From Scarcity To Security and Beyond
Our goal is to provide rural families with real economic opportunities within their communities. In doing so, we believe we will see families strengthened and livelihoods improve. For rural communities, this all starts with increasing the yields of subsistance farmers. Subsitance farming, maybe more commonly referred to in the USA as “homesteading,” is cultivating land for the purpose of feeding one’s own family, but not necessarily enough to trade.
Plowing Fields
Most of our community members cannot afford to have their fields plowed using commercial contractors or even with government subsidies. This limits many families to plowing their fields with Ox or by hand. Both are incredibly time and energy consuming, and severely limit the amount of land that can be plowed. In many cases, our community members might only plant one quarter of their possible agricultural land due to plowing limitations. In 2021 we began offering very heavily subsidized plowing to our community members. Through this effort, we are seeing families become food secure and even able to trade some of their excess for cash or other crops.
Bee Hives
As a part of our feeder program for Bulembu Honey (one of our larger enterprises), we have a “loaned” bee hive investment program, wherein we loan farmers a beehive with their guarantee of supplying us for following 3 years. During the harvest seasons we purchase the honey back from the farmer at market rate. In doing so, the farmer secures virtually passive income, and we secure larger volumes of supply for Bulembu Honey.
Livestock
Within certain communities, our site sustainability projects have a specific focus on certain livestock. The decision of which livestock to invest in varies based on the local skillset, community demands, availability of water, grazing land, etc. This includes chickens, pigs, sheep, and goats.
Other Entrepreneurial Efforts
In areas where community site leaders identify viable business ideas, we help provide seed capital to get them started. All funds generated from these entrepreneurial ventures are used to fund the ongoing expenses of the specific site. Examples of entrepreneurial ventures would be a rural minibus service and a rural convenience store.