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Francois Viljoen

Lushof

Hi, my name is Francois Viljoen and I grow organic grapes and blueberries for Nature & More in western South-Africa, near the town of Saron. Our farm is called Lushof and I am the Senior Table Grape Manager

Lushof Fruit Produces Organic Table Grapes and Organic Blueberries for the Export market. My role is the oversight in the production and packing of Table Grapes.

The farm is situated close to the town of Saron, where all our labourers comes from. The farm is approximately 1,5 hours’ drive from Cape Town in a northernly direction.

Interview with Francois

N&M: Why and when did you go organic?

We felt that there was a need for organically grown fruit. It was also a good opportunity to stand out from the rest of the producers around us. The farm has now been organically certified for the past 6 years.

N&M: What do you see as the benefits of organic farming now?

Organic farming can ensure the consumer that the fruit is as nutritious and beneficial to a healthy life as possible. Non-organic fruit might be perfect to look at, but it needs to be sprayed and fertigated and that robs the fruit of some of its nutritious goodness.

N&M: What do you like most about your work?

That I get to make a difference in my laborer’s lives. I would like to think that I use farming grapes to teach farmers life skills. The farmers can then teach these life skills to their children.

N&M: Do you have any special plans for the (sustainable) future that you can tell us about?

We are looking to almost double our crop in the next few years. In the process we are taking out old varieties and planning new exciting varieties that lend themselves to the organic production process i.e., colouring well without the need for colouring growth hormones.

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soil

With the cultivation of grapes, crop rotation cannot be done. To protect the soil we do however rotate varieties every 15-20 years depending on market trends and profitability. On the planting of new vines, a lot of care is taken into the preparation of the soil. We help with soil structure and with establishing microbial life in the soil. Furthermore, it’s important to correct the Ph-value of the soil so the grapevines can flourish. Once established, we protect our soil from erosion by planting cover crops to help bind our soil so it can withstand our summer winds. As part of our plant nutrition program, we apply manure enriched compost that we produce on the farm. All of our pruning wood gets chopped up and worked back into our soil so that it can be composted over time and slowly release carbon for the plant to take up.

As an organic farm we do not have harsh herbicides and pesticides that can harm our soil and break down microbial- and animal life.

biodiversity

We believe it is very important to work together with nature and not against it. We have a few species of poisonous snakes on our farm and we try to stay out of their way as far as possible. The snakes come to the farm for food and they attack rats and frogs.

We surrounded our blocks with rows of trees to help against wind damage. These trees at the same time provide nesting space for our local predatory birds like falcons and owls. There are also many guinea fowl and wild cats on the farm. And life near the soil is important too, like snails. Some farmers consider snails a plague, but they're not. We have enough green cover plants here for them to eat, so they stay away from the grapes. They are welcome to live here. You should always give these things a bit of time, and look at it with great attention. If you see a bird in the orchard, you may think it's eating your harvest, while in fact he's eating your weeds or harmful insects.

individual

We educate the labourers before each vine manipulation so they have the necessary background knowledge in order to do the manipulations a certain way. We try and create a work environment that is friendly, inviting, inclusive, supportive and educational but with a farm focus on productivity and quality of work being done.

We also encourage labourers to come forward if they want to be a trainer for a certain job, we try and identify talent with this regard as much as possible.

society

We have a program for Tertiary agricultural students on the farm. We are fully inclusive with labourers of all ethnic groups and religions. We do not discriminate; in fact, we encourage a thriving multicultural and multi-religion labour force.

We Pay our labourers weekly to ensure a steady income. Seasonal contracts are however fixed term to ensure job security. We have an 85% return of labourers yearly which makes re-educating labourers very easy.

We try and sell a few local pallets of fruit each year and all the funds go to the local community where there is a need for funding, as the local school or clinic.

economy

Table Grapes unfortunately have a very long off-season where not much work is needed on the farm. Because of this, most of our labourers are only working on the farm a few seasons a year. When they are working on the farm, we provide day care for our workers’ children. We also provide transport for our workers to go to town or to do their biweekly grocery shopping. To ensure that we comply with our labour acts and that we treat our labourers fairly, we have audits every year. To further boost employment in the area, we tray, buy and contract local as far as possible.

By farming organically, we want to ensure sustained jobs for generations to come.

climate

In the field of energy, we try to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible. Our packing and cooling facilities partially use solar energy. The main electricity lines we have access to come from a wind farm nearby.

Since we are organic, we do not spray chemicals on our grapes and we only use organic and microbial products which take less energy to produce. We also tray and combine our products in a spraying mixture to limit the driving of tractors through our blocks.

We recycle all of our plastic waste and all of our product containers get returned to our suppliers to be reused. We use packaging material made from recycled material as far as possible

Our grapes travel to Europe and the USA by container ship.

water

We are very water-wise on the farm. We use soil moisture probes to schedule our irrigation in order to make sure we don’t overwater our grapes and waste our valuable water. This leads not only to saving water and electricity costs but also to reducing our carbon footprint.

To minimize the evaporation of water on the ground, we use low flow drip irrigation.

With the help of cover crops and a layer of organic matter on top of our ridges we can further reduce the evaporation of water in our soil.

We also have our own water purification plant that supplies drinking water for farm.

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