A PATH TO PROGRESS AND PRODUCTION IN PIG FARMING

By the time he turned 14, Sibusiso “Sbu” Zwane was already running a small business, selling mangoes from his grandfather’s fruit farm in Shiluvana village outside Tzaneen. “I was born and raised on the farm, which produced mangoes, citrus and cattle. My uncle runs it now but I still visit there from time to time,” says Sbu, adding that he is grateful for the upbringing that shaped his successful career.

As a youngster, livestock was not his interest. “I was more interested in fruit, probably because that’s where I made my pocket money.” From October to November, he supplied small local processors with green mangoes. “I’d find customers who came in their bakkies to collect green mangoes – that would be for my income. My grandfather’s big client was Nkowankowa-based Monate Atchar, the largest buyer of green mangoes in our area,” Sbu recalls.

SOLID FOUNDATION

Sbu’s interest in livestock was stimulated as a student at Khataza High School, where agriculture as a subject was part of the curriculum. “My interest and my active participation in class grew as I began to learn about stuff I was already familiar with,” he says. After matric, he enrolled to study animal production at Technikon Pretoria, now the Tshwane University of Technology. Here he excelled with distinctions in all his subjects at the end of his first year, an achievement that brought him to the attention of one of his lecturers –