The Root Of The Science Podcast
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The Root Of The Science Podcast
EP 165: Maboang Matlou, The Miracle Tree: Transforming Agriculture with Moringa
Maboang Matlou, founder of Lefakong Farm, shares her journey transforming a family farm into a thriving moringa enterprise that addresses nutrition, climate change and economic development simultaneously.
Maboang's story is a masterclass in agricultural innovation and perseverance. Get started with moringa farming by listening to Maboang explain the research, planning your market strategy, planting, and maintaining consistency.
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Right. So moringa is a tree of life, so they call it the miracle tree or the tree of life. It's a tree that is actually packed with 92 trace elements, minerals, vitamins. It's highly nutritious, and the tree of life is not only about nutrition for human beings. It can also be nutrition for animals, nutrition for the soil, and what I love most about it is that it actually speaks to climate change, right? So because it's a tree, it speaks to climate change.
Speaker 2:So within that tree of life, there's so many spin-offs that one can look at hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the RutoSounds podcast with your girl, anne Withany. If you are a new listener or watcher, welcome to the show. It's always such a pleasure and, for all the regulars, thank you for returning. Now make sure to like and subscribe to the channel. Also, share this episode with someone who might be interested in listening to it and if you're listening to us on audio, make sure to follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to the show. Now let's get into today's episode.
Speaker 2:Moringa is often referred to as a miracle tree because of its high nutritional value and resilience in diverse climates. This makes this crop a vital food security, health and economic growth. Mabuang Matlo, the founder and the CEO of Lefokang Farm, an agriculture enterprise specializing in moringa cultivation and agro-processing. With over seven years of experience in the agriculture sector, she has transformed her family's farm in northwest South Africa from 1,000 Moringa trees to more than 7,000. This is also complemented by a successful agro-processing facility. Maboang is also the president of the Moringa Development Association of South Africa and today she talks to us about her journey in moringa farming, how she got started, some of the challenges and also some of her future prospects. Let's get into this episode. Hello Mabuang, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Oh, good morning and thank you so much for hosting me this morning. Well, good morning and thank you so much for hosting me this morning.
Speaker 2:It is such a pleasure to have you on today. I'm so excited to talk about you and the work that you do. We've had a nice engagement last week where we got to meet in person, which is really exciting. So this is now just an extension of that wonderful conversation that we had in person.
Speaker 1:So first, things first, please introduce yourself to our listeners. My name is Mabua Makhlo. I am the CEO and founder of Lefakom Farming. At Lefakom Farming we do moringa production from farm to packet. That's owning the full value chain. And you know we are organically certified.
Speaker 2:We produce an area of products as well. Lovely, let's start at the beginning. Mabuang, how did you even get into farming, first of all, and then more specifically, moringa farming?
Speaker 1:Okay. So 2014,. I decided to leave corporate and venture into farming. We have a family-owned farm and my dad was a piggery farmer then, so I was interested in what he was doing on the farm and you know, I reached my you know peak in corporate and I wanted to do something different. So that's when I ventured into farming. But I started with cash crops your spinaches, green peppers. We did poultry production and piggery, of course. But you know, the first big break happened when lottery actually gave us money under their miscellaneous funding. Yes, I applied for that with my NGO and, boom, they gave us money and that's how I managed to develop my family farm.
Speaker 1:So 2017, while we're still on the lottery funds and things were going smoothly, unfortunately we were hit by the avian flu, so we lost about 5,000 birds. And again, you know, when you're a young farmer starting, you don't know where to go. You know you're still trying to find your feed. So we're actually supplying your pick and pays um directly to the stores, without, without produce. And then one day they decided that no, no, guys must actually go through the dc. Now the dc channel actually um is more complex because there's other players. Uh, then there's also issue of pricing. So you know you've got to think around those things. We tried to take it to the markets. Again Issue was pricing.
Speaker 1:That's when I decided, okay, I'm going to stop doing cash crops, I'm actually going to focus on something that's more niche. And prior then I'd actually been doing a lot of research around Moringa from 2011. I actually had a mentor. Her name is Ms Hanneke Lutz, and she actually gave us our first thousand trees. That's how we actually managed to go commercial. So when she saw that I was ready from our mentorship program, she said right, here's your trees, please go ahead. And that's how the journey of Moringa began in 2017. Up to now, so it's been quite a journey.
Speaker 2:It's super exciting wow, what a journey. And it's quite interesting because one of my next questions was like why, moringa, when everybody is doing, you know, the cash crops that you that you mentioned backtrack for me a little bit. You mentioned something about DC or something like that. What is that and why was that such a big, major shift for you as one of the catalysts for you to get here?
Speaker 1:So DC is distribution center that these major retailers utilize, right so, where all the produce is dropped to them and they will then distribute it to their stores Vis-a-vis. When you walk into the store as a working client and sell the produce, so you will find in retail your spas and pick and pay checkers. There are those that are privately owned and there are those that are distribution center owned, right, where the distribution center then controls what produce goes out, what products goes out to those stores, right? So that's why, then, it's created a serious barrier for us. It was a challenge because then, if I'm going to DC, I've also got Anne, who's potentially supplying spinach, so then the price that I was selling as a walk-in supplier R7.50 would then drop to R2.50.
Speaker 1:So there's that competition there, a lot of competitions happening there. And remember, now you know, once they've got a fixed price, right, so you can't go in and negotiate prices they say we're taking your spinaches at 2.50. And also it also goes with the demand. So if all the farmers are not bringing spinach because the demand is high, you can imagine what goes on, right. So it's also a lesson that I'm telling farmers, aspiring farmers, before you plant just understand where are you taking your products to right? Close those first, because you don't want to sit with produce unnecessarily, especially your cash crops. I mean, what are you going to do with it Once spinach is ready to be harvested? It's got to go somewhere.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that, that is the reality around that and I think these are some of the lessons, like you rightfully said, that aspiring farmers need to know before they get into like knee deep into um, into farming, and I suppose these are some of the lessons that you had to learn, unfortunately the hard way, but thank goodness you pivoted and you started into Moringa. So for someone who doesn't know what is Moringa Like, what is this? Because we hear the name, it's a superfood. It's, you know, it's very big in the wellness and health sector. But for somebody who is like, is that a tree, is that a plant? Is that a vegetable? What is it before it becomes all those wonderful products that we see on the, on the supermarkets?
Speaker 1:Right. So moringa is a tree of life, so they call it the miracle tree or the tree of life. It's a tree that is actually packed with 92 trace elements, minerals, vitamins. It's highly nutritious, and the tree of life is not only about nutrition for human beings. It can also be nutrition for animals, nutrition for the soil, and what I love most about it is that it actually speaks to climate change, right? So because it's a tree, it speaks to climate change.
Speaker 1:So within that tree of life, there's so many spinoffs that one can look at. So we at lefagom, for instance, we look at the leaves where we do our net, our products with, and it's it's super packed, right. So that's we do our products with, and it's super packed, so that's why they call it a superfood. It's super packed with nutrition, and what I like about this is that anyone can consume it. So from your low-end consumer to your high-end consumer, and everybody's catered for with this tree of life and giving everybody the maximum benefit that they sort of you know, require to go about with their daily activities. For instance, with the seeds, you can press the seeds and you can do oil. So the spin-off is oil that can go into the marketplace.
Speaker 1:With the leaves you can do bulk leaf production, bulk powder, do products, and it also gives you a space to be innovative, right, what other products you can do with it. So that's why it's such a big thing. And also with the roots, right. So it's the tap root that actually sort of clean the soil. So, for instance, because we were doing cash crops right, ordinary would be using pesticides, et cetera, right, but now this miracle tree has actually cleaned our soil. When you test it, it literally doesn't have traces of any elements that could be harmful to human beings or to the planet or to the soil. So hence we're actually organically certified by Ecoset. So that's just the little bit about around the tree that's so impressive.
Speaker 2:So, from the soil all the way to the above ground, it's beneficial for everyone. So how does the growing process sort of happen? Does it take a long time for the tree to grow? You said that you were given seedlings, right, so you plant a seedling tree. Can you talk to us about sort of the production side of it? Um, when you're planting this, this tree?
Speaker 1:okay, so I'll just take it back when we then do seedling productions. Um, so we, we, we then do seedling production. You can do it either in your polystyrene trays, your black bags, you know, we actually take it a bit further and say, for those who don't have money to buy those fancy things, you cut your, your cold plastic cold drink bottles. You can use that for years. You know we need to save the planet as well and you can use those plastic bottles to to not to raise your seedlings.
Speaker 1:So what I love about moringa is that it's one seed, one tree. So you do your media mixing, you put it in those, plant your seed, so when your seed reaches around about 72 centimeter, it's ready to be transplanted into the soil, right, and probably then you'd ordinarily prep the soil so that once you want to transplant, everything is ready. So for the first month after transplanting we do a vigorous watering program, right. So day and night, day and night, we water the trees and then after that, within three months after the first transplant, you can literally have a tree which is half a meter tall and you can start harvesting that, because ordinarily what we need from the tree is its leaves, right so to make products.
Speaker 1:So that is the critical point is that it's not a tree that takes 10 months or, you know, two years, before one like your oranges, one can see the return on investments or or how it functions, but it's a tree that's got low hanging fruits now, where you can actually start harvesting and starting to produce your product. Yeah, so that's why it's such a nice tree to have, or a nice niche crop you know to farm in, because it gives you that space while you're trying to figure out what you're doing with your product lines. But you can still harvest, you can still store it and move within the space. That's so brilliant.
Speaker 2:You mentioned that it's a niche crop. Why do you think it's still it's not adapted or adopted, rather, by farmers? If it's something that is, I'm assuming, low maintenance, easy, what is the barrier that you've seen or you've noticed? Is it just people don't know, or are they not equipped? What are some of the issues that it's still in this niche lane?
Speaker 1:Okay. So also, it's because people don't know about that. Hence we at the Fakomwe embark on training and workshopping and information sharing with outreach programs as well, so people can understand what it's about. And I think, most important of all, the biggest barrier is the people themselves. Right, people want to go into the farming space, but they don't want to put in the hard work. So these information sharings were very, very clear about what's going to happen once you've planted the tree where you're supposed to be, especially with your mindset. So, uh, people look at people, products in the moringa space and say, oh, this is cute, I can do this, but they don't know what happens behind the scenes, right. So it's very important, yeah, yeah, they don't know what's going on behind the scenes. So it's very important that we come in and say, guys, yes, much is this a niche product and you know these are the spinoffs, but you're going to have to meet us halfway or meet the tree halfway so that you can actually see the low-hanging fruits. And it's very important.
Speaker 1:Workshopping is very important. Information sharing is important because people can also understand, besides the economical impact of it, the social impact that the tree has, you know, for the communities at large. So that's where the fine line is. But we are also trying to reach out to the people saying come in. We do lots of training with academia at Limpopo University, fsnet, africa. They come in and you know they sponsor people to come in for training for free, because that's also important so we can be able to to to capacitate our communities with what is going on out there. So farming is not only about livestock or crop farming, but it's also. These are the kind of things that people can venture into and make their grades out of it brilliant.
Speaker 2:You mentioned something about me people meeting you halfway. What does that mean? What does that meeting the crop halfway? What are some of the issues that happen or that actually happened to you during your process, where you're like it's not as easy as just you know planting and getting the product at the end of the day?
Speaker 1:yeah, so. So even though the moringa tree is, you know, drought resistant and low maintenance tree, it also needs to be nurtured, right? So you need to be able to engage in the level that you, you look at your trees. Give yourself time, you know. Look what's going on pest management, disease control, watering. You know what do I need to do? My leaves are tin yellow. What do I need to bring in? Do I need to add nitrogen, for instance? You know things like that.
Speaker 1:So it's and people don't understand the science and the dynamics around that it's not just a tree you plant. There's this drought resistance. We leave it there. No, you've still got to be able to go out and engage with the trees, you know, in a manner that it's going to be beneficial to you and the trees, right? So it's an ongoing relationship. I mean, my trees are almost like eight, seven years old, but it's an ongoing relationship that I still have with my trees, still to date.
Speaker 1:I go out and look what's going on. I talk to my trees as well, you know. Say are they happy, you know? And we also have to train people around how to maintain the tree, even when harvesting. We need to teach them don't break the branches because we don't want the tree to bleed or be upset. So be gentle with the tree. So you know, it's almost like a baby, right? Yeah, you've got to feed your baby, you've got to clean your baby, you've got to, you know, handle it with care. So that's how it is with that, with the trees, that's how I, you know, deal with it.
Speaker 2:I love the fact that you said you like you, even talk to your trees. It's like your little, your children that you've had for eight years. So, speaking of your children, how big is your farm in terms of production? Wise, you know scale. How many people? I'm assuming you are employing people, which is really beneficial in this climate. So speak to me about some of those things.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we sit on a five hectare plot and on the plot we sit well prior to the army boom that hit us in January, we had 7,500 trees. We lost a few trees around about 2,000 trees, but, however, we're busy scaling up right. So next month we'll then we've just done our seedling production. We'll then be transplanting again. But, however, this time we're going to do it smarter. We're actually going to do, on one hectare, 10,000 trees because we're going to do dense farming right. So the trees we plant it close together next to each other. So that will help us with our production, to meet our supply chain, have a stable supply chain, and also that will also help us to have more trees right. So the more trees you plant, you know they'll speak to our climate change issues. They'll also speak to job creation. You know they'll also speak to nutrition as well, because they will have more.
Speaker 1:You know, to hand out more of the superfood to hand out, I work with the local community community work program through Cocteau Department and the local municipality. So they've given us 10 people that government pays and the spin-off is that we will then train them, mentorship, and we're creating a platform for empowerment and job creation. Yes, because, remember, government's got to tick the boxes of we've created xyz jobs, but where must they place these people? So the Fakong actually creates a platform where people can come in and be employed. Um, we also have our own people that we've employed six employees that I have from the local village. We also house students who want to be in the crop science space and they come out and they do their bits. Universities pay for their steppans, etc. So you know, we do an integrated system where everybody can benefit from here yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:I'm so inspired by the work that you do and it's giving me goosebumps because you know the work that you do is so important and it's not. You can see that it's not only about you, but you think of the whole scale and the whole system. So I'm going to ask this question. We just finished Women's Month here in South Africa in August and you are a wonderful woman who is literally breaking barriers and entering some of these spaces. You're a wonderful woman who is literally breaking barriers and entering some of these spaces. So what are some of the challenges that you've had to face in the sector and how did you overcome them?
Speaker 1:OK, so the biggest challenge farming has always been known to be predominantly male and white Right. So that was a bit of a challenge a few years ago. But ordinarily, you know, you've got to go beyond the challenges. We can't always have challenges. We've got to spin it in a way that we create opportunities out of the challenges right, and this has given me a challenge of creating opportunities, if I can put it that way.
Speaker 1:Another challenge we had was funding access to funding, especially when you wanted to scale, and it's been really a difficult journey. So, as a woman with own business, I had to plug into enterprise development programs right, so that I can be able to grow myself and also grow the business, and those have helped me to be funding ready. So again, you know, if you want to run a successful enterprise or business, you've got to look out which way you can network, plug yourself in so it can give you that platform to grow. So, as a result of those ESG projects you know, people like Indalo NetBank have come out, you know, to assist us. We won part of their Sagiya Green Economy Awards and money. With that we were able to buy a teabag machine. That was two years ago. So you know the funding is out there. We are just not knocking on enough doors or we are expecting the funding to come to our laps, and it doesn't work like that. You've got to be out there, recognized and, you know, just be seen. It's not that you're being boastful, but you're trying to grow in a very competitive space. Right, it's all it will always be. But why should we give marble money, not end, you know? And what has marble brought to the table?
Speaker 1:Um, I remember on, in fact, tuesday, I sat with a group of women and they do devil's cloth and we were speaking around challenges and funding and they were telling me how they're struggling and funding and and. And I said you know, guys, when I started this journey, I actually took lots of money from my pocket right to self-fund this enterprise. Hence I can proudly say, even in front of investors this is how far I've come. I'm 80% there. Please can you help me the 20%? So people are more inclined to listen to you because they can see you're dedicated, the tenacity, the consistency I mean. For seven years flat I've been in the Moringa space and I've never turned back and everything that I do it's within the Moringa space, for instance, the other challenges.
Speaker 1:If you see your product is not moving, then sell your skill. Train people right for a fee. Consult for people right. Sell your expertise, because that's also how you get to grow and how people get to recognize the work that you do, and they know that you know what you're doing. So that's what I'd say to women let's not depend on handouts or someone's going to come and save me, but be innovative of how you create the platform for your financial needs right, yeah, yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 2:Innovation is really, really key and you can just see like every single time you're pivoting, you, you're going here, you're doing this, which is absolutely brilliant. You mentioned another very important thing networking and being seen, and, um, you and I know each other because, um, we're part of the gates foundation goalkeepers. You know community here in South Africa, which is absolutely amazing, and we get to network with people in very diverse fields. So talk to me about that. How has that journey been and what type of networks have you formed? Because you were a gatekeeper from last year, goalkeeper rather 2024.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing about networks. Right, I've strategically placed myself in networks where it speaks to women empowerment, it speaks to funding, you know, and, most important of all, it speaks to self-development, because I believe in being in those platforms where I don't want to be surrounded by people who are not going to help me grow, but people who are going to plant good ideas, fresh ideas, and help me to the next level, people for lack of a better word who are much better than me, you know, wherever they are in their journeys and destinies. And I tap into that. I mean simple thing, from last week, after the three days we we had in Staten Bush, I mean my mindset has shifted again. You know, it's pivoted. Now I'm thinking at a different level, right, and I think that is so critical.
Speaker 1:And I find people often not networking for the correct reasons. Please, when you're out there, look who's in the room, who can you plug into? Right, for instance, we don't just right, for instance, we don't just go to I don't just go to events. I see what is the event about, who's going to be in the room. If you have the program and you know and say, tell yourself by the end of the event, I would have been spoken to mr so and so he can take me to the next level, right, perhaps he can put me into retail or he can assist me with whatever. So you need to only strategically place yourself to say this is where one where I am and this is where I aspire to be. So you can just pivot, you know, and strategize towards that. So networking is very critical. I mean it determines your network.
Speaker 2:That is the reality yes, honestly, honestly, it does, it does so, mabuang, what's next? It's been eight years. You've you mentioned briefly about scaling, so what does that actively mean? What are some of the projects that you are aspiring to do? I'd love to hear where we would see you 10 years, five years from now okay.
Speaker 1:So between now and five years, my, my goal now is to now be big on export, right. Hence we're now scaling up with our 10,000 trees per hectare. We've got our EcoCert, we're organically certified, so that actually attracts overseas buyers, right, your US buyers, your European buyers, based on the EcoCert and being organically certified. In fact, I tell you what I've done a lot of trade shows with the DTIC, citfa and SheTrades, and I've been almost all over the world. And finally, this year, when we got our Ecosert certification in March, I then showed it to the people that are engaged at trade shows, right, and Kuli Kuli Foods from America actually flew in 30th of May into our farm to see our operations all the way from California. So that's how much work I put in, you know.
Speaker 1:And so for me, right now I'm focusing on exports, but giving them best quality, you know, and good supply chain. So that is my key focus right now. We've also received our first PO for two tons to Germany. We're just trying to see how that first shipment can go. If it goes well, you know, we can ace it and then we can now start, you know, scaling up again. What I'm doing also for the locals is I've got feeder farmers right, so I'm training a few farmers, giving them seeds seedlings, we produce the trees. I'll buy back from them all the leaves so that I can then feed it to my supply chain. So it's a whole integrated system where it's a win-win for everybody.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, brilliant. So you did mention about exporting, so where exactly are your products exported to?
Speaker 1:Okay. So in Africa our product sits in Botswana. So I've got two clients who take actually my boutique look my packaged tea bags, powders etc. And I've got a client who just buys from me bulk and they'll repackage in Botswana. Right, we've done Nigeria. In Nigeria I've sold my expertise where a majestic farm has contracted us to then help them do a whole Moringa farm from plant to packet, like we are doing. So I actually consult for that. We've also got Kuli Kuli Foods. We're going to start supplying them from next year, once we scale that we've got enough to supply them. But for now we've got Soty Foods. They're Germany-based and they've just put a PO and next week their produce should be off to shows. So you know we're growing it steady but surely and however I say this with caution, I don't want to be all over the show I want to perfect the clients that I have that I can then start scaling up and moving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's important. That's important because sometimes you can be everywhere and then your product quality starts to deteriorate, so it's good that you have your key suppliers. But this is so brilliant. I learned so much about you and what you do. And I'm sure somebody's sitting there like, wow, I want to be like you know, like my one. So what advice would you have to someone who is aspiring, who might want to now start venturing into a niche market like Moringa or something else? How should they start? How could they, you know, get into this? So I think.
Speaker 1:First of all, just do research on what is it where you want to be, which spaces you know you want to be in. If you're looking at niche products like Moringa, also critical is where is my produce going to go to? What am I going to do once I've planted these trees? How am I going to be able to scale up, plan your things accordingly? Unfortunately, I started the other way around, but hence I've worked the journey for seven years. I can safely say also consistency, tenacity. Have your eye on the ball. You know to say this is where I want to be, this is where I'm going From 2027, I always knew I wanted to go to exports.
Speaker 1:It's taken me almost seven years to try and crack that market and along the way there were a lot of hiccups and you know I had to and barriers that I had to go over. Every time I traveled and to come back, I had homework Literally, I mean every day I've got homework right To say how can I better myself? Today we're like this, tomorrow we want to be like this and, like you're rightfully saying, five years from now we want to be fully fleshed exporting. Not only that, potentially doing other projects that speak to maternal health, child nutrition and be involved in those spaces, because that's what we're all about, and so then it's a win-win for the community at large and our country at large. So that's what I'd say to an aspiring person.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I had such a great time learning about what you do and, honestly, I wish you all of the best. I am definitely going to be a keen watcher of all of the many exciting things that you do. Um, and yeah, please just go and be great and be brilliant and um, it's such an amazing thing that you're doing and so so inspirational.
Speaker 1:Thank you once again thank you so much and have a lovely day, and thank you very much for everything and peace peace and to everybody else who's tuned in.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to another episode of root of science podcast with your girl and with an e. Until next time, goodbye.
