Mosa Seshoene still remembers school holidays spent on her grandfather’s farm in Turfloop, Limpopo. Long before she built a business and started supplying vegetables to local markets, her days were filled with picking tomatoes, spraying crops, and feeding chickens and pigs. Those routines, she says, laid the foundation for a career in agriculture that now spans from farm fields to digital platforms.

What began as gardening tips shared online during the Covid-19 lockdown has grown into a farming and agricultural consultancy business for Mosa Seshoene, a North-West University (NWU) alumnus.

Mosa, who studied animal health at the Mahikeng Campus and graduated in May 2014, is the founder of Farminist, a business that combines crop farming, gardening education and agricultural consultation.

Raised in Turfloop, Limpopo, Mosa says her passion for agriculture was shaped during visits to her grandfather’s farm.

“I was fortunate enough that during school holidays I would spend them in my grandfather’s farm. From picking tomatoes, spraying them, then helping feed both the chickens and the pigs was my everyday job when I was there, and I loved it,” she said.

“So, in a nutshell, my love of agriculture was nourished in my grandfather’s farming fields.”

Farminist was not initially created as a business. Mosa explained that it started as a social media platform where she shared gardening advice during the lockdown period.

“Farminist initially was just a social media platform, which I was just providing gardening tips during the Covid-19 lockdown, and it gained traction, and it snowballed into a business,” she said.

“My audience started to ask for lessons, and we started to provide those services to our clients.”

Today, the business offers garden designs, office plant maintenance, gardening lessons, farm setups and agricultural consultations while also partnering with brands through social media platforms.

Alongside the consultancy work, Mosa runs a crop farming operation in De Deurs in the Vaal, where she grows vegetables including cabbage, spinach and onions. The produce is supplied to local markets and feeding scheme beneficiaries.

She says her academic journey at the NWU gave her confidence and practical grounding for the agricultural sector.

“My academic journey helped provide confidence and backup to my craft. In the real world, especially in a farm setting, the lessons learned during the academic journey came into play through problem-solving and having systems in place,” she says.

Like many emerging farmers, Mosa faced financial challenges during the early stages of her farming business. Limited funding delayed the installation of irrigation systems and restricted her ability to employ more workers.

“For a long time, I was working with just two guys on a half-hectare space, and it meant that the team and I would take time to finish certain processes such as planting or spraying,” she says.

Despite the setbacks, she continued building the business step by step until it became financially possible to improve the infrastructure and hire temporary workers during harvesting periods.

Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and young farmers remains simple.

“My message is still the same: ‘Just Do It’. Do it with fear. You will learn along the way, and the pie is big for all of us. Work, work, work on your craft daily, and it will yield results.”

NWU alumnus Mosa Seshoene has transformed her passion for agriculture into a growing farming and consultancy business, Farminist, which started as a social media platform during the Covid-19 lockdown.