Nompendulo Manana, 2017 Youth Winner (Khulamini, Manzini)

Nompendulo is the very first winner under the youth category and she entered under the vegetable production category.
For Manana, entering the competition was about believing in herself. She saw the competition and thought maybe she could also do something great. She was pleasantly surprised to have placed in the whole country.
When she entered the competition, she did not have much business knowledge. This was something winning the competition helped her with as she was exposed to various capacity building sessions.
She also had few resources to run her business. Manana feels the agricultural inputs she won truly made a difference in her journey as a farmer.
Natural disasters have been a great plague in her journey, and the lack of adequate transport to take her goods to the market.
Manana believes that age should not be a factor when going into farming.