A car accident made this graphic designer more grounded, and take to farming, tending to vegetables on a piece of land far from Johannesburg. 



About 250kms from the sanitized suburbs of Sandton in South
Africa’s Gauteng province is Randfontein, a rugged gold mining city in the West
Rand, where we meet 31-year-old Katlego Pitse on his farm where he is currently
producing rows of crisp green lettuce. 



A few years ago, the Soweto-born farmer was far from any
piece of earth, and closer to a computer desktop, earning a living as a graphic
designer. 



The only definition he gave himself was as a
‘creative’.&nbsp; 



“Straight after high school, I studied graphic design from
2008 until 2012. From there on, I pursued a career in commercial arts.
Advertising is the number one industry that absorbs creatives,” says Pitse of
his ‘other job’.



He worked for various companies in Johannesburg and his
career was well on to greener pastures as he enjoyed a hefty salary with annual
increments and a lavish lifestyle, until an unfortunate incident threw him out
of gear. Pitse was involved in a road accident in 2015 and the snazzy, pricey
car he had been spending so much on, had to be written off. The accident was a
facilitator, as he was faced with some life-defining choices, and the prospect
of a new direction, one that made him more grounded.



“I had to start over. This was the kind of catalyst that
gave me a bit of a wakeup call; going forward, [I realized] if I was to spend
money, it had to be on valuable assets that are going to yield returns that can
be passed on,” he says.



He left a full-time job to freelance at a night club; this
is where he was exposed to the day-to-day operations of a business. It helped
him take to entrepreneurship, pursuing agriculture full-time; which had been a
burning desire since his days as an art student thumbing through agriculture
magazines. 



“I was constantly doing research. It was something I knew I
wanted to do but I wasn’t sure when I was going to be able to pursue it fully
because you need an actual career,” he says.



“There was an article I read about a farmer based in
Winterveld. I called to ask if I could visit to see his operation in 2015. Just
that farm visit was an inspiration to start my business.”



Pitse saved up enough money to buy a vacant two-and-half
hectare plot in Randfontein for R200,000 ($13,400). It took him three years to
start production, during which time he pursued his graphic design career on the
side. 



In 2019, the first year of production, Pitse focused on
cucumbers – his pet passion – and did cycles of long English cucumbers. Due to
the high costs, Pitse had to re-evaluate and decided to move to a less
cumbersome crop, lettuce.



Pitse is currently employing two family members and still
does the odd graphic design job to supplement his income. 



Surely, a small-scale farmer with big graphic dreams of the
future.

Katlego 485

Soil Toil: How A Car Accident Made This Graphic Designer More Grounded

In Johannesburg, city-dwellers like Linah Moeketsi have taken the future of sustainable farming into their own hands. Where land is becoming scarce, they look to the skies. 



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Doornfontein is one of Johannesburg’s older inner-city
suburbs with decaying buildings and dingy alleys that wear a dour, monochrome
look. 



Daily commuters and street surfers jostle with delivery vans and mountains of metal scrap but the grey of the concrete city makes it hard to believe that there could be a patch of green in a most unlikely location.



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Above the humdrum of life here is a rooftop hydroponics farm
looking down on the city, but upwards to a new route to restoration and urban
preservation. 



Atop the eight-floor Stanop building – offering a
breath-taking view of the city and the landmark Ponte Towers in the distance –
one woman has made it her mission to turn a grimy grey terrace into a green
lung on the city’s skyline.



“City life is taking on a totally new direction… even people who think they couldn’t one day farm, find themselves on rooftops,” Linah Moeketsi tells FORBES AFRICA.



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Moeketsi grows herbs, used to treat non-communicable diseases (NCDs), in a 250m x 500m greenhouse on the building’s terrace. But her rooftop farm is sans any soil – it uses a hydroponics system.



“I think because we are in the city and we would like to produce for people in the city, hydroponic farming is one of the answers because you can actually harvest more than twice the produce, and the growth rate is quicker and there is produce that you can have throughout the year that people demand because it is in a controlled environment,” she says.



On a windy Wednesday morning in October, we meet Moeketsi at
her aerial green facility, a couple of days before she is to send some of her
plant produce to the market.



She talks about her journey as an offbeat farmer. It all started when her father fell ill in 2013, when doctors failed to correctly diagnose his disease.



“They couldn’t see that he was diabetic. He didn’t show the signs of diabetes, but he had this foot ulcer that just wouldn’t go away,” she says.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;The future of city farming is great simply because we have more and more young people getting into this space. Even though it&#8217;s farming, they are looking at it from a very different angle. </blockquote>



Moeketsi decided to do her own research, so she read up
books on African medicinal plants and used some herbs that belonged to her late
mother, who had been a traditional healer.



“It took me a good eight months to help my dad and I
actually saved him from having an amputation.”



The news of Moeketsi curing her dad’s diabetes using herbs
spread. Sadly, her father died in 2016, at the age of 87. But she is proud to
have helped prolong his life.



“So he passed away in his sleep, not sick, nothing, he was just old. But he was always grateful; he was like, ‘even when I die, I’m going to die with both my limbs’, so we would make a joke about it.” 



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After her father’s demise, Moeketsi rented some land and
turned her knowledge on natural herbs into a fully-fledged farm. However, when
the owner of the land returned, she was forced to vacate.



Land was always going to be a problem in the city. But instead of giving up, Moeketsi looked to the skies.



“Because of this passionate drive for an answer, I found
myself researching what’s happening outside Gauteng and South Africa, and I saw
in Europe, they were farming on rooftops,” she says.



In 2017, her dream became a reality when she secured a deal with the City of Johannesburg as part of an urban farming program, and started the rooftop project a year later.



When we visit her greenhouse, we are welcomed by the sweet
lingering scent of herbs. It’s hot and humid, and two fans whir away to cool
the air.



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Moeketsi walks around the greenhouse wearing dark glasses and a white jacket, with a syringe in hand – she could easily pass off as a medical doctor.



She elaborates on the hydroponics system. There are four pyramids, each attached to their own reservoirs of water. On each pyramid, different plants, ranging from spinach, lettuce, sage, parsley, basil and dill, rest on beds with pipes connecting them to the reservoirs. Moeketsi plucks out one of the pipes and inserts the syringe; water spouts out of the tube and she returns it to the bed.



“Twice a day, you have to check that water is actually going
through the pipes, because that’s how the plants get water and nutrients,” she
explains, as she unblocks a pipe using the syringe. She says it’s one of the
best ways to farm using little water.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42473" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0083.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



“When you put in certain plants in the greenhouse, you know
you are guaranteed sustainable farming because you can produce those plants and
harvest them,” she says.



Moeketsi adds that this allows her produce to stay
consistent season after season.



“So, from that point of view, it makes the city more sustainable in terms of food produce that is easily accessible and cost-effective for the consumer because not everyone around here can afford the high prices of food but they can at least afford what we sell, whether it is at R10 ($0.5) or R15 ($1).” 



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As Moekesti continues to tend to the plants, a farmer she works with walks in and begins filling up the reservoirs. 



Lethabo Madela has known Moekesti for almost six years.



“When you look around Johannesburg, there is no space, so
rooftops have saved us a lot, especially those of us that love farming,” says
Madela. “I’m learning a lot and I think she [Moekesti] changed the whole concept
of farming for me because I used to farm vegetables. I didn’t know culinary
herbs or medicinal herbs.”



Moeketsi speaks of other farmers around the city who have taken to the rooftops to farm plants such as strawberries, lemon balm, spinach and lettuce.



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In a suburb called Marshalltown, a 10-minute drive from
Moeketsi’s farm, Kagiso Seleka farms lemon balm also using hydroponics.



He produces sorbet and pesto from his produce which is then
used to make ice cream.



“It [hydroponics] is great for farming sensitive plants in
terms of temperature. Lemon balm does not like frost. But it’s better to grow
even out of season so you can set a higher price,” he tells us.



However, he says hydroponics farming is a luxury not many
farmers can afford.



“It [hydroponics] does have a bit of a higher capital upfront, but you get a higher yield and higher quality, so people are willing to pay more. Hydroponic planting saves about ninety five percent of water soil farming in a water-scarce country,” says Seleka. 



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“We do have water shortages, and I know people are on the
whole ‘organic trip’ but, is it more important to have an organic plant versus
a water-saving environment?” 



The Program Coordinator for Agriculture at the City of
Johannesburg’s Food Resilience Unit, Lindani Sandile Makhanya, says there
certainly are more rooftop farmers in Johannesburg now than ever before.



Converting idle terraces into avenues of profit is becoming
a norm. There are new rooftop farms being set up every day, offers Makhanya. 



He regularly visits Moeketsi’s farm to check on the progress
and collect produce to sell.



“Urban farming in Johannesburg is rising, mainly because the
idea of producing our own food is very important because most people are moving
to urban areas and therefore it stands to reason that we have to try to produce
as much as possible,” says Makhanya.



“[There is growth] even in animal production, although we are moving away from the bigger numbers, but we are involving the smaller ones; because of the space issue, they are increasing overall.” 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42476" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_0088.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



For Moeketsi, her farm has changed her life and given her
hope for a better future. In addition to the teas, tinctures, ointments and
medicinal products she processes from her plants, she plans to include more
by-products such as syrups in the future.



“The future of city farming is great simply because we have
more and more young people getting into this space. Even though it’s farming,
they are looking at it from a very different angle,” she says. “That is why the
city is changing and rooftop farming is going to get bigger and bigger.” 



Clearly, farming in Africa is covering exciting new ground.

DSC_0093

Green-Sky Thinking

It’s 5AM in the northern hills of Malawi where its tobacco is grown. Chifundo Ndilowe is awake and ready for the day. Dressed in grey shorts and a blue NBA vest, still filthy from yesterday’s long day on the farm, Ndilowe has hours of hard labor ahead. He is just 15 years old and has been planting and picking tobacco since he was 10.
“I came here in 2011 because rural life is hard. We were battling at home and I had to start contributing for us to survive. I stopped going to school to work. It is very tough working under these conditions because it is hot and we easily get tired and I am often sick,” he says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5473" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_5988-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Ndilowe moved 567 kilometers from Mulanje to Mpherembe, 300 kilometers north of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, to work in a tobacco farm five years ago. It means long hours, missing school and breaking the law for little pay. He earns a little more than $140 and $280 a year depending on the harvest.  That’s less than $1 a day.
“We work for the year and only get paid after harvest. During the year, we get 20 kilograms of maize for 12 days because we don’t grow crops for consumption. They also give us salt and then we have to figure out the rest ourselves. I get to eat once a day and I take whatever is there,” he says.
Ndilowe is just one of an estimated 800,000 youngsters in the tobacco fields; voices that are seldom heard. One of an army of children who sweat for millions of cigarettes lit all over Africa.
A study on child labor in the tobacco industry in two areas of Malawi, Suza in the Kasungu district and Katalima in the Dowa district, found 57% of all children were being used as child labour in the tobacco fields.
George Kube, an adult tobacco worker, works with Ndilowe and two other children.
“There is no money for the children to go to school and if they don’t work to help we wouldn’t survive. We farm on two acres of land and the produce is auctioned to tobacco companies. You have to be very strong if you are going to do this job because sometimes we have to cut down trees and look for water,” says Kube.
&nbsp;
A study, published by the British Medical Association, says contract farmers, like Kube and Ndilowe, cultivating tobacco in Malawi, live below national poverty lines, while independent farmers operate at a loss.
“Even when labor is excluded from the calculation of income less costs, farmers’ gross margins place most households in the bottom income [groups] of the overall population. Tobacco farmers appear to contract principally as a means to obtain credit, which is consistently reported to be difficult to obtain,” says the study.
Tobacco farmers may struggle to make a living but tobacco manufacturers thrive. The world tobacco industry is worth billions of dollars. Cigarette retail values in 2014 were worth $744 billion and over 5.6 trillion cigarettes were sold to more than one billion smokers according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. But, very few farmers make money from it.
The market is controlled by a few international companies; China National Tobacco Corporation, Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Brands. They buy tobacco from cheap emerging markets, like Malawi, for profit.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5476" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_188476175-300x122.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="122" />
For years, governments around the world have been trying to clamp down on smoking because of its health implications, through stringent laws and higher taxes, yet tobacco use is increasing in some countries, says Zambian economist Grieve Chelwa.
“African incomes have been rising over the last couple of years and we know that tobacco consumption responds to rising incomes. Further, tobacco companies have put in place strategies (subtle advertising) to take advantage of rising incomes.”
And they flourish.
This year, British American Tobacco (BAT) announced its revenue went up 8.1% at constant rates of exchange, cigarette volume from subsidiaries was 497 billion, up by 2.2%, cigarette market share in key markets increased by 40 basis points and its brands performed exceptionally well with cigarette volume up 9.8% year ending September 30.
BAT plans to merge with its US partner R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the company behind the famous camel cigarette brand, in a deal valued at $47 billion. It hopes to create a stronger global presence and move into new ventures like e-cigarettes.
<div id="attachment_5471" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5471" class="size-medium wp-image-5471" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Grieve_Chelwa_picture-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" />Grieve Chelwa</div>
In its third quarter, Philip Morris International reported net revenues of $19.9 billion, up by 2.6%, net revenues, excluding excise taxes, of $7 billion, up by 0.8%, operating income of $3 billion, up by 0.6%, and operating company’s income of $3.1 billion, up by 1.2%. In Africa, companies thrive because of weak regulation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a 75% benchmark of tax on the retail price, yet the African average is way below. Nigeria taxes cigarettes at only 20% of the retail price. Chelwa says ideally increasing taxes to reduce tobacco use should work anywhere because of the law of demand, increasing price reduces demand.
“But, the important point is the increases have to be real-inflation adjusted increments,” he says.
In Africa, high tobacco taxes are rare. WHO says only 33 countries, with 10% of the world’s population, have introduced taxes on tobacco products of more than 75%. Tobacco tax revenues are on average 269 times higher than spending on tobacco control.
Tobacco companies are also good at finding new markets, with new smokers and weak regulations. According to an article published by The Lancet, a UK medical journal, tobacco use is declining in higher income countries, but nearly 80% of the world’s smokers live in low and middle income countries.
“Tobacco control regulations are not strong across most of the continent. Countries have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) but that’s all they have done. And sadly the tobacco industry is an important player in the setting of tobacco control policy in most African countries,” says Chelwa.
For years, tobacco companies argue they market merely to convince smokers to switch brands, but evidence published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information shows advertising drives smoking.
<div id="attachment_5483" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5483" class="size-medium wp-image-5483" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Christo-van-Staden-142-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Christo Van Staden</div>
According to a WHO study, smoking has increased in 27 countries over the past 15 years. Seventeen of these are in Africa. In Cameroon, smokers more than doubled from 7% in 2000 to 22% last year. Congo-Brazzaville has seen the biggest spike. Nearly half of Congolese men smoke. Last year, 22% of its people admitted to smoking regularly, up from 6% in 2000.
“Only 42 countries, representing 19% of the world’s population, meet the best practice for pictorial warnings, which includes the warnings in the local language and cover an average of at least half of the front and back of cigarette packs,” says WHO.
In South Africa, cigarette advertising is banned. There are also restrictions on point of sale product display, vending machines and sponsorship of events, activities, individuals, organizations or governments. Now, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has pledged to take it further by strengthening the Tobacco Products Control Act.
Motsoaledi says there should be no branding, no logos and no colors on cigarettes to discourage smoking. If the law is introduced, all cigarettes will be in a brown package with graphics that show the damage they can cause.
This is worrying for the tobacco industry. Christo van Staden heads the only primary tobacco processing factory in South Africa, Limpopo Tobacco Processors, that processes 12 million kilograms of tobacco. He says the effects could be catastrophic.
“The biggest impact [of tougher regulations] is the increase in illicit cigarettes which is a huge dent in the business of BAT and in the whole market. About 20 to 30 percent of cigarettes in Gauteng are illicit and they are paid way below the price,” he says.
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As we meet, in Rustenburg, a two-hour drive from Johannesburg, Van Staden’s farmers have lost 30 hectors of tobacco to a passing storm. On this day, the sun blazes down from a cloudless azure sky. A sprinkler keeps the glossy lawns and flowers alive. Inside the factory, it is dark and you can hear a pin drop. The silence is almost tangible. There is no bustle and machines that usually crackle stand still. It is not tobacco season. All employees are upstairs in the offices working. Dressed in khaki shorts and shirt, Van Staden says tobacco farming is hard.
“For every hector, you need two people to work there and pick it by hand, it is very expensive. One hector costs about R130,000 ($9,500) to plant and the farmer needs to make at least 20 to 25 percent profit. Last year was a very tough year. There were very tough conditions and an average farmer did not make any profit at all.”
“Now they are supporting the local market but if they don’t get any benefit out of that, they have to compete with everyone else in plain packaging, then there is no reason for them to buy South African tobacco, they will literally walk out of here overnight and source their product from Brazil, India and China where they can buy a lot cheaper. We are not ready for that. We would close these doors,” he says.
For Van Staden, closing doors means 10,000 farmers lose their income. He thinks there should be more education about the dangers of tobacco and efforts to keep youngsters away from smoking.
“I am a non-smoker and will not advise anyone to smoke. Most of my staff members don’t smoke. Unfortunately, people smoke everyday but see the warning on the packets and turn a blind eye.  Because it’s such an unhealthy product, the governments around the world will try and eradicate it but I don’t think it will happen in the next 20 years. There are laws in this country that allow people to smoke and to close down the primary sector is not going to stop smoking overnight,” adds Van Staden.
South Africa will follow the UK, Ireland, Australia and France in banning branded packaging.
&nbsp;
In Uganda, 4,800 kilometers from South Africa, it’s even tougher. If you light up in bars, restaurants or hotels, you will be fined $60 or jailed for up to two months. Smokers must be at least 50 meters away from public spaces, such as schools, hospitals and taxi ranks.
Uganda’s new laws also ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, flavored tobacco for water pipes, the sale of single cigarettes and tightened rules on labeling, advertising and selling tobacco to under-21s.
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“We are strongly opposed to plain packing as we feel that there hasn’t been enough consultation and research on it. Our concern is the serious adverse consequences that it will have on the economy, jobs and investment; as well as potentially making counterfeit easier. It trounces fundamental intellectual property rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution,” says Joe Heshu, Acting Head of External Affairs at BAT.
According to Heshu, counterfeit cigarettes are a bigger issue. In 2015, South Africa’s Treasury lost R5.1 billion ($373 million) due to illicit trade. The trade accounts for about 24% of the market.
South Africa has been increasing tobacco taxes since 1994 and the big impact has been the reduction in consumption and prevalence, but Chelwa agrees there has been a minimal impact of the taxes on illicit trade.
“Illicit trade often has to do with tax administration and not taxes. Even if taxes were a cent, you’d still have illicit trade showing that it is not a tax level or tax rate issue but a tax administration issue,” he says.
On jobs, Chelwa argues “there are very few tobacco manufacturing jobs, very few given how mechanized manufacturing of cigarettes is.”
The big worry he says is in the field.
“Governments have to consciously find ways of transitioning tobacco farmers into growing other types of crops. This will require a lot of work,” says Chelwa.
Asked if he thinks cigarettes are killers, Heshu argues his company has launched e-cigarettes, which are supposedly less harmful products, in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
“We are committed to the research and development of Next Generation Products (NGPs) and globally have invested over half a billion pounds during the past five years. There is a growing body of evidence that NGPs do pose significantly fewer risks than cigarettes.”
For now, tobacco companies continue to thrive. Only 29 countries, representing 12% of the world’s population, have completely banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, according to WHO.
Some of Malawi’s tobacco, grown by the likes of Ndilowe and Kube, is shipped 2,000 kilometers south of Mpherembe. In South Africa, 19% of the population, over the age of 15, smokes according to the World Bank. That’s almost one in five people and it is dangerous.
Tobacco is responsible for six million deaths each year. Of those, 600,000 die from the effects of second-hand smoke. This number is expected to increase to eight million by 2030 if current trends continue, says WHO.
Alexandra chain smoker, Mpho Ndlovu, knows this, yet he goes through three packs of cigarettes a day.
“I have been smoking since I was 15. It started as just playing with friends at school because we knew we weren’t allowed to. It was a way of being cool. I got hooked and have been smoking for 40 years,” says Ndlovu.
What started as a game became a habit and then an addiction.
“Smoking helps me when I’m nervous and I just enjoy it. I have tried to stop many times but have failed. I know this might one day kill me but, at this point, there is nothing I can do.”
Ndlovu spends R110.50 ($8) per day on cigarettes. That’s R766.50 ($56) per week and R3,066 ($225) per month and R36,792 ($2,700) per year and R183,960 ($13,500) in five years. If he continues smoking the same number of cigarettes per day for another 40 years, at this current price, he will spend around $100,000 on cigarettes. If invested, he could buy a house.
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Ndlovu spends close to half of his R7,000 ($500) salary he makes working as a driver for a logistics company in Sandton.
“By the last week of the month, I would be out of money and sometimes I have to ask people if I can borrow or take some on credit from the spaza shop,” he says.
“When I smoke, especially on weekends, I drink as well. So the money I earn is never enough. My children get angry because they think I should be using the money on them. I don’t know how to stop.”
Ndlovu buys his cigarettes from Ntando Debeza, a hundred metres from his home.
Debeza’s spaza shop sells cigarettes, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco, hookah and shisha.
“I make about R6,000 ($440)  a month from this small shop. Most of the money comes from tobacco sales but I also sell other day-to-day products like bread and milk. People come to buy and sometimes on credit and I collect money at the end of the month,” says Debeza.
This means Ndlovu’s debt grows. But, that’s not all. Smoking does not only affect the smoker. High levels of nicotine exposure from handling tobacco leaves may cause nicotine poisoning called Green Tobacco Sickness, with symptoms including nausea and vomiting.
Back in Mpherembe in Malawi, Kube says he is aware of the dangers of working in a tobacco field without protective clothing, and mostly its effects on minors. “I know children can get sick but what can we do? We need a lot of hands on the farm because this isn’t an easy crop to plant and prepare. It needs three times more people than corn but we don’t make enough money at all,” says Kube.
He is one of the few rural farmers who know this. And it gets worse. A 2009 survey in China revealed that only 38% of smokers knew that smoking causes coronary heart disease and only 27% knew that it can cause strokes.
“Among smokers who are aware of the dangers of tobacco, most want to quit. Counseling and medication can more than double the chance that a smoker who tries to quit will succeed. National comprehensive cessation services with full or partial cost coverage are available to assist tobacco users to quit in only 24 countries, representing 15% of the world’s population,” says WHO.
Cape Town-based entrepreneur Gareth Carter saw this crisis as an opportunity. He founded WeDoRecover, a company that helps patients who suffer from psychiatric and addiction problems.
“Finding the right addiction program to meet someone’s specific needs is a complex process. The crisis and chaos synonymous with active addiction are overwhelming and the multitude of choices in the marketplace adds to the confusion,” says Carter.
According to Carter, people who smoke are more likely to drink alcohol and vice versa. He says alcoholics frequently present with a co-morbid nicotine addiction.
“As many as 80 percent of people addicted to alcohol and other drugs are frequent smokers, but the bulk will die of smoking-related disease rather than alcohol and drug-related disease…”
The damage doesn’t stop there. Carter adds that major depressive episodes among adults are highest in those addicted to nicotine and lowest in those who have quit or never started smoking.
“With nearly 80 percent of the world’s one billion smokers living in low- and middle-income countries, this is a very real public health care problem for us in Africa. Making nicotine addiction prevention and treatment readily accessible to the youth counteracts a wide range of potential mental, physical and mood-disorder problems with far-reaching ramifications to families, communities and our economy,” he says.
Carter thinks if tobacco was “invented” today it would be classed with other illegal drugs. That’s not the case. The lucrative industry in Africa puffs on unfettered.

The Price  Of Puff

It’s a freezing morning in April and we are mooting wardrobe choices with Wendy Appelbaum in the closet of her cold marbled bathroom. Outside, the wind is howling menacingly. We are inside Appelbaum’s massive stone mansion, a chateau by all means, 450 meters above sea level in the Stellenbosch winelands of South Africa’s Western Cape. From here, you get sweeping views of the rolling hills and her endless 100-hectare wine farm.
For all the loftiness around us, Appelbaum is spectacularly down-to-earth and unassuming, and fuss-free too as she picks the outfits for this photoshoot – a black Donna Karan fur jacket, a Hugo Boss suit, a red silk Tommy Hilfiger shirt and a knee-length velvet coat the color of wine. She won’t change her jewelry. The gold Italian neckpiece she wears every day – she loves gold – and earrings will stay. She may be one of South Africa’s richest and most successful businesswomen, but says she does not quite care about switching handbags and jewelry each time she dresses up, and no high heels either – she is a farmer happy in her boots.
In her upstair office, filled with trophies, journals and a mahogany table weighed down by coffee-table books, the balcony, with its iron railing and hills in the distance, is the perfect setting for a picture. But when the windows open, the wind is vicious.
“It’s the lousiest day I have seen in a long time,” says Appelbaum.
Earlier, when we had driven up to the house, passing the guards at the manor house, the sloping vineyards and beds of roses, Appelbaum had greeted us in her warm country-style kitchen.
Beyond the kitchen, a long carpeted corridor features grand stairways on both sides, and life-size oil paintings of ships at sea, grim generals, horses and packs of dogs. Appelbaum’s own dogs, two endearing Jack Russells named Dotty and Jane, follow her everywhere, while her Burmese cats Sally and Molly vainly peer from the top floor.
Dotty dances on her lap as Appelbaum finally settles in the living room, on a wing-back chair, the drapes billowing behind her. In this room, a snooker table takes pride of place, along with an eyeful of treasures – Ming vases, leopard print chairs, fur cushions, silverware and stuffed birds.
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A large dining table at the far end with a fireplace, chandeliers and crystal decanters suggest the house receives many guests.
A floor below, in Appelbaum’s icy, temperature-controlled red-brick cellar, an iron chandelier overpowers a large oak table with leather chairs she “bought from a flea market in France”; on the walls are wicker baskets, pitchforks and shovels, and not to mention wines going back to the last century.
“We mostly do wine-tastings here. And if I have meetings [here], the cell phones don’t work, it is cold and I can keep [people] awake so they concentrate,” Appelbaum says mischievously.
“I love to entertain and cook,” she had said in the kitchen earlier. We spot pictures of her with Nelson Mandela, Thuli Madonsela, American feminist Gloria Steinem, even a picture of her with Hollywood hunk Robert Redford.
“Robert Redford is a friend of a friend who came here,” says Appelbaum wryly. “He said he had six Jack Russell dogs and picked my dogs up. And I said ‘do you mind if I smoke’, and he said ‘can I join you’?”
There are more pictures of her with sons Nicholas, a 29-year-old surgeon, and Matthew, a 26-year-old banker in Johannesburg. Appelbaum beams with pride when Nicholas walks into the room.
“Are you going to have lunch?” she asks him fondly. He says he needs to go into town.
How does it feel to have an energetic 24/7 mother, you ask Nicholas? His answer is quick and polite: “She is 24/7 with everybody else, but she is a mom behind closed doors. She is not cuddly, but she is capable of being motherly.”
Appelbaum beams again. “He is the most amazing child, so gifted, but unbelievably serious.”
In between, she calls for Jean, her butler, a 20-something lad in a Polo shirt who looks more Johnny Bravo than Jeeves.
It is clear Appelbaum is most happy on her farm, waking early to catch the first rays of the sun, like her wine estate itself, named DeMorgenzon, meaning ‘the morning sun’. Because of its elevation, it gets the first light over the mountains.
Appelbaum built and moved in to this house eight years ago.
“I wanted it to look like it had been here forever, I also wanted it to blend into the environment, that is why [it is in] stone. In fact, most of the time, you can hardly see it unless you look for it. It’s an adaption to the beautiful environment we live in.”
It explains why she prefers to spend more time in Cape Town, and less time in Johannesburg, “stuck in traffic, attending meetings”.
She travels to the Unites States (US) three times a year. She is a part of the global advisory board to the president of Harvard, looking into the globalization of Harvard. Appelbaum says the institution is on course to open its largest office outside of the US, in Cape Town. She has also been a member of Harvard’s Women’s Leadership Board for 15 years.
“And then I sell a lot of wine,” says Appelbaum simply, coming back to her turf. A medium-sized wine producer, she sells about half a million bottles of wine a year, exporting 85% of it, her main markets being the US, the United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, Sweden and Canada. DeMorgenzon’s signature is Chenin Blanc.
“We sit on some of the best white wine terroir in the world – one of the reasons is our proximity to the sea, the cooling breezes and the elevation of the farm. [These are] mountain vineyards and we actually have the coolest vineyard site in the whole of Stellenbosch.”
Appelbaum says she always wanted to be a farmer; the important thing was finding what she loved, and she absolutely loved wine.
“And it was a hell of a learning curve,” she admits.
“It really does not matter whether you sell computers, wine, investments or insurance, you have got to run a business like a business irrespective of what your product is and I think it was just bringing all my business library of knowledge together, but it was fantastic as I have been in advertising, in marketing, so that came into it, and I think it is very important to have incredible staff, and I did a lot of consulting to make sure our viticulture practices are world-class.”
The perfectionist that she confesses to being, Appelbaum wanted the best or nothing.
“I drive myself very hard… Life is too short to do something badly,” she says.
“Your priorities change when you become a farmer. All sorts of things like the weather become more important; you become more in touch with the earth.”
Her husband Hylton manages the gardens, playing Baroque music to the grapes 24/7 with speakers installed in the vineyards and at the winery to influence the ripening and maturation process.
“He makes this a beautiful place to live in,” says Appelbaum. “He propagates the wild flowers. The roses are important too – if a rose gets sick, you know your vines will get sick soon. We use a lot of color to attract insect life. Everything is as close to nature as you can find.”
Appelbaum’s first vintage was a Chenin Blanc in 2005, which was the first maiden vintage to get 5-star ratings in the Platter’s Wine Guide.
“The awards are Return On Ego,” she laughs, as she uses a ‘thief’ to draw a few drops of Shiraz wine from an ageing oak barrel when we go down to her winery.
“The wine industry is creative, it’s got so many parts, you meet some of the most extraordinary and passionate people around the world.”
Appelbaum says South African wines are gaining recognition for quality, and are really starting to be seen as a force in the international wine industry.
“There is no doubt in my mind we have some of the best grapes in the world. From the perspective of tourism, it is the most exquisite winelands in the world.”
Appelbaum is now looking to market her wines in the rest of Africa, eyeing countries like Namibia and Zimbabwe.
“The rest of Africa has become a very valuable market. This year, we intend to roll out into Africa. There is huge demand.”
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The Early Years
An only daughter, Appelbaum grew up in Johannesburg. As a child, there was not a single game she couldn’t play, be it bridge, tennis, golf, scrabble or show-jumping.
“Games teach you an enormous amount in terms of negotiation skills. Women essentially don’t know how to compete. I am highly competitive, and I learned that on the sports field. I just challenged everything, I still do, and that’s what makes me a very good director.”
After a degree in psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, she worked with her father, Sir Donald Gordon, founder of the Liberty Group. She was also a Director at Liberty Investors.
“I don’t think he was a good mentor,” she says.
“I think he was an interesting person and I learned some incredible skills from him, in terms of his determination, his attention to detail, patience and work ethic. He was an amazing role model rather than a mentor,” says Appelbaum.
Often, she was also the only one to challenge him in the boardroom.
“I always like a good fight,” she says.
“He wasn’t happy with it, but it was better to accept it than to challenge it because it probably made me worse. Every now and again he was patronizing, or gender-insensitive, but I never allowed him to get away with it, but even so he didn’t really go out of his way to promote women in his companies. He was a good sexist. He liked women, but he wasn’t so sure he wanted to work with them.”
Appelbaum was one of the co-founders and Deputy Chairman of pioneering women’s investment holding company Wiphold, from 1994 for about five years, and the company did really well.
“Those were fun days. But not just from the perspective of working with women, which is quite sleek and chic, but also from the perspective of when the country was changing and understanding different cultures. It was a sexy combination, and we had the capacity and brains.”
Post Wiphold, she was also Deputy Chairman of the Connection Group, another success story.
“I have been on so many boards I used to call myself a ‘serial board-sitter’,” she laughs.
“I sat on listed and unlisted companies, charitable trusts, foundations and all sorts of things. At one point, I was sitting on 15 boards, in the mid-2000s. It was insanity.”
For now, Appelbaum says she has embarked on a few new businesses, and “will be doing all sorts of fantastic things”.
In her mid-50s, Appelbaum’s philanthropic work continues.
She is a Director of the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, and believes true wealth is giving back, which is why she won’t admit how much she is worth.
“I loathe to say that. I think money for money’s sake is pretty evil stuff. If you have the opportunity to do wonderful work and make a difference in people’s lives, it’s a responsibility that has positive outcomes, but just to count pennies and pounds has really got to be one of the most mindless obsessions and careers.”
The view from Appelbaum’s mountain home is certainly inspiring, but even more so is this person fronting a beautiful piece of earth in Stellenbosch, and she’s fun, feisty and fearless.

Tag: Farm

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