My father’s family once had land

Kunene family sometime after 1934, South Africa

The Genesis of this journey begins with my father. We call him Daddy and you can too, cause that’s just how we grew up. Everyone in the neighbourhood calls him that, and even strangers we’ve never met.

My father, in his 93 years of breathing life into us, now has dementia, which means he will never get to see the story ending with his memory and uniquely warped sense of humor intact. He has always carried a childlike, jestful nature—one that could tickle even the most grown-up human out of their deepest anxieties. A trait I wish I had. As I write this, he just stepped to me out from his dementia universe to tell me how “nice” this is — pointing to the article I am writing. Something tells me the acknowledgement is a gesture from his ethereal self from beyond the shadow of this shell he now occupies and occassionally graces us with jabs of humour. I am eternally grateful!

—

The other day’s Mike Tyson blow to the face went like this:

Daddy: “yazi le-van yakho kumele uyibophe ngedrada”

(translation: “this van of yours, you must tie it with wire”)

— mind you I don’t have a van.

Me: “Angeke ngiyibophe Daddy”

(translation: “I will never tie it with wire Daddy”)

Daddy: “Yingoba uhlale edrobheni kakhulu”

(translation: “it’s because you’ve stayed in Surburbia far too long my son”)

—

Jokes aside, my father’s family never got to reclaim what was lost. And this is why this mission is so important to me. I recognise that I am not the only one who comes from a displaced family. Countless Africans live in the same reality and when we started this project, our mission became clear almost instantly “Bring Ubuntu Back by integrating African into value food value chains” and building the wisdom of ubuntu into the way we operate in our design and growth ecosystems.

This is more than farming. It’s a mission to rewrite the African story using technology and human ingenuity. We are blessed to live in the age of rapid tech expansion, and we aim to use it to the continent’s advantage while drawing from age-old knowledge systems — blending ancestral wisdom with modern innovation to cultivate resilience, dignity, and prosperity for the African child.

As I sit here reflecting on my father, his humor, and the life lessons he continues to pass down even in his dementia, I am reminded that this mission is about more than me or even my family. It is about restoring dignity, and proving that innovation and traditional wisdom can coexist.

FAMA³ is our way of honoring the past while building the future — a future where African knowledge, ingenuity, and resilience are not just celebrated, but central to how we feed our communities and shape our economies. This is our story, yes, but it is also the story of countless Africans whose voices and labor have too often been overlooked.

And so, we continue — with respect for those who came before us, with hope for those who will come after, and with the determination to show that Africa’s story can be written on its own terms.

#BringUbuntuBack

#FAMA3