History

“We want to be profitable farmers and sustain the future of agriculture in South Africa.”
            - South African Farmers, 2004

In 2004, at the time that Jerome Yazbek, founder and CEO of Farmsecure, was approached by a group of South African farmers, the global maize price had crashed and it was clear that a need existed to devise and institute a model for sustainable and profitable agriculture if farming in South Africa was to survive.

“It is often stated that by 2050 the world will need to generate enough food for close to 9 billion people. Farmsecure has a vision to contribute to this need by becoming a meaningful contributor to the world’s food supply. A secure food supply means a sustainable and profitable agricultural sector. The Farmsecure model provides the tools and the know-how to achieve this throughout the agricultural value chain. Outside of these tools however, we should never forget that at the centre of true food security is the sustainment of our farmers and farms, without which Farmsecure would not exist.”
            - Jerome Yazbek: Founder and Group CEO

At the time of Farmsecure’s birth in 2004, South Africa had experienced over 14 years of agricultural change including a shift from a control board to a free market system. This resulted in a reduction of financial support by government and the elimination of extension services that existed pre-1994, as well as the abolishment of agricultural subsidies in the country.

In 2004, Jerome Yazbek identified four founding business principles for sustainable and profitable farming enterprises on grains, and in his initial analysis of the sector, he identified the four areas of risk in grain operations as:

1. Bad soil practices: Since the abolishment of government extension services, farmers were no longer able to identify optimal land or able to apply optimal practices on their lands, increasing their potential yield risk.
2. Unsuitable crop coverage: Traditionally crop insurance has been unaffordable and limited to mature crop, exposing the farmer to unforeseen climate risk.
3. Unsuitable finance solutions: Traditionally classified as high risk by financial institutions, financial products were not designed to meet the agricultural time periods and/or crops.
4. No end price security: Farmers do not have the knowledge or the financial facilities to buy inputs at the right price or sell their crops at the right price.

The identification of these four major areas of risk threatening the sustainability and profitability of farming operations lead Jerome to develop an alternative model of practices for farming enterprises that would revolutionise agriculture in South Africa. The success of Farmsecure’s model in the market is not the individual practices in themselves, but the identification and optimization of these practices to work towards a whole.

Johnny Maass (2006), Erick de Klerk (2006), Jerome and Maisie Yazbek (Dec 2004), Eugene Yazbek (2006), Schalk Lubbe (2007)