Anitta is our Agri Worker of the Year

GEORGE NEWS - A female agri worker from George, Anitta Maqashalala, is the winner of the 2024 Southern Cape Agri Worker of the Year competition and has her sights set on the Western Cape title that is to be decided later this month.

Maqashalala is a manager at the berry farm in Geelhoutboom, Professional Horticulture Consulting (PHC), that also scooped six first places in the 11 categories in the Southern Cape competition.

All the category winners of the Southern Cape will be competing against the winners of 14 other regions in the Western Cape Agri Worker Competition.

Maqashalala, packhouse manager at PHC, whose operations stretch over five different farms, also won the Middle Management category. Her employer, Gavin Linsley-Noakes, says he is extremely proud. "It is high time that the Western Cape title goes to a woman. Anitta has developed tremendously over the past few years in our employ."

Maqashalala is no newcomer to the competition. In 2019 she won the Foreman category, and in 2021 she took the Best Potential award in both the Southern Cape and Western Cape competitions.

While she was studying for her Diploma in Agriculture at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) at Saasveld, Linsley-Noakes was one of her lecturers.

After completing her diploma, she did an internship at Mandalay Farm for one and a half years before being head-hunted by her former lecturer who had noticed her potential at university.

Maqashalala says at Mandalay she had received a good foundation in vegetable farming, and was happy to move on to a new field when she joined PHC in 2018. She progressed from the fields to the packhouse, working her way up to packhouse manager. "It is a challenging job to make sure that the fruit, harvested on five different farms, arrives fresh and undamaged at overseas destinations. We also service the local market, supplying Woolworths and Freshmark," she says.

The other category winners from PHC are:

• Human resources manager Linet Gumbo - Administrative category. Gumbo oversees several managers in the HR department. The company employs 120 permanent staff and up to 800 in season.

• Thabo Mahloko - Foreman category. Mahloko is packhouse assistant manager and is involved in technical auditing.

• Zozibini Adonis - Junior Management category. Adonis is manager of the technical auditing to ensure that certification standards set by Siza (Sustainability Initiative of South Africa) and Global Gap are met.

• James Young - Agri Processing category. Young is the processing manager and oversees the processing of berries that are not marketable.

• Two of PHC's farms, Brandwag and Groeneweide, were tops in the Best Achieving Farm category.

Winning over the years

PHC's Isaac Ntoto was Southern Cape and Western Cape Agriworker of the Year in 2018. Every year since, PHC employees have been bringing home a handful of trophies.

In 2022, eight of the categories went to PHC and in 2023 six.