Men should become champions of social change

by Minister Ivan Meyer

Today, Berene continues to grow her wines, now producing a Chardonnay together with her acclaimed Pinot Noir.

Roosterkoek queen Tannie Poppie van As comes from the Karoo town of Laingsburg and has become a national treasure for her lovable personality and delicious roosterkoek, a local delicacy made of dough roasted on an open fire. Tannie Poppie started her roadside roosterkoek stand to earn an income and won the hearts of passers-by. It was not long before she became famous as she appeared on lifestyle TV shows, in magazine articles, and even in a documentary. Her supporters even included a group of Italian cyclists, who ended up inviting her on an Italian adventure.

Natasha Johannes started Garden of Hope in Mitchells Plain five years ago when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She needed to eat fresh vegetables as the cancer caused her to feel weak and tired. Motivated by the need to have access to nutritious vegetables she turned a dumping site behind her house into a vegetable garden. The vegetable garden soon became her passion and her way of receiving and inspiring hope. She now teaches the community to grow its own vegetables.

Small-scale farmer Natasha Love hails from Ebenhaeser, in the Matzikamma Municipality. Natasha farms on two hectares and she produces Chenin Blanc grapes. The wine grapes are sold to Cederberg Cellar where it is processed, bottled, and exported to Sweden. With the support of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture she was able to establish her own vineyards. She currently has six thousand vines on these two hectares.

Ingrid Lestrade is the director at Middelpos Farm near Malmesbury and founder of the non-profit organisation (NPO), Inspire Children and Youth. A qualified attorney, bronze medallist in the 2016 Commonwealth Judo Games and four times South African judo champion, she teaches 47 rural farm children judo to help them feel safe, motivated to stay in school, improve their school marks, and inspire their parents to drink responsibly. She also helps 13 farm families to use the resources on the farm to break their generational cycle of poverty. She develops strategy, raises funds, implements, and markets activities for rural children, youth, and women on Middelpos and the surrounding farms, focusing on education, health, and economic development.

Alison van der Walt, a qualified psychologist specialising in industrial psychology, is the manager of the Genesis Hub in Vredenburg. Genesis Hub is a safe place for youth, where they do not only learn a technical skill in a specific area, but also learn to develop in all areas of life. Focus areas include urban farming, aquaponics, Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) skills such as coding and drone training, sanitary pad production, cutting, measuring and trimming (CMT), and culinary skills. She describes her team as an amazing team and the reason for the Genesis Hub “making magic”.

These women are trailblazers and wherever they go they have made a difference. In many instances they have done so without any support. In others, they were lucky to have the support of a mentor.

This Women’s Month I urge our male colleagues to become champions for social change and gender equity as the battle for gender equity will be greatly advanced when more men do so.

Becoming champions of social change and gender equity requires men to join women in:

• becoming passionate about gender equity and the possibilities it offers society and the planet;

• upholding the vision and values of gender equity;

• advocating and supporting gender equity at every opportunity; and

• influencing others to become champions of social change and gender equity.

Let the men undertake to listen more, mentor more, teach more, and provide an enabling environment for women to flourish and reach full self-actualisation, because when our women flourish, society flourishes.

Tenth international symposium on irrigation of horticultural crops

OAn expert group of about 120 international and South African irrigation and horticultural scientists will be warmly welcomed on 29 January 2023 to a four-day symposium at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study conference centre.

According to the Western Cape Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ivan Meyer, the symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to highlight the rich diversity of irrigated horticultural crop production in the Western Cape and South Africa.

Meyer: “The Western Cape offers excellent local research on water use and measures to increase water use efficiency, modern irrigation technologies and practices, lessons learnt from the 2015–2018 drought, and world-leading understanding of climate change risks and adaptation”.

The Western Cape Department of Agriculture (WCDoA) will be the primary host of this prestigious symposium of the International Society for Horticultural

Science (ISHS). Partners include the Southern African Society for Horticultural Science (SASHS), water research institutions, commodity organisations for fruit, wine, and vegetables, and key role players in the private sector.

Prof Stephanie Midgley, climate change and risk assessment expert of the department, is the nominated overall convenor, supported by two coconvenors from Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria, and a committee of local and international scientists.

Midgley: “The department’s researchers will contribute presentations on several key projects, including FruitLook, a satellite-based online irrigation decision support tool”.

“The symposium will also allow the department’s research staff and local students to engage and collaborate with international experts from countries such as Spain, Italy, and the USA”, concludes Midgley.