30/09/2025
“I’ve always wanted to do this, it’s just that I never had the space or resources to pursue my dream,” says Sibusiso Mogale as he gestures towards his 23-hectare farm situated along the lush banks of the Crocodile River. “Now, finally, I do,” writes Hancu Louw.
Born without hands and forearms, 37-year-old Sibusiso’s journey to becoming a farmer was fuelled by a burning desire for independence and a deep love for working the soil. “My grandmother had a vegetable garden and, as a young boy, I would spend a lot of time with her, watching and learning. One day, while she was sowing, I used my toes to plant a couple of seeds, taking care to mark each spot carefully,” he says of his earliest recollection of gardening.
“I remember the incredible sense of excitement – and relief – I felt when I saw the shoots coming out of the ground and, week after week, slowly grow into healthy mealie plants.” This simple act of sowing a few seeds and tending crops offered Sibusiso a profound insight into his own abilities.
“Seeing my family members eating and enjoying the mealies I had planted with my own toes, and taken care of for all those months, made me realise that even someone like me, a disabled person who was always dependent on others, could make a meaningful contribution to the world around me.”
After five years of full-time farming, he admits that when he was growing up, he never considered it a potential career. “I was always told what I could or could not do, and I was convinced that I would become an artist or a public speaker because that’s what the people around me were saying,” Sibusiso recalls of his school years, which were spent far away from his grandmother’s vegetable garden. (He attended schools for children with physical disabilities in Limpopo and later Johannesburg.)
“In high school, I discovered my talent for swimming, and that opened up a lot of doors for me.” He secured a scholarship to attend a mainstream school in Johannesburg and, during this time, competed in various national and international championships for physically disabled swimmers, which culminated in his qualifying for the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing, China.
“Unfortunately, I was unable to attend because I was not doing well academically. It was my matric year and my coaches and teachers decided that I should rather focus on finishing school. I did, however, continue swimming after I completed school.” But the rigor of competing became too much, and he decided to call it quits as a career sportsman in 2013.
After trading his speedo, cap and goggles for a laptop and textbooks, he completed a certificate in business administration at Boston City College and entered the job market. “I held various administrative positions in the private sector and government. Did the nine-to-five thing, and settled into that kind of life,” he says of his 20s, living and working in Gauteng and later Mbombela.
It was the predictability of an office job, and the dependence on an employer for a salary that eventually drove Sibusiso back to his family home... and his grandmother’s vegetable garden. “I remember calling my mother and telling her, ‘I’m not an office person.’ She tried to convince me to keep trying to make it work, but I couldn’t keep sitting around twiddling my toes.”
Read how Sibusiso, without any formal training and arms/hands, sells high quality vegetables to retailers in Nelspruit, in our Spring issue available in stores and online: https://bit.ly/3ORFsrr