Andries van der Westhuizen: How to be a successful farmer

Every morning, Andries van der Westhuizen ventures out onto the lake t0 feed his trout. In a short amount of time, his trout farm has grown from humble beginnings to commercial success.

Pulling his barge out to the trout enclosure in the middle of the irrigation dam three times a day, Andries throws containers of pellets, scoop by scoop, to the 6000 young trout that he and his 16 partners have reared. Not that he minds the daily workout in this pretty little corner of the Western Cape.

No matter whether it’s blowing a storm or raining, I always come because I love my job,” Andries says with a smile on his face.

He is a small-business owner now, which is a major step in the right direction for this hard-working man. Just two years ago, Andries was illiterate and paid no attention to his inability to read or write. He has worked in the Cape wine lands for most of his life, recently having been promoted to a team leader position where he is in charge of a small group of vineyard workers at the internationally acclaimed Plesier Del Mare wine estate.

Instead of retiring, he became a member of the trout small farm project and enrolled to become a small business owner. Vineyard workers are encouraged to join the project and farm trout – a lucrative business – in the irrigation dams of the estate. It provides them with an extra source of income to better their lives, not to mention providing them with the education to run a small business on their own. Workers who enrol in the project, like Andries, are given specialised courses by The Swiss Foundation for Technical Co-operation, in which they learn valuable business skills as well as specialised trout farming skills, both of which are necessary for the project.

The Swiss Foundation doesn’t just open the courses to anyone. They identify entrepreneurial candidates who they believe have what it takes to become successful business owners. They then take these candidates through the processes, all the way from signing up and administration to compiling business plans for their trout-farming enterprises. The co-operatives formed by these entrepreneurs are then able to negotiate better prices for their stock than if they were single farmers, and they have already managed to negotiate deals with a number of large eateries and stores who stock their products.

So far, the trout small farm project has provided extra employment and income for some 220 vineyard workers, and their dreams are growing by the day.

My biggest dream is to get my Matric certificate and then study further in the fish farming industry to become a better business owner,” says Andries.

If he carries on as planned, this dream will become reality very, very soon.