South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), which is the local partner for the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO’s) Inventor Assistance Programme (IAP), is highlighting an example of the local success of this programme, in rural Limpopo province. The IAP catalyses innovation worldwide, by connecting people and small businesses with qualified professionals who help them negotiate their national patent systems, for free.

The example highlighted by the CIPC is Tokosickle, a woman-founded and -led small business in the Groblersdal district. Tokosickle is also the name of the product developed by the company’s founder, small-scale farmer Vonnie Baloyi. Tokosickle is a high-nutrient and affordable animal fodder produced from peanut crop waste and pods from the invasive sickle bush, and the process can be used by small-scale rural peanut farmers to diversify their markets. It also reduces postharvest losses for the farmers and exploits underused biomass.

Baloyi was put into contact with the CIPC and the IAP by the Groblersdal branch of the Small Enterprise Development Agency. The CIPC IAP then connected her with patent experts from Spoor & Fisher (S&F), who provided their services pro bono, recognising her product as a distinct invention that was independently patentable, and helped her refine her patent applications.

“Working with pro bono patent experts from S&F has truly opened my eyes, their support not only safeguards Tokosickle’s creations but also inspired me to embrace my identity as an innovator,” highlights Baloyi. “No one had ever told my story before, that a rural woman without a science lab could innovate for the planet, and this would not have been possible without CIPC-WIPO IAP.”

Forced to drop out of university for financial reasons, Baloyi started farming with white sweet potatoes (to do so, she and her fiancé manually cleared a 1.7 ha plot, in 2021). In early 2023, she switched to farming peanuts, as a result of a vivid dream.

The consequence has been the development of Tokosickle, and her consequent nomination as an innovator by AgriSA, and her ranking as a semi-finalist in the Global Cleantech Innovation Programme South Africa (under the mentorship of the University of Johannesburg Process, Energy and Environment Technology Station).

“Innovation does not only live in labs or urban cities, but it also lives in deep rural villages, in the soil, in the struggles we face every day,” she affirms.