His life has come full circle but he has broken the cycle of grinding subsistence by moving from staple crops for family consumption to small-scale fruit production for commercial sale, a business that was, until recently, far out of reach.

His example may hold promise for some of the tens of thousands of miners set to lose their jobs in coming years, a new wave of unemployment that will fuel tensions in the countryside and in the grim shantytowns that ring the mines.

Anglo American Platinum’s (Amplats) move to cut 3,300 jobs to restore profits sparked a 13-day strike by miners desperate for work in a country where four out of 10 adults, and more than half of the youth, have none.

It ended Oct. 10 after Amplats agreed to give the workers voluntary severance packages instead of laying them off.

This means they will get more compensation, though the amounts were not immediately specified. The company had already rowed back from a target of 14,000 jobs under pressure from the government and unions, underscoring the gravity of the issue.

The social consequences of mine job losses are widespread because the typical worker in the industry has eight dependants often in two separate families, one near the mines and the other back in their rural villages.

The African National Congress (ANC), in power for almost two decades, is likely to win next year’s election, but more radical political forces are circling and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has called youth unemployment a “ticking time bomb.”

Resentment runs deep. Somakhephu, an ex-platinum miner, says the fruits of his labour owe nothing to the industry, which has not lived up to public expectations for a wider redistribution of wealth since white minority rule ended in 1994.

“I built these from farming, not from mining,” said Somakhephu, a sprightly 61-year-old, as he gestured to the set of five small but sturdy houses that crown his rural homestead in the rugged hills of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

Behind him to the east neat rows of orange trees sloped to the valley floor, to the west stood lush banana plants.

Somakhephu’s neighbour Elliot Belem, 56, standing among his orange trees, said farming his 2.5-hectare plot was better than life in the gold mines, where he was a first aid worker.

“It’s better to be a farmer than a miner. I have no supervisor, I am self-employed,” he said.

They are part of a project that has seen 5,200 households plant more than 110,000 crop trees since 1999, according to South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council, a state agency, and Is’Baya Development Trust, the NGO behind the initiative.

The project, which has received no funding from the mining industry, aims ultimately to form co-ops to help with marketing and distribution in a sector still dominated by white commercial farmers whose industrial-scale operations have made South Africa the world’s second-largest citrus exporter after Spain.

The fledgling fruit farmers still face many obstacles — not least a perception in the region that agriculture here is still largely a peasant and not commercial activity, unlike in other regions, where white farmers predominate.

In the town of Lusikisiki, about 50 kms (30 miles) from Somakhephu’s groves, Monica Nduli, a middle-aged woman selling fruit on the roadside, said she sourced her produce from KwaZulu-Natal, 150 km (90 miles) away.

“In Transkei? Never! It’s only in KwaZulu-Natal that we get such fruit,” she told Reuters.

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The break-away nation of Somaliland is a tough sell but the recent announcement that serious hydrocarbon exploration is about to kick off there shows that oil talks, regardless of political status.

For Somaliland, an internationally unrecognized state of 3.5 million people that declared independence from Somalia in 1991, it promises to be a game changer.

“We need to find a way to earn hard currency besides selling goats, sheep and camels to Arabs. This is the only way we earn hard currency now,” said Energy Minister Hussein Abdi Dualeh.

Ophir Energy Plc, Australia-based Jacka Resources and Genel Energy, which is headed by former BP chief executive Tony Hayward, are all about to start exploration in Somaliland.

Dualeh said the investments would be worth tens of millions of dollars, small change in the global oil industry but a windfall to a government that only has a budget of $120 million.

Gas discoveries off Mozambique and Tanzania and oil finds in Uganda and Kenya have sparked a hydrocarbon scramble into previously unexplored parts of Africa.

“Oil companies are concerned about geology, not politics,” said Dualeh, before adding his country offers investors something sorely lacking in anarchic Somalia: stability.

“We control our borders, we have a police force and military. We have had four governments come and go with democratic elections.”

The territory has not exactly been an oasis of peace, however. Fighting erupted there in January after the leaders of the northern regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn decided to band together into a new state called Khaatumo. Somaliland’s troops have since clashed with militia fighters loyal to Khaatumo, with reports of dozens of casualties.

And what about pirates?

“The pirate problem is not off our coast, it starts in the Indian Ocean with Somalia. We have a nimble coast guard that does its job with limited resources,” Dualeh said.

If oil is discovered, Somaliland would also welcome the steady stream of revenue that would follow. Dualeh said livestock sales across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia followed a seasonal pattern with sales peaking during the annual haj pilgrimage.

“We need to get stuff out of the ground. Selling livestock during the haj is not sustainable,” he said.

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She is joining the swelling ranks of Americans who have started backyard fruit and vegetable gardening, a trend rooted in a desire to cut costs as the recession bites, fears about the safety of commercial food supplies and popular views that organic food is better for you.

There is also a growing sense in these tough economic times that food security starts at home.

“This recession got me thinking that if things turned out like the Great Depression then it would be better to grow your own stuff and be in control. I’ve even ordered baby chicks,” the medical intern told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“I’ve always thought it’s important to eat organically, but it’s really expensive. So I thought it would be a good idea to start growing them myself and I am pleasantly surprised. It’s easier to put food on your table than I realized,” she said.

PLEASANTLY SURPRISED

In her small yard she has put in some fruit trees, herbs and some vegetables such as bell peppers and parsnips.

Rising seed sales and one survey point to the rapid growth of food gardening, which Americans spent around $2.5 billion on in 2008 according to the National Gardening Association (NGA).

According to a nationwide Harris Interactive survey conducted in January on behalf of the NGA, 43 million U.S. households plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, berries, and herbs in 2009, a 19 per cent gain from 36 million in 2008.

About a third of the respondents who said they planned to pick up the hoe this year cited the recession as one of their motivating factors. The main reasons were for better tasting food and to save money on food bills.

Almost half said they wanted to grow food they knew was safe. There have been a number of food scares in the past year or so including a recent salmonella outbreak involving peanuts and peanut butter.

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama has joined the trend, digging a plot on the south lawn of the White House to help provide her children and visitors with fresh, healthy food.

SEED SALES UP

Seed companies are reporting a bumper season.

George Ball, chief executive of privately held seed retailer and wholesaler Burpee, said vegetable seed and transplant sales were up about 30 per cent in March compared to March 2008.

“The recession… really pushed people over the edge and it accounts for most if not all of our growth. It is the phenomenal cost savings that it represents,” he said, citing research that showed every dollar spent on seeds and fertilizer translated into $25 worth of produce from the ground.

Not everyone agrees that the cost savings are so great.

“You can’t grow them as cheap as you can buy them,” said Dale Groom, a Dallas County horticulturist with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, a state educational agency. He cited initial costs such as equipment and time devoted to the soil.

First-time and veteran gardeners who spoke to Reuters cited a range of reasons from costs to the environment to security.

NEW BUSINESS

Peyton Tamburo, an actress from New York, moved to Arizona 10 years ago, opened a café and delicatessen and took up gardening. She parlayed the hobby into a business, and sells produce including organic basil in her café in the small southern Arizona town of Bisbee.

With the recession, she feels that what started for her as a hobby now gives her a sense of security.

“I know that if everything goes to hell in a hand basket, that I will be all right. You own a house, land, and you’ll be able to feed yourself,” she said.

In a Dallas suburb, Julia Stanley is taking her first crack at gardening this year on a community plot.

She said she wanted to “have fresh vegetables with no pesticides and chemicals on them.” Her family moved to the Dallas area three years ago from the Chicago inner city where she had no opportunities to garden.

In a suburb of Washington, D. C., Ellen Gorman, who works for a small women’s rights nonprofit, said environmental and health concerns prompted her to start her first garden this year.

“My feeling is that there is a connection between preserving the environment and sustainable agriculture,” said Gorman, who will be growing produce on a plot in the yard of her boss, who will share in the fruits of her labour.

More people growing their own organic food – which generally refers to foodstuffs free of pesticides and chemicals – could be bad news for natural foods retailers like Whole Foods which specialize in this area and have been hit by the recession.

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“It could shrink further, I think it can absolutely shrink,” said Jon Means, president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA), when asked if the national herd had hit bottom yet.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of its annual convention, he went through a litany of woes affecting the cattle industry in Texas which he said could easily cost it over $1 billion before the year is out.

One recent estimate by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service puts the economic impact of drought on Texas livestock at $569 million alone over the four months from the start of November 2008 until the start of March 2009.

Parts of the state are being scorched by an historic drought, while hard economic times are turning American consumers away from high-priced steak toward low-priced hamburger.

“We have the erosion of our markets and the erosion of our credit. And then you have the time on a cow herd that it actually takes to get a calf. So you have a lot of time built into this equation (to rebuild the herd),” Means said.

“People don’t have the ability to borrow money and then when you sell in this kind of a market, you don’t have anything to come back with,” he said, referring to low beef prices.

U. S. government data shows the U. S. cattle herd to be at its smallest level in 50 years and the calf herd was at a 57-year low. Texas has the largest herd in the nation.

Means said high feed costs continued to weigh on the industry especially in drought-stricken parts of Texas, as farmers with grazing herds were forced to supplement their diet with expensive feed pellets.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has asked for disaster relief assistance from the federal government for drought-stricken farmers across the state.

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