “You can be a good farmer but do not have a good target market. We understand that a good employee is a productive employee…”. Also we understand that, “as an entrepreneur you are not a boss but a leader, you must show people the way..you must think of how you are going to contribute to the economy and whom you are going to sell to”, says Simon. The Enactus group was working with farmers from Inala looking at how they were producing before and how they can improve their farming practices. The farmers were using water from the municipality in their gardens, but there were facing water challenges., “we have scarce resources and we do not have enough water supply” says Simon. “So we introduced rainwater harvesting using an old building. We are also planning to introduce mulching, rooftop rainwater harvesting and to measure out contours and diversion farrows using A-Frames”, he added.
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