BOARD OF TRUSTEES
The Foundation operates under the guidance of eight trustees in three categories.
Category I: Trustee Emeritus who holds the honorary presidency of the organisation with no voting rights.
Category II: Four trustees who are not direct beneficiaries but are appointed based on their commitment to the aims and purposes of the Foundation and offer special talents to the Foundation.
Category III: Three trustees appointed from among practitioners and are active beneficiaries of the Foundation’s programs.
1992 MADF Founding Trustees
MADF Board Members / Trustees
Category I
Category II
Category III
Founder and President of MADF
Chairman
Co-Chairman
Treasurer
Ordinary Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Secretary to the BOT
Dr James Jacob Machobane
M.P Mohome
Thabo T.E Pitso
S.T Mokatse
Letla Mosenene
E.T. Letata later C.Mzizi
M.J. Morobe
Israel T. Mokuoane
Clark Tibbits later Sebina Sekoli
Lecturer of sociology at NUL
Educator and retired Principal of Thabeng High School
Accountant
Research Lead at SWACAP
Farmer from Botha-Bothe
Farmer from Botha-Bothe
Farmer from Leribe
MADF Manager
2008
MADF Board Members / Trustees
Category I
Category II
Category III
Trustritus/President
Chairman
Treasurer
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Secretary to the BOT
Letla Mosenene
Thabo T.E Pitso
Lenyora. T Mokuoane
Stephen L. Ralitsoele
Liphapang T. Tuoane
Petrose M.Ngozo
Makalimo J.Morobe
Thabo Leisa
Sehalakane Mohapeloa
YEAR
MADF Board Members / Trustees
Category I
Category II
Category II
Trustritus/President
Chair woman
Treasurer
Ordinary Member
Ordinary Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Farming Member
Secretary to the BOT
Letla Mosenene
Mme 'Mantoetse Jobo
Ntate Matsobane Putsoa
Mme 'Maseabata Ntoanyane
Dr V. Mashinini
Dr Set`sabi Set`sabi
Stephen L. Ralitsoele
Current board of Trustees
Ntate Thabo T. E. Pitso
Chairman
A co-founder of the MADF, he is an educator and a former principal of Thabeng High School, has served in various positions within the Ministry of Education including the Lesotho College of Education. He is a researcher, author and consultant in linguistics.
Ntate Liphapang T. Tuoane
Member
A former high school teacher, he is an economist by profession and has served as the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning; the highest technical position within the Lesotho government. He has worked as a consultant for the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority.
ʹ′Mè ʹ′Makalimo J. Morobe
Member (farmer)
A retired primary school teacher and principal of Mopeli primary school. She is currently engaged in smallholder agriculture, very knowledgeable in indigenous medicinal plants. She is the co-founder of MADF.
Ntate Lenyora Mokuoane
Treasurer
A commercial farmer of crops and livestock with a vast experience in poultry production. Mr Mokuoane is a building construction contractor who was formally trained in MFS in the early 1960s. He has also served as a board member of the Lerotholi Polytechnic Institute.
Ntate Petrose M. Ngozo
Member
A highly motivated and innovative farmer who applies the low external input MFS techniques in vegetable production, setting an example to his community of Pholonamane in the Botha Bothe district.
Member (farmer) - Vacant
Assistant Manager & Programme Manager - Training - Open position
Accountant - Open position
LEADERSHIP TEAM
ʹ′Mè Letlamoreng Mosenene
Trustee Emeritus/President
A forester and nature conservationist who has worked extensively with non-governmental and governmental agencies in Lesotho and elsewhere in Africa; is a co-founder of the Machobane Agricultural Development Foundation. She was acquainted with JJ Machobane’s books long before she led field trials of the Machobane Farming System and led its re-introduction in the early 1990s through a team of trainers that brought the system to all the districts in the country.
LEADERSHIP TEAM
Dr Lepoqo Stephen Ralitšoele
MADF Manager
Former lecturer and principal of Lesotho Agricultural College and former Director of Agricultural Research Department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS); current MADF’s chief researcher in view of climate change which is worrying to MFS practitioners and smallholder farmers in general. Dr. Ralitšoele studied in Europe and was always impressed by how Europeans talked about best practices they had in farming, production of cheese and wine, livestock and in natural resource conservation.
When he returned home to Lesotho he looked for best practices in the country for Basotho people. In this search, he met with Dr JJ Machobane and found that the best farming system in Lesotho is the Machobane Farming System (MFS) and he never stopped to advocate for the system among students he taught, fellow researchers and in international meetings and workshops.
Volunteers
Clark Tibbits
Programme Advisor
Clark Tibbits is a planning consultant and former university administrator and lecturer as well as a practitioner of the Machobane Farming System in the United States. He first heard of JJ Machobane’s success in growing potatoes and training poor village farmers as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho in the 1960s. When they finally met twenty years later and further understood the Machobane farming, Clark says “as soon as I recognized its potential, we enlisted a group of its advocates; encouraged Machobane, then 75, to once again promote his farming system and put him in touch with colleagues and donors who might provide support”. And with his support the farming system was registered as a not-for-profit (non profit making), non-denominational, non- governmental organization named after the designer: Machobane Agricultural Development Foundation (MADF). Clark has continued as an informal advisor to the Foundation since that time.
ʹ′Mè Lipalesa Sissie Matela
Fundraising and Programme Monitoring
a Soil Scientist and an accredited environmental assessment practitioner with over thirty years of experience working in integrated community resource management mostly in the rural areas of Lesotho and South Africa; she has been Director at Environmental and Rural Solutions for more than10 years. A specialist in environmental assessments, tourism planning, community capacity building in natural resource management and development of community institutions.
Dr Jamal Mohammed
Agronomist
Dr Mohammed is an agronomist with several years of experience in research, teaching and extension. He has interest in working with subsistence farmers and believes that subsistence farmers have much to offer to the wellbeing of humanity in general. He started working with MADF soon after he joined the National University of Lesotho in 1991. He played a leading role in evaluation and promotion of farmers own land races (especially sorghum in Lesotho). He cooperated with NGOs to promote MFS in different areas and encouraged students to critically look into the system. He is at present promoting Effective Microorganisms Technology in selected African countries including Ethiopia. He believes that EM technology combined with MFS will go a long way in solving the issue of low crop yield and soil fertility. He is willing to cooperate with the MADF in any possible way as need be.
ʹ′Mè Nora Klass
Senior Field School Training Officer
A trainee and protégé of Dr JJ Machobane for more than 30 years; she is the most knowledgeable on the field practice of MFS.
DR. JAMES JACOB MACHOBANE
The Extraordinary Volunteer and Founder of MADF
A visionary and leader; he was fearless, speaking his mind openly in support of what he believed in despite it being viewed as unorthodox, inspiring his fellow men and women to self- reliance by skillful blending of agriculture and elements of their very own culture. The strength of his will and determination has outlived opposition, prejudice, even ridicule to become a living
example, a beacon that where there is a will there is a way. His burning desire and key motivation
– to help his people to “drive out hunger” for he had concluded that it is hunger that deprives his people of independent thought, to be bound to their employers as a dog is to its master (Ntšeli 2001).
JJ as was popularly nicknamed, was concerned with the attitude of those formally educated in the school system of Lesotho that seemed to uphold white-collar jobs over farming. He stressed over and over again that, “everything goes back to this one thing, agriculture”. He was further disturbed that when calamity befell the Basotho farmers’ crops, they tended to adopt a fatalistic attitude; they would pray to God, and would do nothing to help themselves (Lewis, 1959). This attitude he declared has “prolonged the dependency which has led to the abject poverty and hunger of the day, starvation of no less than true slavery....there is need to hasten the ending of human apathy and indignity....” (Machobane, 1981). In trying to rid his people of the scourge of hunger, Linda Pfotenhauer in 1987 writes in the Molepe magazine that JJ “did not join a movement, he became one. He did not subscribe to a set of theories and principles, he developed his own”.
In 1990 the National University of Lesotho awarded James J. Machobane an honorary doctorate for his lifetime achievements as a writer, educator, and agricultural innovator. Dr. Machobane continued to promote his farming system until near the time of his death in 2007 at age 93. The full story of this remarkable man’s life can be found in the book, Drive out Hunger: The Story of J. J. Machobane by Robert Berold (Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd, 2005).
