5 June 2008

National Certificate: Fruit Packing and Grading Processes

Grant Ninon was born in Grabouw and grew up on the farm Elgin Orchards; the same farm on which his father grew up. In terms of schooling, he attended the primary school, St Michaels, which is on the farm mentioned above. Grant completed his high school career at Groenberg Secondary with great success. After school, he was selected to study engineering but due to a lack of personal funds, he was not able to further his studies.

Grant held on to his dreams of furthering his studies and always looked out for an opportunity to empower himself. In an attempt to help his father at home, he went to Cape Town to look for work. He worked at different hotels as a waiter and also helped at I & J in the machine room. Later on, Grant returned to his hometown and started to work for Appletiser.
Grant could not get a permanent position at Appletiser and continually looked for permanent work opportunities in the surrounding areas. Grant had a love for the fruit industry, which, in part, may have stemmed from helping out in the orchards during his school holidays. His knowledge about the fruit industry, however, was limited.

January 2005, Grant was appointed at Valley Packers as a packing material clerk. Due to his limited knowledge about the fruit industry, the above position posed a great challenge. In 2006, AgriSETA provided Valley Packers with funds to present the learnership: National Certificate: Fruit Packing and Grading Processes at their organisation. Grant was one of the people who were given the opportunity to partake in the learnership. Grant enjoyed the learnership and learned a lot; he had the following to say about the learnership: “It was a fantastic experience that laid the foundation for further opportunities that would cross my path later on in life. I was able to do much more with the knowledge that I obtained on the learnership. I will always be grateful to AgriSETA for the developmental opportunity that they gave me.”¹

After the completion of the National Certificate: Fruit Packing and Grading Processes learnership, opportunities started to present itself to Grant. Amongst these opportunities, was the chance to partake in another training programme that focused on fruit exporting.Grant performed so well on the above-mentioned programme that he was invited to attend the Fruitlogistica Expo in Germany. Grant was one of four learners from South Africa that attended the expo. At the expo, Grant got the opportunity to meet and talk to some of his organisation’s foreign clients.

According to the Occupational Health and Safety Act every enterprise/farm with more than 20 workers must appoint and train at least one Health and Safety representative for every 50 workers or part thereof. This number includes seasonal workers who are appointed for more than four months.

The Cape Women’s Forum, in conjunction with AgriSETA, recently trained 706 Health and Safety representatives. Most of these learners are from farms, pack-houses and cellars in the Western Cape, as well as from areas such as the Langkloof and Gamtoos Valley in the Eastern Cape, Orange River in the Northern Cape, while two farms in Naboomspruit also participated in the project.

The objective of this one-day programme is to help Health and Safety representatives to understand their role and to give them an overview of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1993.The content of the programme comprises the following:

• Induction and explanation of the NQF and Portfolio of Evidence
• The role of a Health and Safety representative
• The Health and Safety Committee
• The Occupational Health and Safety Act
• Health and Safety audits
• Accident investigation
• Consultation with management and fellow workers

After completion of the training and as part of their summative assessment, the learners had to do a risk analysis of the farm. This had to be submitted together with minutes of their first safety meeting with management of the farm. The statistics of this project are as follows:

• I feel great because I have gained a lot of things and I experienced about how to control the meetings between workers, including safety reps and management.
• Ek kan nou teruggaan en ander reg help.
• Dit was ‘n voorreg om in die klas te wees – ek het baie geleer.
• Ek wil en sal alles op die plaas gaan toepas.
• Ek sal met nuwe oë na my werksomgewing kyk.
• Die kursus was net wat ek nodig gehad het, want dit gaan nou maklik vir my wees om my verantwoordelikhede toe te pas.
• Dit was my eerste keer dat ek opleiding kon kry – ek was baie beïndruk.
• Enkosi Lindeshof (Xhosa learner of the Du Toit group).
• I am happy for training.
• I was so excited to do the training – it guided me with some of the issues that I have not known in the workplace.
• Ek is meer positief oor beroepsgesondheid.

A very positive outcome of the learning was the fact that many learners discussed the training with management. The project was a huge success and learners completed the training with enthusiastic attitudes and high motivation levels, very eager to practice and apply their newly gained knowledge.

The Cape Women's Forum would like to extend this service to as many learners as possible in order to make a difference in the health and safety of our farming communities. We would like to thank AgriSETA for the opportunity we could give to these learners.
Estelle Engelbrecht
Cape Women’s Forum

The Grants Department would like to thank all the employers who submitted their Workplace Skills Plans and Annual Training Reports on time. As seen in the picture, quite a big task lays ahead in the Department to capture all information before payment is made.

Bergplaas Forest Station

12 Learners participated in the National Certificate: Animal Production NQF Level 1 “Beekeeping” project. This project commenced on 10 June 2007 and was completed on 28 March 2008. The parties involved were, South Cape College, (the Training Provider overseeing the training and facilitation) and Outeniqua Eco Hives (Service Provider, SANParks and the Mountain to Ocean Forestry Organisation(MTO).

There were 15 learners, of whom 5 were males and 7 females, and unfortunately 3 drop outs with the Learnership at completion stage. Six of these learners had to travel more than 80kms per day to attend the sessions. These six were still were still on board on commencement of the classes in January.

With a lack of training facilities, things were not easy. South Cape College were informed by the MTO to vacate the premises at the Community Hall of Bergplaas. South Cape College managed to get hold of an empty trading store and managed to restore and renovate the building and now have their training room. The Learnership however had to be extended due to the heavy rains that affected the
Southern Cape in November and December.

The honey management and honey processing demonstration was attended by all learners at the bee farm of Mr and Mrs Andre de Jager from Albertinia. The practical training was done by Mr Clay Whittal on site at Bergplaas and the exposure to the learner of the “real world” of bee keeping was of inestimable value to them. This was a project with a lot of effort and devotion required from everyone involved.

We would like to inform all stakeholders that each staff member will be having his/her own direct telephone number. Click here for a detailed list of telephone numbers and extensions.
The main telephone number of AgriSETA, (012) 325 1655 will still remain as the Switchboard /Reception number.

National Skills Development Good Practice Awards 2008

The Quality Assurance Department of AgriSETA would like to extend an invitation from the Department of Labour, to companies to participate in the promotion of South African National Standard for Good practice in Skills development. The AgriSETA would like to hear if there are companies who would be interested to participate in such awards. Click here to read further.

Contact details:

Tel:  (012) 325 1655 (Switchboard number)
PLEASE CHECK THE LIST IN THE “TELEPHONE NUMBER CHANGES ARTICLE”
Fax: (012) 325 1677/24
Email: info@agriseta.co.za
Website: www.agriseta.co.za