AS part of its commitment to food security, agri-business giant Tongaat Hulett is supporting a vegetable garden by a women’s cooperative on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast to put food on the table and ensure a regular income.
Tongaat Hulett’s socio-economic development manager, Snethemba Kunene, said the company has partnered with the Red Cross Society to create an enabling environment where all people are treated with hospitality, dignity and humanity.
She said through the Red Cross Society, Tongaat Hulett has invested R150 000 towards the establishment of a women-led food security initiative in Macekane, under the traditional leadership of Inkosi Mzimela.
“The objective of the food security programme is to ensure that there is sustainability in food supply for the community and more especially the founders and volunteers of the vegetable garden that we are establishing.
“A group of women will form a cooperative and plant various vegetables that will be sold to earn a livelihood as part of a food security project.
“The aim of Tongaat Hulett’s socio-economic development programme is to improve people’s social and economic wellbeing by facilitating the strategic distribution of resources to promote human dignity and improved quality of life,” said Kunene.
Siyabonga Hlatshwayo from the KZN Red Cross office said the mission of the Red Cross Society is to prevent and alleviate human suffering and to foster human dignity in all communities by addressing the basic needs of the people.
Recently Tongaat Hulett and KZN Red Cross Society distributed 250 cooked meals to families that were uprooted by floodwaters in April 2022 in the Seatides, La Mercy and Canelands informal settlements.
Tongaat Hulett has also distributed 100 bags of 10kg sugar to other indigent households and flood disaster victims.
About Tongaat Hulett
Tongaat Hulett is an agricultural and agri-processing business which includes integrated components of land management and property development. Through its sugar and starch operations, Tongaat Hulett produces a range of refined carbohydrate products from sugarcane and maize. Renewable energy, in the form of biofuel production and electricity generation, is of increasing importance to the business. The water-food-energy nexus is an evolving dynamic as the world contents with the growing impact of climate change. Tongaat Hulett balances the operational requirement for sugarcane supplies to its cane processing operations with the transition of agricultural land to other uses at the appropriate times. The current focus prioritises the business leveraging its asset base in six SADC countries. Tongaat Hulett is well placed to capitalise on the company’s unconstrained access to sugar markets and its independent position and established business platform and size.
