Senwes Scenario October/November | Page 52

NEWS The staff of Taaibosch Piggery in the Fochville district. Senwes makes inroads with headland braais We are approaching the end of the Senwes headland braai initiative, which commenced in July this year. At the time of the writing this article, Senwes had already visited 320 producers from a planned number of 550 producers.  By Senwes Scenario Journalists S enwesters spent some time to say thank you in the form of a headland braai. Francois Strydom, Senwes CEO, said that the headland braais confirm that we are client focused and that it encourages staff to visit clients professionally. OBJECTIVES OF THE HEADLAND BRAAIS According to Strydom the headland braais have three objectives. Senwes would firstly like to acknowledge our customers and their workers for the role played by them, secondly we simply want to say thank you and thirdly, our producers have experi- enced an erratic few years as far as weath- 50 SENWES SCENARIO | SUMMER 2018 er conditions, prices and, especially lately, political uncertainty, have been concerned and they deserve to be acknowledged. THE PRODUCER AND FARM LABOURER “The land issue is the biggest issue we have had to deal with in the past 24 years. The primary producer becomes the pawn of politicians and is made out to be the scoundrel. My objective is to thank the producers and their labourers for the very important role which they play." Remember, only 0,06% of our total population of 57 million people are primary producers, with 870 000 farm workers, which make up 1,5% of the population in total. This is why Francois also conveys his appreciation to the farm workers in his letter, with the message: "Please thank all your workers for their contribution to the success of not only Senwes, but also our country, through their input.” Francois emphasised that, despite all the uncertainty, producers managed to produce safe, adequate and affordable food for the population. They also supply food to a large part of the SADC of 250 million people and they also export to all parts of the world. It is an amazing feat, since all of the above are being done without government subsidies. FEEDBACK The feedback from our clients is unbeliev- able and telephone calls at night, e-mails and whatsapps are evidence of the grati­ tude that they are important to Senwes. It is an unbelievabe experience for our cli- 52