By Alina Mabe
LERIBE -The founder of Number One Piggeries Bokang Molelle, a member of Lesotho Young Farmers Association and a leader of Outreach task team, affirms that his long-term ambition is to export large volumes of pork worldwide.
The Number One Piggeries is located at Kolonyama, Ha Molelle in the Leribe district, it was established in 2020 during the harsh conditions of Covid-19. He explained that his business did not do well that year because most companies were closed, but revealed that he started noticing an improvement in 2022 around the month of June.
Mr Bokang, who is also the founder of PBL Farm Products (Pty) Ltd, the breeding company within Number One Piggeries crowd farmer’s network, stipulated that all of Number One Piggeries farmers are pork producers buying piglets from PBL Farm Products.
Number One Piggeries pork market includes restaurants, food caterers in town, El Legado, Mahlakapese Guesthouse, The Market Restaurant and DMI mini market. What sets my business apart from the rest is that it produces first grade pork and it uses crowd farming model.
One of the customers Mr Molapo Shakhane from El Legado Shesanyama, explained that he has been working so well with Mr Molelle, he added by saying Number One Piggeries is so reliable it never disappoints.
Mr Maponoane Mokose is one of the farmers and also a neighbour of Mr Molelle, said he is very excited about Mr Bokang’s venture which creates job opportunities in his community. When speaking to Informative Newspaper, he also said Mr Molelle is his inspiration. ‘’ I have learned so much from Mr Bokang Molelle ever since I met him’’, said Mr Mokose.
Molelle concluded by advising Basotho to fight for their country! “Let’s produce as much as we can and stop depending on other countries for our survival”, exclaimed Molelle. He would like to call upon support to this vision from all stakeholders that play a role in ensuring food security, economic development and job creation in Lesotho.
Molelle is a qualified accountant by profession, an alumnus from Centre for Accounting Studies. He Intends on scaling up his produce to expand his supply to all 10 districts of the country, eventually he wants Lesotho to self-sustain and not rely on other countries to service the excess demand. Seemingly so, his goal is already in line with the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDG 12) and what was clearly stipulated in the Budget speech.
“I was a president of Junior Chamber International-Lesotho, our work included Public and Private Dialogues, so we participated in the development of NSDP 2, that’s where I realised that I have a stance in contributing to economic development is Agriculture and potentially create employment for Basotho,” he said.
“We also promoted the implementation of UN agenda 2030 for sustainable development (SDGs), so my favourite SDGs happened to be; no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, promotion of decent work, economic growth, responsible consumption and production,” he explained.
He indicated that the achievement of those goals and experiences helped him so much that he was able to acknowledge high scale commercial farming practices through active participation.