There is a modest white gravestone in the old cemetery in the Eastern Cape town of Middelburg. This is the resting place of John Sweet Distin Esquire, formerly of Tafelberg Hall, a farm with its own distinctive ‘table mountain’ on the outskirts of Middelburg. […]
When Julius Malema and other stone-throwing politicians try to win votes by shouting about redistributing more white-owned commercial farms, they need to be taken in hand and shown that this is as logical as drinking brandy to get sober. – Andries Pienaar, 2010 South African Sheep Farmer of the Year. […]
Wind and rain swept through the dark streets of Nieuwoudtville like a highwayman claiming his sweetheart. Sheltering from the storm in the large kitchen of a stone cottage, a group of friends sat round the hearth, where a woodfire crackled. They chatted and laughed and urged Hennie O’Kennedy to sing. […]
“It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people. Next thing they’ll be breeding us like cattle for food. You’ve gotta tell them. You’ve gotta tell them!” In 1973 an American science fiction film called ‘Soylent Green’ pictured a future in 2022 when the world is suffering from [...]
I knew there was something special about the chiffonier when I saw it standing on auction in the once grand dining room of No 2 Richmond Road, a Victorian home in the town of Middelburg in the Karoo. […]
In the old South Africa it was a crime to exceed the official stocking rate without permission from the Soil Conservation Committee (SCC). It was against that background that Graaff-Reinet livestock farmer Dougie Stern asked the SCC to visit his farm Rietpoort in 1992 to reassess his stocking rate on the strength of his veld. [...]
Reuel Khoza is a Farmer and the Chairman of Aka Capital and the Nedbank Group. His Family Trust owns a 200-hectare export avocado and macadamia farm in the highlands near Hazyview and is a 50% partner in the export pack house HL Hall & Sons. […]
Graaff-Reinet veterinarian Dr Roland Larson’s research on the effects of trace minerals and vitamins in livestock, especially small stock, is showing the way forward for exciting improvements in condition, productivity and the treatment of disease. […]
The Nedbank Group, Africa’s only carbon neutral financial institution, has once again proved why it is one of South Africa’s greenest companies, with new milestones achieved over the past year. […]
Memories of his younger farming years must have come flooding back to 87-year-old Chipper Kingwill as he sat in the stands watching the Jubilee Sheepdog Trials in Graaff-Reinet on the 6th and 7th of May. Fifty years ago Chipper was one of the founder members of the South African Sheepdog Association (SASDA). Several of his [...]
