The Machine
The whole cycle, in the order it actually happens.
If you read nothing else on this site, read this page. Seven stages, each one triggering the next, and a loop at the end that turns a project into a machine.
Stage by stage
Click a stage. See who does what, what it costs, what it produces, and what it sets off next.
Illustration of the mechanism — not a quote, an offer or a contract
Land comes in
From a chief or traditional authority, a family, a community property association, a land-reform landholder, or the state. The land is assessed for our production specification, and then soil-tested.
- Who does what
- The landholder offers the land and grants a right of use for the contract period. We assess feasibility. Ownership of the land does not move, and is not intended to.
- What it costs
- Soil testing is at the landholder's cost. It is the first real filter and the first shared commitment — deliberately not hidden and deliberately not carried by us.
- What it produces
- A feasibility answer, and a pre-contract with an escape clause if the land cannot carry the project to organic and export specification.
A signed contract farming agreement, and the start of the costed package the landholder can carry to a funder.
People come in
Through the volunteer programme — roughly 400 hours of genuine work that most people do not complete. Entry to what follows is by performance only: not selection, not connection, not relationship. The Pipeline is the detail.
- Who does what
- We run the programme and the training. The participants prove themselves in it. Where the land comes from a community, the programme is opened to that whole community.
- What it costs
- Training and the community volunteer programme are billable items in the project, delivered as learnerships wherever possible so that part of the cost is recoverable.
- What it produces
- An operating team who can farm to specification and sell what they grow — and a filter a funder can rely on instead of a person they will never meet.
A team that can be put on a farm, and a pipeline deep enough to staff the next site.
Capital comes in
Through one of two routes. Either the landholder raises funding against their own asset, with our help and our costed package — or a funder puts capital into the portfolio holding company. Both are set out in full on If You Hold Land and If You Fund.
- Who does what
- The funding is raised in the landholder's name, for the landholder's asset, and they carry that liability. We work with them and help them raise it. We are not liable for raising it.
- What it costs
- Project cost is established by the full assessment and set out in the costed package, with the expected production, period and payback. Every figure in that document is indicative and is labelled so.
- What it produces
- A bankable, portable package — for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Rural Development, the Land Bank, another development finance institution, or a corporate development programme.
Funding drawn, and the build starts.
The farm is built to specification
Organic certification, export certification, production method, and the quality the offtake demands. Not "a farm" — a farm built to meet a contract that already exists.
- Who does what
- We hold the model, the method, the certification, the compliance and the financial management while the operating team is trained into each of them in turn. What We Deliver sets out the full list, and what leaves our hands.
- What it costs
- The build is what the funding pays for: establishment, inputs, equipment, certification and the training of the people who will run it.
- What it produces
- A certified, producing asset — which is what the funder's security is actually worth, and what the landholder is left holding at the end.
First production, and the first delivery against the offtake.
The offtake takes the produce
Guaranteed and long-term, at top of market. We are the buyer, aggregating volume across many farms to meet international offtake agreements. Why we can pay top of market, and why that is not charity.
- Who does what
- We buy, aggregate, process, pack and move the produce. The farm grows to specification and delivers.
- What it costs
- Nothing extra to the farm. The offtake is non-exclusive: once the farm is flush and breaking even it may add other buyers, or seek another offtake at any time.
- What it produces
- Revenue, on a long-term contract, at a price the farm could not reach alone — and the aggregated volume that makes the international agreements possible in the first place.
Revenue into the farm, and the repayment schedule begins.
Profits repay the loan
Under our financial management, for the full duration of the funding. This is the single point on which the whole funding case rests.
- Who does what
- We run the financial management and are contracted to repay the loan out of the farm's profits. The operating team is trained into financial control alongside, under double signature.
- What it costs
- The operating team is paid properly for their industry throughout — before they own anything. The landholder holds a meaningful share from day one and earns on it.
- What it produces
- A funder who is not being asked to trust a track record. They are being asked to trust a contracted repayment mechanism, running on a farm we are also the buyer for.
A clean repayment record — and, on the financial track, a clean year of approvals with no rejections.
Milestones release control and share
Track by track, against a defined standard, over at least a year on each. Written into the contract, not left to whim. Sweat Equity is the whole mechanism.
- Who does what
- The operating team meets a contracted, measured standard on a track. That releases that track's share, profit share and control. Governance runs alongside, and first option on it always goes to the original owners. Governance and Ownership.
- What it costs
- Time, deliberately. At least a year on every track — because one mistake can lose a multi-million-rand asset, and the farm does not get a second life.
- What it produces
- A farm progressively run and progressively owned by the people who built it, with the landholder's share intact throughout.
The loop below: a proven farm, and trained people who can staff the next one.
The loop
This is the part that makes it a machine rather than a project.
A proven farm becomes the evidence for the next one. Trained people become the pipeline for the next site.
Scroll the diagram sideways →
Proof of concept
What is actually proven, and what is not.
Everything on this page that describes the pilot farm or the current phase is described qualitatively. Figures the client has not released are not published here, and are not estimated.
Image outstanding
The pilot farm as it is now, not as it was: certified organic production in the ground, packing crates stacked and labelled, a functioning yard. One or two operators checking a crop row with a clipboard or tablet — the register is inspection, not celebration. Show the asset, not a ribbon-cutting.
Pilot — established
The pilot farm
It began in deep debt. Over roughly three years it became a genuinely valuable, certified, producing asset with a working sales pipeline. The point is not that a farm was rescued; the point is that every component on this site was built and tested on it — the production specification, the certification route, the financial management, the training, and the sales.
What was learned is why the rest of the programme is shaped the way it is. The operator is the variable everything fails on, so the volunteer programme became the filter. Certification and compliance are what quietly kill farms, so they sit with us until they are trained across. And a farmer who cannot move produce is only half a farmer, so the training covers selling as well as growing.
Current phase — in development
The five-farm portfolio
Five farms is the next proving step: enough to show the model repeats and to hedge a funder across sites, and small enough to be honest about. Locations, crops and timing are not settled for publication.
Not yet packaged for publication
Proof of concept established. A five-farm portfolio as the current proving phase. Scale to follow. We are not operating at scale and we do not say we are.
Where the two routes converge
The machine is identical either way. Only the chairs change.
A landholder arrives with an asset and raises funding against it. A funder arrives with capital and puts it into a portfolio. From the farm's point of view, nothing downstream is different.
Route one
Land first
- The landholder holds the asset and grants a right of use.
- The landholder carries the funding application, with our help, and carries the liability.
- We build, operate, train and buy.
- Profits repay the loan under our financial management.
- Milestones release share and control, track by track.
Route two
Capital first
- A landholder still holds the asset and still grants a right of use.
- The funder places capital in the portfolio holding company rather than a single site.
- We build, operate, train and buy.
- Profits repay the funding under our financial management.
- Milestones release share and control, track by track.
Who holds the land and who carries the funding application differ. Nothing else does — not the specification, not the training, not the release of control, not the offtake price.