Top farmer is also woman of the year

Linda Ngatshane, last year’s Female Farmer of the Year, has been crowned the Shoprite-Checkers/SABC 2 Woman of the Year for 2007. The award was presented to her at a prestigious gala event in Cape Town on 26 July. T his former nurse from Mpumalanga, who has a Master’s Degree in public health, started farming three years ago in response to a group of women who argued that they remained challenged by poverty and unemployment despite having useful nutritional knowledge. Ngatshane bought a 10ha farm, De Hoop, in the Crocodile River Gorge, and what used to be Lowveld bush is now a flourishing enterprise with an annual turnover of R2 million. The farm has the capacity to rear 25 000 chickens. While she bought the farm without government assistance, Ngatshane takes on a lot of social responsibility and in some cases fulfils government functions. She is involved in community development, conducting training on planting vegetables in bags and poultry and oyster mushroom production, as well as caring for and supporting orphans and vulnerable children. – Susan Botes