We have now been in this Covid-19 pandemic for a year….although it feels like much longer!

In fact as at the 05 March 2020 South Africa had its first positive case confirmed.

We wanted to concentrate on a better story though, and I wanted to try and show what one of our guides Shadreck Ncube has been up to since the tourism was all but halted in March 2020.

When talking to Shadreck, he recalled one of his best moments on a Sunway Safaris tour he was leading. The tour was the ZB16, Zimbabwe and Botswana Game Trail, while in the Kruger National Park they had a sighting of leopards mating. Not only that but shortly after the 2 leopards made a kill right in front of them. Our guides, who normally rely on international tourism from our Sunway Safaris overland tours through Southern Africa, have all been without income.

Shadreck, who lives in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, has been working for Sunway for 7 years. He is fortunate enough to have some farmland, roughly 2, 5 hectares that he has been able to invest his time in.

Shadreck doesn’t call himself a farmer as such and only started farming about 1 and a half years ago although this has become serious farming since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. He has taught himself the farming he does and his main crops are tomatoes and cabbage at this stage. He has about 1300 tomato plants and 9000 cabbages and is cultivating/preparing more land in order to plant some more.

The produce that he grows goes to the markets in Victoria Falls and supports the local and surrounding communities which he always has in mind. Shadreck has a borehole on his land that his neighbours are able to also utilise, and as such, there are 7 homesteads with their livestock that Shadreck helps.

Shadreck uses traditional farming methods, as seen below with his cows helping to prepare the soil for more planting. Southern Africa has experienced great rains over the summer months of 2020/2021, and although its coming to an end these rains have been a blessing for small scale farmers like Shadreck.