Higgins Mdluli who has taken up the leadership reins at SA Canegrowers, attributes his leadership and farming skills to his parents whom he says instilled Christian principles and the virtues of hard work from when he was just a child.

SA Canegrowers’ board chairman, Higgins Mdluli with his parents, John and Thembi Mdluli in one of their sugarcane fields near Driekoppies in Mpumalanga.

As a little boy growing up on the outskirts of Malalane, Higgins Mdluli would work the sugarcane fields before school and straight after he dropped his school bag once he got home.

The newly appointed SA Canegrowers’ Board Chairman says he remembers from the age of 11 how he and his brothers would manually till and weed the fields alongside their mother, Thembi Samaria Mdluli (74) on their 7ha’s of land under sugarcane outside the village of Driekoppies.

His father, John Mseni Mdluli (79) who worked as a clerk at the Shongwe Mission Hospital 8kms away managed the operation from afar discussing and planning what needed to be done when he came home each evening.

Rather maize than sugarcane

In 1967, the South African government developed a tranche of land in what was then the KaNgwane homeland or Bantustan adjacent to the northern Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) border. A pumping facility was built on the Lomati river where water was pumped into gravity fed canals to allow for irrigation.

However, as a community leader, John Mdluli says the families’ whose land was cultivated by the government – including their own - were disinterested in sugarcane production. “The elders knew nothing about cultivating sugarcane. They wanted the government to plant maize and vegetables. We knew we could eat the maize and the vegetables but not the sugarcane,” he laughs.

The pumping station built by the South African government in 1967 on the Lomati River. Water is pumped from the river to the neighbouring community-owned sugarcane fields which operate under the auspices of the Ngogolo Agriculture Cooperative.

It wasn’t until 1982 that he managed to convince the community to reclaim the land under sugarcane from the government and continue with the production themselves. At that time 28 families joined forces and took up 200ha under the auspices of the Ngogolo Farmers’ Association. This later became the Ngogolo Agriculture Cooperative.

In 1983, after their first harvest, each family received R3 400 from the profit pool. “I took the money and bought my first bakkie for cash,” the elder chuckles.

Now, 40 years later, the community has added three more developments to their initial venture namely the Mbongozi and Nhlangu East and West projects which cumulatively total 900ha under irrigated sugarcane. “These provide for more than 150 families who live at Driekoppen with an income. It allows them to thrive and prosper,” Higgins said.

Trust rather than title

And while the families may not have title to the land, John and Thembi Mdluli say working and living under the regional tribal authority is what secures the land for future generations and therefore success. “If a family is allocated land by the chief, that land is theirs forever. Whether the family moves away, or leaves the area to look for work elsewhere, that land is still theirs. They can return to it whenever they want to and, in the meantime, others will take care of it for them. This works far better than if each family had title to the land. It means that everyone must think for their neighbours as well as themselves,” the couple say.

For the SA Canegrowers’ chairman, an inheritance of an 8ha sugarcane plot from his grandfather Mathumgu Enos Mdluli within the Ngogolo Agriculture Cooperative in 1999 was his foot in the door. “Since then, I have managed to acquire a further 83ha which I bought from other growers who were no longer interested in farming their land. These are spread across all the four projects,” he said.

Jacques Schoeman who is the SA Canegrowers' Grower Affairs Manager and Regional Manager for Malalane says the success or failure of the Ngogolo project is utterly dependent on families working together under empathetic and knowledgeable leadership. “For example, from 200has originally, the Ngogolo Agriculture Cooperative has developed to more than 580has today. In essence the land mass equals what the industry would term a commercial sugarcane enterprise, but each plot of land in the block - they vary in size - has a dedicated grower with their own grower code delivering cane to the RCL Malalane Mill. This means a community of small-scale growers operates corporately at a commercial scale, but all joint decision making is democratic in nature and individually motivated. It can be a very tricky balance,” Schoeman said.

And, to further complicate matters, the block is fed by the one pumping system through the canals to three levelling dams after which it is distributed onto the land. “That means if one grower, for example, fails to pay his or her contribution to pumping or maintenance costs then they jeopardise the success of the entire project,” Schoeman adds.

Of interest, the canals which are now old and in need of extensive repair, are to be replaced with a pipeline system jointly funded by the growers, the South African Sugar Association’s transformation fund and the RCL Malalane sugar mill.

Each registered grower in the cooperative is required to pay R8 800/ha annually into an electricity fund to pay Eskom (the state-owned power utility), R2 250/ha in maintenance costs and a further R3 000/grower/season association fee (termed as a “unity” fund).

“If there is no unity, if meetings are not held regularly to make sure that everyone is in the communication loop and where consensus and agreement is reached, then this whole project will collapse. And it has happened in the past with other projects,” says Schoeman.

A mentor and a friend

And it is here, he adds, the SA Canegrowers’ chairman honed his unique and effective leadership style. “Baba Mdluli is a mentor to me and a friend so you might say I am biased. But I have never met anyone who has such presence, especially in his community. His ability to sum up a situation and respond with authority and insight is incredible. He can talk to a small-scale grower and a JSE-listed company director in the same room with equal respect and authority. His humility inspires me,” Schoeman says.

SA Canegrowers' CEO, Dr Thomas Funke, sums up Mdluli’s appointment as “the right leader at the right time”. “At SA Canegrowers principled leadership is at the core of our values set. Higgins is not only highly principled he is a gifted and empathetic leader who is bringing a very special skills set to our organisation at a time when our industry is facing serious threats," he says.

Dr Funke said the future sustainability of South Africa’s sugarcane growing industry depended on innovation, ongoing and ramped up environmental and social action by the grower community and the continued commitment to defending the livelihoods of the over one million people who depended on the sector for their income.

“The sugar tax introduced by the government in 2018 has almost crippled our industry. This, coupled with an escalation in extreme weather events due to climate change and ever-increasing input costs due to global conflict such as the war in Ukraine, means our leadership must be able to think on their feet and respond effectively and quickly to any challenges that may arise. At the same time, they must keep a level head on their shoulders. Added to this is our responsibility to keep building relationships at all levels of government in the country – whether at national or provincial level – to advance the interests of commercial and small-scale growers,” he said.

Dr Funke added that working with Mdluli over the next two seasons was something he was excited about and looking forward to.

Higgins Mdluli concluded his school education at the nearby Mdzabu Senior Secondary School. In 1993, he graduated from the University of Zululand where he studied for a BSc Degree before completing his Civil Engineering National Diploma in 1996 at the then Technikon Witwatersrand(now the University of Johannesburg). He then ventured into the world of business in 1996. In 2017 he sold up his shares in his engineering firm and returned home to farm full time.

“Farming is in my blood,” the father of five says. “I always knew I would come back to it.”

For the foreseeable future, however, he will serve “all” 22 000 sugarcane growers under the SA Canegrowers umbrella. “I wasn’t keen on taking up the chairmanship, but my colleagues and members of the board succeeded in persuading me to make myself available for the position. Now my time is taken up with board meetings, problem solving and media interviews rather than farming. But it’s okay, I know that this is my time to give back in service and I will do it to the very best of my ability for all our growers. My mother will continue to look after my interests here and when I am done, I will return and continue to grow and develop our sugarcane operations among my other businesses,” he said.

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