“It’s an honour to stand on a regional platform as a voice for Limpopo’s women farmers. It’s a reminder that rural excellence matters, and that women from underrepresented areas can lead in shaping Africa’s food systems.” – Ramokone Sannah Kwakwa

When Ramokone Sannah Kwakwa, a 25-year-old poultry farmer from Moletjie, Limpopo, joined a panel alongside key sector leaders at the 8th SADC Industrialisation Week (SIW) in Madagascar, she represented far more than her own business. Her voice carried the determination and resilience of rural women farmers, whose contributions to Africa’s food systems often go unseen.

Her story reflects the broader realities of South Africa’s poultry industry, which contributes around 20 percent of agricultural GDP and supports over 110,000 jobs. However, women are still often confined to smallholdings with limited resources and infrastructure.

Sannah is working to change that. As the founder of The New Dawn Poultry Farm, she runs a diversified enterprise producing broiler chickens, table eggs, chicken manure, firewood, mopane worms, and mango atchaar. With plans to expand into crop production, her ambition extends beyond growing her farm; she is committed to strengthening food security and creating pathways for young people, particularly young women, to thrive in agriculture.

Her journey to SIW was made possible through the Graça Machel Trust’s flagship Women Creating Wealth (WCW) programme, which equips women entrepreneurs with the skills in financial literacy, to business modelling and investor readiness and networks to grow their businesses. Since its inception, WCW has supported women entrepreneurs in more than six African countries. For Sannah, it was transformational:

“The WCW programme helped me think beyond survival. It gave me the tools to plan for scale, innovate, and make an impact in my community.”

Picture: Ramokone Sannah Kwakwa (second from left, in pink jacket) joined regional leaders at the 8th SADC Industrialisation Week in Madagascar to share solutions for advancing women’s participation in agriculture.

At SIW, during the session “Empowering Women and Youth in the Agricultural Sector through Innovation and Entrepreneurial Transformation,” hosted by the Graça Machel Trust in partnership with GIZ SADC Botswana, Sannah joined regional leaders in sharing solutions for women’s participation in agriculture. For her, the summit reinforced the importance of collaboration and regional value chains:

“My biggest takeaway was the power of collaboration and cross-border opportunities for women in agriculture. We are not just feeding our local communities; we are part of a much larger value chain that can extend across the SADC region.”

The Director of Programmes at the Graca Machel Trust Shiphra Chisha, who was also part of the panel, reflected on the importance of bringing young women like Sannah to platforms like SIW: “When young entrepreneurs take the stage, they gain more than visibility, they build networks, attract investment, and inspire policy shifts that open doors for others. It’s not just about one business; it’s about transforming value chains, so women are central as producers, innovators, and market leaders.”

Returning from Madagascar, Sannah is more determined than ever. She plans to expand her poultry houses, strengthen biosecurity, adopt solar-powered systems for sustainability, and launch training programmes to help young people, especially women, enter poultry production. For her, youth employment is not an afterthought. Today, her growing enterprise already employs six people on her farm, creating meaningful livelihoods in her community.

Sannah’s journey demonstrates what becomes possible when rural women are given the right support and platforms to lead: businesses grow, communities thrive, and value chains across Africa are transformed.

Photo: Graça Machel Trust representatives at the 8th SADC Industrialisation Week in Madagascar: Shiphra Chisha (left), Director of Programmes; Ramokone Sannah Kwakwa (centre), Women Creating Wealth entrepreneur; and Robyn Brown (right), Graça Machel Trus’s Fair for All entrepreneur.