Technical Tour R500 additional charge
Details of the Technical Tour
The Technical tour of ISM 2019 will entail visitation of Moringa farmers in the Hammanskraal area, outside Pretoria, the Moringa research facility and agro-processing unit at the Agricultural Research Council-Vegetable and Ornamental Plants (ARC-VOP), Roodeplaat, Pretoria and The Innovation Hub
The Innovation Hub, is the innovation agency of the Gauteng Province and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency. It was established by the Gauteng Provincial Government through its Department of Economic Development to promote economic development and competitiveness of Gauteng through fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Innovation Hub offers a number of incubation programmes in the Bioeconomy (agroprocessing and pharmaceutical), Smart Industries (ICT and advanced manufacturing) and Green Economy (water purification, waste management and renewable energy). In addition, The Innovation Hub operates a range of enterprise development, skills development and innovation enabling programmes both in the science park and throughout the Gauteng region. This has been instrumental in supporting various aspects of Moringa products commercialisation especially in the cosmetics and food industries. The visitation at The Innovation Hub will include a brief talk on its programs and a tour of some of enterprises incubated there especially those on bioeconomy.
From start to finish, we uplift innovative companies in the ICT and advanced manufacturing, bioscience and green economy sector.
http://www.theinnovationhub.com
Lefakong Farming (Private farmer): The farm, located in Bosplaas, is owned by Ms Maboang Matlou, an entrepreneur who has a great passion for health and wellness and invested in quality assurance and organically grown Moringa. The farming activities are part of a co-operative which was established in 2015 and they have 10 000 Moringa trees on an 8 ha farm. The trees are carefully handpicked by trained youth and women from the Bosplaas community and processed into tea, powder, and many other forms of natural health foods. Because of the way that Lefakong has ploughed back into the surrounding community. Ms Matlou was awarded the price of Best Moringa Agro-processer and 2018 Female Farmer.
The farm has a facility that is being evaluated for HACCP and ISOTS2200 for production of Moringa food supplements. They believe in job creation and skills transfer and have partnered with Beluah Africa through their Community Work Programme. The aim is to establish a training academy for skills transfer. They are supported by and affiliated to the ARC-VOP and National Department of Agriculture.
Agricultural Research Council-Vegetable and Ornamental Plants (ARC-VOP): The ARC-VOP is conducting research on Moringa as well as technology transfer on enterprise development of Moringa. The ARC research team is active in implementing Moringa farms, in many cases funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). A fully equipped agro-processing facility will be visited where capsules, teabags, creams, oils can be produced; and also contain a fully equipped analytical laboratory. Research projects at the ARC involves best practices for growing and harvesting Moringa, pre-processing best practices, medicinal value and influence of cultivar differences on chemical composition. The analytical laboratory assists Moringa farmers to produce quality Moringa dry powder that meets international standards and can thus be exported. The institute also maintain 14 different Moringa oleifeira cultivars.
