From Wellington via Italy to Kromco

Maréze Smit is a great example of how Hortgro invests in human capital to ensure a better future for deciduous fruit in South Africa. But making it happen is also about being in the right place at the right time. By Gerrit Rautenbach

Maréze was surrounded by stone fruit right from birth on two farms near Wellington. At the age of 16, her dad started doing more and more consulting for other farmers and they moved into town. At the same time, she had to complete a life orientation project about career choices. Who better to ask than Dad? So, he told her about horticulture and commercial fruit cultivation. And she thought that sounded extremely boring and she opted to enrol in conservation ecology. She applied for and was awarded a Hortgro bursary.

“For some reason, I then decided not to begin with conservation ecology and switched to horticulture. I don’t know why. But studying it and doing holiday work in the field, I fell in love with it,” she says.

After obtaining her degree she did a two-year project with an additional Hortgro bursary at Provar in the Paarl on cultivar profitability focusing on apples and plums which culminated in her Masters. Yet, being hungry for knowledge, inquisitive and eager to learn, she decided to spread her wings and see how the world out there farms fruit. Prof. Karen Theron from SU gave her an extensive list of research institutions all over the world and Maréze started applying.

“Most of the people I contacted in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, all over, were decent and saying the idea sounds interesting, a bit like don’t call us, we’ll call you, you know. However, when I emailed the Laimburg research facility in South Tyrol, they responded quickly, saying it is a great idea, to come and join us. Instinctively I knew I had to.”

It is the best thing that could have happened to her as Laimburg is an über-excellent research facility and farm, and South Tyrol is a unique place. Almost like not part of the rest of the world. It’s beautiful, it’s clean, it’s kind of unreal. A bit like something in a Heidi movie. Today, South Tyrol is part of Italy but it used to be part of Austria until after World War One. It is almost a little country on its own, with its own tax system and regulations. The linguae franca is a kind of German dialect, spiced with Italian.

Fruit farming in South Tyrol is different, but next level. The farms are small, mostly 2,5 ha a piece, but with 300 days of sunshine on average per year, extremely profitable. Its location between the colder alpine and warmer Mediterranean climates allows for high-quality apples to be grown at higher altitudes where they mature slower, making them denser, crisper, and more compact. Big temperature swings between day and night result in great colour. Six billion apples are produced annually in South Tyrol, mostly by extremely profitable family-run farms resorting under the conventional co-op system and with government support.

Asking her how she ended up from South Tyrol as a horticulturist at Kromco in Elgin, she laughs and tells you they came and fetched her. What really happened was, about three months before the end of her internship, a group of Kromco producers, led by technical manager Angelique Pretorius, visited Laimburg. At that stage, Maréze was beginning to realise it was time to start looking for a job back in South Africa but has not done anything yet.

“So, Angelique asked me what’s in store for my future and I said I’m going back to my country that I love so much. I knew I could get work back home. Angelique agreed by telling me there is a position for a horticulturist at Kromco. I should apply she said. I did. Here I am. If I hadn’t chosen South Tyrol, and if Kromco hadn’t visited the same South Tyrol, it would not have happened. Serendipity,” she adds with a smile. Yet, somehow, if your mindset is right, you make your own luck.

If you wonder what makes her better equipped for an organisation like Kromco, she will not hesitate to tell you that her exposure to the farming community in South Tyrol taught her a lot more about work ethics. If, for instance, fire blight is discovered on one tree, everybody, but everybody from the vice-director of the institute to the last worker gets involved, inspecting every tree on the 60-ha farm where Laimburg operates. Nobody backs out.

And the future? “I did my master’s degree in profitability, but if I must choose between my own profitability and helping a farmer to be more profitable, there is no choice. Our industry has a lot of brilliant people in the value chain, but the farmer is the only one offering value creation. You cannot add value to something that does not exist. I want to do whatever I can to support our farmers. All our farmers and future farmers.”

Welcome home, Maréze.