Most black entrepreneurs who venture into commercial farming are likely to fail. First, it is a capital-intensive business. Secondly, there is insufficient financial support for black farmers. Despite this, entrepreneurs like Solly Moloko are fighting tooth and nail to keep the lights of their businesses on. Where does Moloko’s tenacity come from?
He grew up in the tough township of Boipatong Vanderbijlpark, where he did his primary and secondary education. After matriculating at Morris Isaacson, Moloko studied at the University of the North, where he graduated with a Bcom degree. He then completed his honours degree with Unisa.
Moloko’s zest for broadening his knowledge urged him to fly to the United States to pursue his MBA at Rutgers Business School. Upon his return, he was appointed as an executive for Shell, AT&T, and Eskom, where he gained valuable knowledge and experience in the various disciplines of strategic marketing and human resources.
“I got recruited to join Eskom, where I started as a regional Marketing Manager in KZN. Then I returned to head office, where I was the executive of Human Resources transformation,” he told TransformSA.
At Eskom, Moloko became instrumental in driving strategies to transform the organisation. He ensured that 50 percent of all recruits and bursar intakes were black.
In 2004, Moloko retired from Eskom to run his businesses full-time. Today he sits on various boards, including being an executive Chairman of Power Matla and EduVod South Africa, to name a few.
Moloko founded Baramakama Holdings with interests in engineering, property, and farming. In 2017, his poultry business, Baramakama Poultry, started with a staff complement of eight. Today those employees hold leadership roles within the company.
“We are a community-based business that strives to grow together with the youth,” he said.
While many westerners would cringe at someone eating chicken feet, in South Africa, chicken feet are a popular diet. Chicken feet go by many names. Some call them maotwana. Others call them amanqina enkukhu or walkie-talkies.
“To expand or grow into the next phase means we should do our rearing. The key critical success factor of the business is the value chain. This requires that you produce good-quality chicken. Also, you must produce chicken feet, but you should always consider that chicken feet will cost 50 % of your operation,” Moloko explained.
According to Moloko, one of the challenges black industrialists face is securing funding. In 2021, the government set up a 5 billion rand fund to help black farmers to access capital and boost their role in commercial agriculture. But Moloko feels government support for black industrialists is not well-structured.
“They should rather have a stringent process of evaluating and assessing the proposals that come through. If they are convinced that it is a proposal that will work, then they must give you a grant at that point so that you can go and raise additional debt to execute the operation. Right now, most of the help is badly structured to transform, as far as I am concerned. It is not creating a good base for transforming the industry,” he added,
To young entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into the poultry sector, Moloko has this advice: ” Talk to people who are in the industry. We are a generation that wants to help.