{"id":6147,"date":"2021-11-22T10:44:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T10:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/meet-the-man-who-manages-the-matpit-farm"},"modified":"2021-11-22T11:35:19","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T11:35:19","slug":"meet-the-man-who-manages-the-matpit-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/meet-the-man-who-manages-the-matpit-farm","title":{"rendered":"Meet the man who manages the Matpit farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>Matpit Farm in Sehlabeng sa Thuathe, Maseru covers about 60 000 metres squared of land! At its peak this year, it produced 40 boxes of tomatoes a day and 60 packs of green, yellow and red pepper a day along with 160 litres of green beans a week.<\/p>\n

It also produced 130 x 10kg and 120 x 7kg bags of butternut. And of course there were nearly 4 200 heads of cabbage in the field. This massive farm with a battalion of 12 workers is managed by a young man called Tebatso Rankakalo \u2013 a graduate of the Lesotho Agricultural College (which is an affiliate of the National University of Lesotho (NUL)).<\/p>\n

If one considers the stats above, then it is not surprising that MatPit Farm supplies among others, Enrich Supermarket, the two Pick \u2019n Pay outlets in Maseru, Mahapu Fruits and Veg and Maluti Fruits and Veg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really liked agriculture as I was growing up, in fact, I could say, I did not give it too much attention,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, at some point in life, I decided to join the Agric College and, oops! Here I was, learning the secrets of agric.<\/p>\n

\u201d Rankakalo says he then grew to love Agric, the more he learned about it.<\/p>\n

When he was done with schooling, something interesting happened. He was asked to manage a young but promising farm located in Thuathe. Who would say no to such an opportunity for a young agric graduate?<\/p>\n

The farm was just a few months old when he joined it. Not much had been done. Of course there were beans; some spinach and so on had been grown. Some shade-net structures were being erected.<\/p>\n

So his job was clear-cut. He had to make sure that the farm produced food for the people. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t easy. \u201d The soil in that place is, as he puts it, \u201cloamy to sandy.<\/p>\n

\u201d Whatever that means, but sandy soil is not so good for crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, the owners of the farm had already tested it so I knew what I was dealing with.<\/p>\n

\u201d So he had to prepare the soil. That was not going to be cheap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no option but to put in as much animal manure and fertilizers as possible. That was costly but necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201d You can already imagine the dismay on the faces of his employers as loads and loads of compost was being swallowed by the clearly hungry soil.<\/p>\n

But the nature of soil is that it doesn\u2019t give unless it takes. Once the soil was prepared, he started growing the crops, some under shade-nets and others on open land.<\/p>\n

But he also had a water problem. The sheer size of the land meant that the already existing borehole was not enough. Thankfully, nature intervened. \u201cWe immediately got into the rainy season and that was a relief.<\/p>\n

\u201d Of course good farmers realise that true agriculture needs water, not rain\u2014not necessarily rain.<\/p>\n

So plans are underway to provide more boreholes because, who knows what the next growing seasons hold in terms of rain? The farm does not only have crops, there are animals too.<\/p>\n

At the moment it has two kinds of chickens, Boschveld chickens and indigenous chickens,\u201d he says. There are plans to increase the population of animals. The farms also experiments with a variety of herbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food, but God has given us comedy and flavour, and brightness and laughter and perfumes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Rankakalo says they have been testing waters, so to speak, to find out if the local market is ready for the kinds of herbs they produce. Lesotho is yet to accept the important role herbs play especially in enhancing the taste of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more than just salt and fish-oil folks. However, we did notice that some herbs are really popular,\u201d Rankakalo says<\/p>\n

All in all, he says he is extremely happy on the farm as he thinks it is on the right path although it is still quite young, \u201cmy training in agriculture helps a lot.<\/p>\n

Combining that with on-the-job learning is great. \u201d How could he not be happy growing crops and taking care of animals? \u201cQuite frankly, that is the only work we know which man was really designed to do. Anything else is an invention \u2013sitting behind computers all day long is a worst form of such inventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Matpit Farm in Sehlabeng sa Thuathe, Maseru covers about 60 000 metres squared of land! At its peak this year, it produced 40 boxes of tomatoes a day and 60 packs of green, yellow and red pepper a day along with 160 litres of green beans a week. It also produced 130 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":6146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8,16],"tags":[233,246,1199,245,1198],"class_list":["post-6147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-attention","tag-lesotho","tag-matpit"],"yoast_head":"\nMeet the man who manages the Matpit farm - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Matpit Farm in Sehlabeng sa Thuathe, Maseru covers about 60 000 metres squared of land! 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