How Second Generation Sugar Cane Farmer Is Keeping His Father’s Legacy Alive. Farming is a business that can be transferred from one generation to another as are many businesses in the world. It takes each generation to put in years of hard work to make the farm a sustainable business that will be able to transcend generations. This was not the case in South Africa during Apartheid as black people were not allowed to own land that would be used for commercial purposes, especially land that was very valuable and had the potential of giving the owners lucrative profits when used in business. Black people could only own small scale farms that were not commercially viable and would only be used as a source of their food supply.
Bheki Mhlane is a second generation sugar cane farmer from KwaZulu-Natal. He had to over the reins of his the family farm in 2015 after his father’s health started deteriorating. “My dad had just lost my stepmother and his health was starting to deteriorate. He was 70 years old and diabetic.” said Mhlane in an interview with African Farming.
Mhlane’s father Norman Ntethe Mhlane worked as an extension officer at Tongaat Hulett while also farming part time in the 1960s. Tongaat Hulett recruited Bheki’s father to help bring back sugar cane production in the homelands. “Those communities were subsistent farmers, growing mealies and amadumbe and keeping a few animals. Most of the land was just lying fallow.” said Bheki in an interview with African Farming. Bheki’s father managed to travel to most of KZN’s homelands and managed to build relationships with the chiefs of the land as he was allocated some land in the outskirts of Tongaat. He began his small sugar cane operation. This is when Bheki was introduced to sugar cane farming.
Although his father started farming long ago, the fame he had was not successful due to the apartheid restrictions on land ownership. Bheki still kept his father’s dream alive as he joined him in sugar cane farming after the end of Apartheid in the mid-nineties. Today this second-generation farmer continues his father’s life’s work, while benefitting from the farming networks his father built up over the years. Producing his own sugarcane sticks, and modernizing his father’s operation, Bheki aims to have 100ha under production soon.
