DR QINISANI Qwabe is living proof that failing matric doesn’t mean you have no future.
The 27-year-old from KwaDlangezwa, near Empangeni in KZN, failed matric in 2011 but today, he is an agricultural researcher and farmer with a PhD.
Qinisani told Daily Sun he wanted to motivate young women to go into agriculture. He said he wanted people to be inspired by his story and not give up after failing matric.
He said he was a small-scale farmer, but he hoped to grow his farm in the future.
Qinisani said he mostly focused on indigenous vegetables because he saw a gap in the market.
He said he got his passion for farming from his great-grandmother.
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“She would plant any vegetable and I would learn about plants as she worked. I fell in love with it,” he said.
Qinisani is a lecturer at the University of the Free State and wants to use his platform to educate young people about indigenous vegetables. He said he wanted these vegetables to form part of the agricultural value chain.
“My personal goal is not just to popularise these crops but also to have them form a big part of the South African food system,” he said.
Qinisani’s advice to young people was to enter the farming space. He said the industry needed a lot of people, so there were many opportunities.
