BY OWETHU DLAMINI
MAGUGA– Opportunities for development arise for the Maguga Community as residents receive new farming machinery.
Residents of Maguga, under the Madlangempisi Constituency, were filled with excitement and joy as a tractor and farming equipment including a trailer, harrows and a cultivator were delivered to the community last week Friday.
This publication established that the initiative was taken up by residents of Maguga and 20 members under the Sifisosetfu Cooperative, who contributed 10 per cent of the funding towards the machinery. Dumisa Dlamini, Sifisosetfu Cooperative Chairman, mentioned that the equipment amounted to about E800 000.
Dlamini stated that the Rural Development Fund (RDF) and Micro Projects played a vital role in acquiring the farming equipment and all that had been delivered to the community.
“This equipment will definitely assist the community directly as we will now be able to help the members of the community with their farming. We were supposed to start working this past weekend, but due to the rains across the country, the soil was too wet,” said Dlamini.
The chairman went on to mention that testing of the machinery would take place tomorrow and there would also be lessons. The lessons would be there to assist people around the community to familiarise themselves with farming and the use of the machinery during the farming.
“We are also open to helping the residents in their farming not only by using this machinery in their fields, but by also giving them the necessary information about their crops. The farming machinery will create business opportunities for us a community because people in surrounding communities can now come to us for assistance with their farming as well,” said Dlamini.
Dlamini further mentioned that the cooperative was looking into applying for tenders to develop this project and grow it. He said that he believed that this would result in more equipment being acquired in the future.
According to the chairman, the community members were so pleased with the development that was taking place. He expressed his gratitude to the residents for supporting this initiative as he also worked on encouraging them towards taking part in benefitting the community.
